Further search produced a flat aluminium match-case containi_Out and About London

vestas, and crested "With compliments--Criterion Restaurant"; and a tin

waistcoat-pocket match box, also full, containing, on the inside of the

lid, a charming glimpse of the interior of the Boulogne Restaurant--a

man and woman at table, in 1912 fashions, lifting champagne glasses and

crying, through a loop that begins and finishes at their mouths:

"_Evviva noi_!" The sight of this streak of matches spurred me to

further prospecting, and the pan, after careful washing, yielded boxes

from Paris, with gaudy dancing-girls on either cover; insanely decorated

boxes from Italy, filled with red-stemmed, yellow-headed matches; plain

boxes from Monaco; and from Ostend, very choice boxes, decorated inside

and outside with examples of the Old Masters.

Packets of toothpicks, with wrappers advertising various English and

Continental bars, came from another corner, where they were buried under

a torn page from an old _Tatler_, showing, in various phases, Portraits

of a Well-Dressed Man. This species being now extinct, I hope the plate

of that page has been destroyed, so that my relic may possess some

value. Two tickets for the Phyllis Court enclosure at Henley lay

neglected under a printed invitation to have "A Breath of Fresh Air with

the 'Old Mitre' Christmas Club, Leaving the 'Old Mitre' by four-horse

brake at 10.30, to arrive at 'The Green Man,' Richmond, at 12 noon. A

Whacking Good Dinner and a Meat Tea. Dancing on the Lawn at Dusk." An

old programme of the Covent Garden Grand Season recalled that

magnificent band of Wagnerians, Knupfer, Dittmar, van Rooy and the rest.

Where are they now--these bull-voiced Rhinelanders? Within the programme

covers I found a ticket for admission to the fight between young Ahearn

and Carpentier which was abandoned; a printed card inviting me to a

Tango Tea at the Savoy; a request for the pleasure of my company at the

Empress Rooms to dance to the costive cacophony of a Pink Bavarian Band;

and half a dozen newspaper cuttings, with scare-heads and cross-heads,

dealing at much length with Debussy's tennis-court ballet, "Jeux,"

danced by Nijinsky, Schollar and Karsavina. Turning over one of these

cuttings, I found a long report of the burning of a pillar-box by a

Suffragette, and a list of recent window-breakings.

A little packet at the bottom caught my eye, and I dived for it. It was

a small box of liqueur chocolates from Rumpelmayer's--unopened, old boy!

unopened. I am a devil for sweets, and I was beginning to tear the

wrapper, when conscience bade me pause. Ought I to eat them? Ought I not

first to ascertain whether there were not others whose need was greater

than mine? Think of the number of girls who would give their last

hairpin for but one of the luscious little umber cubes. What right had I

to liqueur chocolates of 1912 vintage? Conscience won. The packet is

still unopened; and if, within seven days from the appearance of these

lines, the ugliest girl in the W.A.A.C. will let me have her name and

address and photograph, it will be sent to her. Failing receipt of any

application by the specified date, I shall feel free to eat 'em.

Two others relics yet remained. One was a small gold coin, none too

common, even in those days, and now, I believe, obsolete. I fancy we

called it a half-sovereign, or half-quid, or half-thick-un or

half-Jimmy, according to the current jargon of our set. The other was a

throw-away leaflet, advertising on one side the programme of a London

County Council concert in Embankment Gardens, and on the other the cheap

Sunday and Monday excursions arranged by the National Sunday League.

This was the most heart-breaking of all the mementoes. How many Sundays,

that otherwise might have been masses of melancholy, were shattered into

glowing fragments by these inexpensive peeps at the heart of England? I

can remember now these fugitive glimpses, with every little incident of

each glad journey; and I am impelled to breathe a prayer from the soul

for the well-being of the Sunday League, since it was only by the

enterprise of the kindly N.S.L. that I was able to see my own country.

Here I give you the list of trips, with return fares, advertised on the

leaflet before me:--

s. d.

Brighton 2 6

Hastings 3 0

Eastbourne 4 0

Sheffield 5 0

Leeds 5 0

Weston-super-Mare 4 0

Tintern Abbey 4 6

Stratford-on-Avon 4 0

Warwick 4 0

Bournemouth 5 0

Isle of Wight 6 0

Cardiff 5 0

Shrewsbury 4 6

Margate 3 6

Herne Bay 3 0

Cromer 5 0

Durham 6 0

York 5 0

Sacred name of an Albert Stanley!

