countryside, or the wonders of the Cockney dialect, the unlearned
foreigner hardly dare venture. It is sufficient for us to wonder why a
railroad should be a railway. When it becomes a "rilewie" we are
inclined, in our speculation, "to pass," as we say over here. And ale,
when it is "ile," brings to mind a pleasant story. A humble Londoner,
speaking of an oil painting of an island, referred to it as "a painting
in ile of an oil."
An American friend of mine, resident in London, insists that where
there is an English word for a thing other than the American word for
it, the English word is in every case better because it is shorter. He
points to tram, for surface-car; and to lift, for elevator. Still
though it may be a finer word, hoarding is not shorter than billboard;
nor is "dailybreader" shorter than commuter. I think we break about
even on that score.
This, however, would seem to be true: where the same words are employed
in a somewhat different way the English are usually closer to the
original meaning of the word. Saloon bar, for instance, is intended to
designate a rather aristocratic place, above the public bar; while the
lowest "gin mill" in the United States would be called a "saloon." I
know an American youth who has thought all the while that Piccadilly
Circus was a show, like Barnum and Bailey's. With every thing that is
round in London called a circus, he must have imagined it a, rather
hilarious place.
The English "go on" a good deal about our slang. They used to be fond
of quoting in superior derision in their papers our, to them, utterly
unintelligible baseball news. Mr. Crosland, to drag him in again, to
illustrate our abuse of "the language," quotes from some tenth-rate
American author--which is a way they have had in England of judging our
literature--with the comment that "that is not the way John Milton
wrote." Not long ago Mr. Crosland became involved in a trial in the
courts in connection with Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas and Robert
Ross. He defended himself with much spirit and considerable
cleverness. Among other things he said, as reported in the press:
"What is this game? This gang are trying to do me down. Here I am a
poor man up against two hundred quid (or some such amount) of counsel."
Well, that wasn't the way John Milton talked, either.
The English slang for money is a pleasant thing: thick'uns and
thin'uns; two quid, five bob; tanners and coppers. And they have a
good body of expressive and colourful speech. "On the rocks" is a neat
and poetic way of saying "down and out." It is really not necessary to
add the word "resources" to the expression "on his own." A "tripper"
is a well-defined character, and so is a "flapper," a "nipper," and a
"bounder." There had to be some word for the English "nut," as no
amount of the language of John Milton would describe him; and while the
connotation of this word as humour is different with us, the
appellation of the English, when you have come to see it in their
light, hits off the personage very crisply. To say that such a one
"talks like a ha'penny book" is, as the English say, "a jolly good
job." And a hotel certainly is presented as full when it is pronounced
"full up." A "topper" would be only one kind of a hat. Very well,
then it is quite possible, we see, to be "all fed up," as they say in
England, with English slang.
Humorous Englishmen sometimes rather fancy our slang; and make naive
attempts at the use of it. In England, for instance, a man "gets the
sack" when he is "bounced" from his job. So I heard a lively
Englishman attracted by the word say that so and so should "get the
bounce."
In writing, the Englishman usually employs "the language." He has his
yellow journals, indeed, which he calls "Americanised" newspapers. But
crude and slovenly writing certainly is not a thing that sticks out on
him. What a gentlemanly book reviewer he is always! We have here in
the United States perhaps a half dozen gentlemen who review books. Is
it not true that you would get tired counting up the young English
novelists who are as accomplished writers as our few men of letters?
The Englishman has a basketful of excellent periodicals to every one of
ours. And in passing it is interesting to note this. When we are
literary we become a little dull. See our high-brow journals! When we
frolic we are a little, well, rough. The Englishman can be funny, even
hilarious, and unconsciously, confoundedly well bred at the same time.
But he does have a rotten lot of popular illustrated magazines over
there compared to ours.
When you return from a sojourn of several months in the land of "the
language" you are immediately struck very forcibly by the vast number
of Americanisms, by the richness of our popular speech, by the "punch"
it has, and by the place it holds in the printed page at home. In a
journey from New York I turned over in the smoking-car a number of
papers I had not seen for some time, among them the New York _Evening
Post_, _Collier's_, _Harper's_, _Puck_, and the Indianapolis _News_.