Uttering this ejaculation, I restored my treasures to their hiding-place

with the fumbling fingers of the dew-eyed, ruminative spinster, and

locked the drawer against careless hands; hoping that, some day, some

keen collector of the rare and curious might come along and offer me a

blank cheque for this collection of Nineteen-Twelviana. Looking it over,

I consider it a very good Lot--well-assorted; each item in mint state

and scarce; one or two, indeed, unique.

What offers?

ATTABOY!

On a bright afternoon of last summer I suffered all the thrills

described in the sestet of Keats's sonnet, "On First Looking Into

Chapman's Homer." I discovered a new art-form. I felt like that watcher

of the skies. I stood upon a peak in Darien. But I was not silent, for

what I had discovered was the game of baseball, and--incidentally--the

soul of America.

That match between the American Army and Navy teams was my first glimpse

of a pastime that has captivated a continent. I can well understand its

appeal to the modern temperament; for it is more than a game: it is a

sequence of studied, grotesque poses through which the players express

all the zest of the New World. You should see Williams at the top of his

pitch. You should see the sweep of Mimms' shoulders at the finish of a

wild strike. You should see Fuller preparing to catch. What profusion of

vorticist rhythms! With what ease and finish they were executed! I know

of no keener pleasure than that of watching a man do something that he

fully knows how to do--whether it be Caruso singing, Maskelyne juggling,

Balfour making an impromptu speech, a doctor tending a patient, Brangwyn

etching, an engineer at his engines, Pachmann at the piano, Inman at the

billiard-table, a captain bringing his ship alongside, roadmen driving

in a staple, or Swanneck Rube pitching. Oh, pretty to watch, sir, pretty

to watch! No hesitation here; no feeling his way towards a method; no

fortuitous hair's-breadth triumph over the nice difficulty; but cold

facility and swift, clear answers to the multiple demands of the

situation. Oh, attaboy, Rube!

I was received in the Army's dressing-room by Mimms, their captain, who

said he was mighty glad to know me, and would put me wise to anything in

the game that had me beat. The whole thing had me beat. I was down and

out before the Umpire had cried his first "Play Ball!" which he

delivered as one syllable: "Pl'barl!" The players in their hybrid

costumes--a mixture of the jockey and the fencer--the catcher in his gas

mask and stomach protector and gigantic mitt, and the wild grace of the

artists as they "warmed up," threw me into ecstasy, and the new thrill

that I had sought so long surged over my jaded spirit.

Then the game began, and the rooting began. In past years I attended

various Test Matches and a few football matches in Northern mining

districts, when the players came in for a certain amount of barracking;

but these affairs were church services compared with the furious abuse

and hazing handed to any unfortunate who made an error. Such screams and

eldritch noises I never thought to hear from the human voice. No

Englishman could achieve them: his vocal cords are not made that way.

There was, for example, an explosive, reverberating "_Ah-h-h-h-h-h_!"

which I now practise in my backgarden in order to scare the sparrows

from my early peas. But my attempts are no more like the real thing than

Australian Burgundy is like wine. I can achieve the noise, but some

subtle quality is ever lacking.

The whole scene was barbaric pandemonium: the grandstand bristling with

megaphones and tossing arms and dancing hats and demoniac faces offered

a superb subject for an artist of the Nevinson or Nash school. A Chinese

theatre is but a faint reflection of a ball game. I had never imagined

that this hard, shell-covered, business people could break into such a

debauch of frenzy. You should have heard the sedate Admiral Sims, when

the Navy made a homer, with his: "Attaboy! Oh, attaway to play ball!

Zaaaa. Zaaa. Zaaa!" and when his men made a wild throw he sure handed

them theirs.

Here are a few of the phrases hurled at offending players:--

"Aw, well, well, well, well, well!"

"Ah, you pikers, where was you raised?"

"Hey, pitcher, is this the ball game or a corner-lot game?"

"Say, bo, you _can_ play ball--maybe."

"Hey, catcher, quit the diamond, and lemme li'l brudder teach yeh."

"Say, who's that at bat? What's the good of sending in a dead man?"

"Aw, dear, dear, dear! Gimme some barb' wire. I wanter knit a sweater

for the barnacle on second."

"Oh, watch this, watch this! He's a bad actor. Kill the bad actor!"

"More ivory--more ivory! Oh, boy, I love every bone in yer head."