Here, generally without quotation marks and frequently in the editorial
pages, I came across these among innumerable racy phrases: nothing
doing, hot stuff, Right O!, strong-arm work, some celebration, has 'em
all skinned, mad at him, this got him in bad, scared of, skiddoo, beat
it, a peach of a place, get away with the job, been stung by the party,
got by on his bluff, sore at that fact, and always on the job. I
learned that the weather man had put over his first frost last night,
that a town we passed had come across with a sixteen-year-old burglar,
and that a discredited politician was attempting to get out from under.
Perhaps it is not to be wondered at that the Englishman frequently
fails to get us.
You note a change in the whole atmosphere of language. A pronounced
instance of this difference is found in public signs. You have been
seeing in English conveyances the placards in neat type posted about
which kindly request the traveller not to expectorate upon the floor of
this vehicle, as to do so may cause inconvenience to other passengers
or spread disease, and so forth and so on. Over here:
_Don't Spit_?
_This means You_!
This is about the way our signs of this kind go. Now what about all
this? I used to think many person just returned from England
ridiculously affected in their speech. And many of them are--those who
say caun't when they can't do it unconsciously. That is, over here.
In Britain, perhaps, it is just as well to make a stagger at speaking
the way the Britains do. When you accidently step on an Englishman's
toe, it is better to say "I'm sorry!" or simply "sorry," than to beg
his pardon or ask him to excuse you. This makes you less conspicuous,
and so more comfortable. And when you stay any length of time you fall
naturally into English ways. Then when you come back you seem to us,
to use one of the Englishman's most delightful words, to "swank"
dreadfully. And in that is the whole story.
Mr. James declares that in the work of two equally good writers you
could still tell by the writing which was that of the Englishman and
which that of the American. The assumption of course is that where
they differed the American would be the inferior writer. Mr. James
prefers the English atmosphere. And the Englishman is inclined to
regard us in our deviation as a sort of imperfect reproduction of
himself. What is his is ours, it is true; but what's ours is our own.
That is, we have inherited a noble literature in common. But we write
less and less like an Englishman all the while. Our legacy of language
brought over in the Mayflower has become adapted to our own
environment, been fused in the "melting-pot," and quickened by our own
life to-day. Whether for better or for worse--it may be either--the
literary touch is rapidly going by the board in modern American
writing. One of the newer English writers remarks: "A few carefully
selected American phrases can very swiftly kill a great deal of dignity
and tradition."
Why should we speak the very excellent language spoken in the tight
little isle across the sea? In Surrey they speak of the "broad Sussex"
of their neighbours in the adjoining county. Is it exactly that we
caun't? Or that we just don't? Because we have an article more to our
purpose, made largely from English material, but made in the United
States?
XIV
HUNTING LODGINGS
Some people say that it is the most awful trial.
But it isn't so at all.
One of the most entertaining things that can be done in the world, so
full of interesting things, is to go hunting lodgings. Also, it is one
of the most enlightening things that can be done, for, pursued with
intelligence and energy, it gives one an excellent view of humankind;
that is, of a particularly human kind of humankind. It is a confoundly
Christian thing to do--hunting lodgings--because it opens the heart to
the queer ways, and speech, and customs of the world.
Now, I myself hunt lodgings as some men hunt wild game.
Nothing is better when one is out of sorts, somewhat run down, and
peevish with the world generally than to go out one fine afternoon and
hunt lodgings In some remote part of town.
When in a foreign city, especially, the first thing I myself do, as
soon as I am comfortably settled somewhere--and after, of course,
having looked up the celebrated sights of the place, the Abbey, the
Louvre, Grant's Tomb---is to put in a day or so hunting lodgings.
Even to read in the papers of lodgings to let is refreshing and
educational. All lodgings are "sunny"--in the papers. They are let
mainly by "refined" persons, and are wonderfully "quiet." I remember
last summer in London there was "a small sitting to let to a young
lady." Lodgings, by the way, are usually "apartments" in England, as
you know. Though, indeed, it is true that when a gentleman rents over
there what we call a "furnished room" he is commonly said to "go into
lodgings." A fine phrase, that; it is like to that fine old expression
"commencing author." And that reminds me: the most fascinating
lodgings to hunt, perhaps, anywhere, are called "chambers." These
which I mean are in the old Inns of Court in London. And the most
charming of these remaining is Staple Inn, off Holborn. I used
frequently to hunt chambers in "the fayrest Inne of Chancerie." There
are no "modern conveniences" there. You draw your own water at a pump
in the venerable quadrangle, and you "find" your own light. But to
return:
There was also last summer an apartment to let to a "respectable man"
or, the announcement said, it "might do for friends." One of the
reasons why many people are bored by hunting lodgings is that they are
not humble in spirit. They seek proud lodgings.
As to apartment houses, which are a very different matter: the
newspapers publish at various seasons of the year copious
Apartment-House Directories, with innumerable half-tone illustrations
of these more or less sumptious places. And these directories are
competent commentaries on their subject. George Moore remarked, "With
business I have nothing to do--my concern is with art." Except that I
live in one, with apartment houses I have nothing to do--my concern is
with lodgings.
There is only one philosophical observation to be made upon apartment
houses. And that is this: How can all these people afford to live in
them? When you go to look at apartments you are shown a place that you
don't like particularly. You don't think, Oh, how I'd just love to
live here if I could only afford it! But you ask the rental as a
matter of form. And you learn that this apartment rents for a sum
greater (in all likelihood) than your entire salary. And yet, there
are miles and miles of apartment houses even better than that. And
goodness knows how many thousand people live in them! People whose
names you never see in the newspapers as ones important in business, in
society, art, literature, or anything else. Obscure people! Very
ordinary people! Now where do they get all that money? But about
lodgings:
I one time went to look at lodgings in Patchin Place. I had heard that
Patchin Place was America's Latin Quarter. I thought it would be well
to examine it. Patchin Place is a cul-de-sac behind Jefferson Market.
A bizarre female person admitted me to the house there. It was not
unreasonable to suppose that she had a certain failing. She slip-slod
before me along a remarkably dark, rough-floored and dusty hall, and up
a rickety stair. The lodging which she had to let was interesting but
not attractive. The tenant, it seemed, who had just moved away had
many faults trying to his landlady. He was very delinquent, for one
thing, in the payment of his rent. And he was somewhat addicted to
drink. This unfortunate propensity led him to keep very late hours,
and caused him habitually to fall upstairs.
Well, I told her, by way of making talk, that I believed I was held to
be a reasonably honest person, and that I was frequently sober.
"Oh," she said, "I can see that you are a gentleman--in your way," she
added, in a murmur.
So, you see, in hunting lodgings you not only see how others live, but
how you seem to others.
It is certainly curious, the places in which to dwell which one is
shown in hunting lodgings. Once I was given to view a room in which
was a strange table-like affair constructed of metal. "You wouldn't
mind, I suppose," said the lady of the lodging, "if this remained in
the room?"
"Oh, not at all," I replied. "But what is it?"
"Why, it's an operating table," she explained. "Of course, you know,"
she added, "that I'm a physician. And," she continued, "of course I
should want to make use of it now and then, but not regularly, not
every day."
To a lady with a patch over her eye with lodgings to let in Broome
Street I one time stated, by way of being communicative, that I was
often in my room a good deal doing some work there. Ah! With many
ogles and grimaces, she whispered hoarsely, with an effort at a sly
effect, that "that was all right here. She understood," she said.
Perfectly "safe place for that," it was. "The gentlemen who had the
room before were something of the same kind."
As you know, "references" frequently are demanded of one hunting
lodgings. To get into a really nice place one must really be a very
nice person. "You know, I have a daughter," sighs the really nice
landlady.
To obtain lodgings in Kensington one must be very well-to-do,
particularly if one would be on the "drawing room floor." "I like
these rooms very much," I said to a prim person there, and I hesitated.
"But I suppose they are too dear for you," she said.
How careful one must be hunting lodgings in England about "extras."
Lodgings made in the U.S.A. are all ready to live in, when you have
paid your rent. But over on the other side, you recall, the rent, so
amazingly cheap, is merely an item. Light, "coals," linen, and
"attendance" are all "extra."
I met an interesting person letting lodgings in Whitechapel. She was
not attractive physically. Her chief drapery was an apron. This,
indeed, was fairly adequate before. But--I think she was like the
ostrich who sticks his head in the sand.
My sister-in-law, a highly intelligent woman------ There are, by the
way, people who will think anything. Some may say that I am ending
this article rather abruptly.
My sister-in-law, a highly intelligent woman, used to say, in
compositions at school when stumped by material too much for her, that
she had in her eye, so to say, things "too numerous to mention."
Anybody who would chronicle his adventures in hunting lodgings is
confronted by incidents, humorous, wild, bizarre, queer, strange,
peculiar, sentimental, touching, tragic, weird, and so on and so forth,
"too numerous to mention."
XV
MY FRIEND, THE POLICEMAN
To the best of my knowledge and belief (as a popular phrase has it), I
am the only person in the United States who corresponds with a London
policeman. About all you know about the London policeman is that he is
a trim and well-set-up figure and an efficient-looking officer. When
you have asked him your way he has replied somewhat thus: "Straight up
the road, sir, take your first turning to the right, sir, the second
left, sir, and then at the top of the street you will find it directly
before you, sir." You have, perhaps, heard that the London police
force offers something like an honourable career to a young man, that
"Bobbies" are decently paid, that they are advanced systematically, may
retire early on a fair pension, and that frequently they come from the
country, as their innocent English faces and fresh complexions
indicate. Sometimes also you have observed that in directing you they
find it necessary to consult a pocket map of the town. Your general
impression doubtless is that they are rather nice fellows.
It was in Cheyne Walk that I met my policeman. I had got off the 'bus
at Battersea Bridge, and was seeking my way to Oakley Street, where I
had been directed to lodgings described as excellent. He was a large,
fat man, with a heavy black moustache; and he had a very pleasant
manner. When I came out that evening for a walk along the Embankment I
came across him on Albert Bridge, at the "bottom," as they say over
there, of my street.
"You're still here, sir," he remarked cheerfully. I asked him how long
Mr. Whistler's Battersea Bridge had been gone, and he told me I forget
how many years. He had seen it and had been here all the while. In
the course of time he directed me a good deal about in Chelsea, and so
it was that I came to chat with him frequently in the evenings, for he
"came on" at six and was "off" some time early in the morning.
I was a source of some considerable interest to him with my odd foreign
ways. "When are you going 'ome?" he asked me one day when our
friendship had ripened.
"Oh, some time in the fall," I replied.
"In the fall?" he queried in a puzzled way.
"Why, yes," I said; "September or October."
"Oh," he remarked, "in the autumn." And I heard him murmur musingly,
"In the fall of the leaves."
Sometimes I met him in the company of his colleague, the "big un," or
"baby," as I learned he was familiarly called, a very tall man with
enormous feet clad in boots that glistened like great mirrors, who
rocked as he walked, like a ship. My friend had very bright eyes.
They sparkled with merriment one day when he said to the big un,
nodding toward me, "He's going 'ome in the fall."
It was a warm evening along the side of old Father Thames. My friend,
with much graceful delicacy, made it known to me that a drop of "ile"
now and then did not go bad with one tried by the cares of a policeman.
So we set out for the nearby "King's Head and Eight Bells." When we
came to this public house I discovered that it was apparently
absolutely impossible for my friend to go in. He instructed me then in
this way: I was to go in alone and order for my friend outside a pint
of "mull and bitter, in a tankard." The potman, he informed me, would
bring it out to him. The expense of this refreshment was not heavy; it
came to one penny ha'penny. The services of the obliging potman were
gratuitous. I found my friend in the pathway outside with the tankard
between his hearty face and the sky. When he had concluded his
draught, he thanked me, smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with a large
handkerchief, and hurried away, as, he said, "the inspector" would be
along presently. Just why the inspector would regard "ile" in the open
air in view of the whole world less an evil than a tankard of mull and
bitter in a public house I cannot say. But it may be that as long as
one is in the open one can still keep one eye on one's duty.
I was hailed several days after this by my friend, who approached
rapidly. Well, I thought, he has been very useful to me, and three
ha'pennies are not much.
"I have something for you," said my friend, somewhat heated by his
haste.
"You have?" I said. "What is it?"
"It's a rose," replied my friend.
"A what?" I asked.
"A flower," said my friend, recognising that we did not speak exactly
the same language. "You know what that is?"
"Oh, yes. I know what a flower is," I said. "Where have you got it?"
"I have secreted it in the churchyard, sir," he replied. "I'll fetch
it directly?" he added, and was off.
When he returned through the gloaming he put the flower through my
buttonhole. "A lady dropped it out of her carriage," he said; "and I
thought of you when I picked it up." He stooped and smelled it.
"Hasn't it," he said, "a lovely scent?"
I had lived in New York a good while and I had somehow come to think of
policemen rather as men of action than as poets. But then in New York
we do not dwell in a flower garden; we are not filled with a love of
horses, dogs, and blossoms; and we do not all speak unconsciously a
literary language.
My friend was very eager that I should let him "hear from" me upon my
return to the States, and he particularly desired a postcard picturing
a skyscraper. So he gave me his address, which was:
"W. C. Buckington, P. C. B. Deyersan, Chelsea Police Station, King's
Road, Chelsea, S.W."
In acknowledgment of my postcard I received a letter, which I think
should not remain in the obscurity of my coat pocket. I wish to submit
it to public attention as a model of all that a letter from a good
friend should be, and so seldom is! There is an engaging modesty in so
large a man's referring to himself continually with a little letter
"i." My correspondent tells me of himself, he gives me intimate news
of the place of my recent sojourn, he touches with taste and feeling
upon the great subject of our time, he conveys to me patently sincere
sentiments of his good will, and he leaves me with much appreciation of
his excellent nature and honest heart. Occasional personal
peculiarities in his style, deviations in unessential things from the
common form, give a close personal touch to his message. This is my
friend's letter:
"DEAR FRIEND--
"It is with Great pleasure for to answer your post Card that i received
this morning i was very pleased to receive it and to know that you are
still in the land of the Living i have often thought about you and as i
had not seen you i thought you had Gone home i have shown the Card to
Jenkens and the tall one and also a nother Policeman you know and they
all wish me to Remember them Verry kindly to you they was surprised to
think you had taken the trouble to write to me they said he is a Good
old sort not forgetting the little drops we had at the six bells and
Kings Head.
"P. H. What do you think of this terrable war it is shocking i have
just Got the news that a cousin of mine is wounded and he is at Clacton
on sea he is a Sergt in the 1th Coldstreams Gds got a wife and 4
Children i have been on the sick list this Last 17 days suffering from
Rumitism but i am better London is very quiet Especially at Night the
Pubs Close at 11 m. and half the Lights in the streets are out surch
Lights flashing all round 2 on hyde Park Corner 2 Lambert Bridge 2 War
office dear Friend i hope i shall have the Pleasure to receive a Letter
from you before long Now i think that this is all i have to say at
present so will close with my best respects to you your
"Sincere friend
"WILLIAM CHARLES BUCKINGTON."
The letter which later I sent him was returned to me by the Post
Office. And that is all that I know of my friend, man of ardent nature
and gentle feeling, lover of flowers, London policeman, gone, perhaps,
to the wars. Cheyne Walk would not be Cheyne Walk again to me without
him.
XVI
HELP WANTED--MALE, FEMALE
The people who (because they think they don't need to) do not read the
"Help Wanted" "ads" in the newspapers really ought to do this, anyway for
a week or so in every year. They are the people, above all others, that
would be most benefited by this department of journalism.
Now, there is nobody who more than myself objects in his spirit to the
very common practice of this one's saying to that one that he, or she,
"ought to" do this or that thing. Nobody knows all the circumstances in
which another is placed. Some people insist upon saying "under the
circumstances." But that is wrong. One is surrounded by circumstances;
one is not under them, as though they were an umbrella. Nobody ought to
say "under the circumstances." However, this is merely by the by.
It's a queer thing, though, that Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who certainly writes
some of the best English going, says that "under the" and so forth is all
right. Certainly it is not. But, as I said before, this is not a point
about which we are talking.