"Get a step-ladder to it. Take orf that pitcher. He's pitching over a

plate in heaven."

"Aw, you quitter. Oh. Oh. Oh. Bonehead, bonehead, bonehead. _Ahhhh._"

"Now show 'em where you live, boy. Let's have something with a bit of

class to it."

"Give him the axe, the axe, the axe."

"What's the matter with the man on third? 'Tisn't bed-time yet."

An everlasting chorus, with reference to the scoring-board, chanted like

an anthem:--

"Go-ing up! Go-ing up! Go-ing up!"

At the end of the game--the Navy's game all the way--the fury and

abandon increased, though, during the game, it had not seemed possible

that it could. But it did. And when, limp and worn, I shuffled out to

Walham Green, and Mimms asked me whether the game had got me, I could

only reply, with a diminuendo:--

"Well, well, well, well, well!"

I shall never again be able to watch with interest a cricket or football

match; it would be like a tortoise-race after the ball game. Such speed

and fury, such physical and mental zest, I had never before seen brought

to the playing of a simple game. It might have been a life-or-death

struggle, and the balls might have been Mills bombs, and the bats

rifles. If the Americans at play give any idea of their qualities at

battle, then Heaven help the fresh guys who are up against them.

When the boys had dressed I joined up with a party of them, and we

adjourned to the Clarendon; where one of us, a Chicago journalist, not

trusting the delicacy of the bartender's hand, obtained permission to

sling his own; and a Bronx was passed to each of us for necessary

action. This made a fitting kick to the ball game, for a Bronx is

concentrated essence of baseball; full of quips and tricks and sharp

twists of flavour; inducing that gr-r-rand and ger-l-lorious feelin'. It

took only two of these to make the journalist break into song, and he

gave us some excellent numbers of American marching-songs. He started

with the American "Tipperary," sung to an air of Sullivan's:--

Hail, hail, the gang's all here!

What th'ell do we care?

Hail, hail, the gang's all here,

So what th'ell do we care now?

Then "Happy-land":--

I wish I was in Happy-land,

Where rivers of beer abound;

With sloe-gin rickies hanging on the trees

And high-balls rolling on the ground.

What?

High-balls rolling on the ground?

Sure!

High-balls rolling on the ground.

Then the anthem of the "dry" States:--

Nobody knows how dry I am,

How dry I am,

You don't know how dry I am,

How dry I am,

How dry I am.

Nobody knows how dry I am,

And nobody cares a damn.

After this service of song, brief, bright and brotherly, we moved slowly

Eastward, and in Kensington Gardens I learned something about college

yells. For suddenly, without warning, one of the party bent forward,

with arms outstretched, and yelled the following at a pensive sheep:--

"Alle ge reu, ge reu, ge reu. War-who-bar-za. Hi ix, hi ip; hi capica,

doma nica. Hong pong. Lita pica. Halleka, balakah, ba."

At first I conjectured that the Bronx was running its course, but when

he had spoken his piece the rest of the gang let themselves go, and I

then understood that we were having a round of college yells.

Respectable strangers might have mistaken the performance for the war

march of the priests, or the entry of the gladiators, or the battle-song

of the hairy Ainus; for such monstrous perversions of sense and sound

surely have never before disturbed the serenity of the Gardens.

I understand that the essential of a good college yell is that it be

utterly meaningless, barbaric and larynx-racking. It should seem to be

the work of some philologist who had suddenly gone mad under the strain

of his studies and had attempted to converse with an aborigine. I think

Augustana's yell pretty well fills that condition:--

"Rocky-eye, rocky-eye. Zip, zum, zie. Shingerata, shingerata, bim, bum,

bie. Zip-zum, zip-zum, rah, rah, rah. Karaborra, karaborra,

Augus-_tana_."

At the conclusion of this choral service we caught a bus to Piccadilly

Circus and I left them at the Tube entrance singing "Bob up serenely,"

and went home to dream of the ball game and of millions of fans

screaming abstruse advice into my deaf ear.

Oh, attaboy!

* * * * *

Since that merry meeting I have had many opportunities of getting next

to the American Army and Navy, and hearing their views of us and British

views of them, and the experience has done me a lot of good. Until then,

the only Americans I had met were the leisured, over-moneyed tourists,

mostly disagreeable, and, as I have found since, by no means

representative of their country. You know them. They came to England in

the autumn, and stayed at opulent hotels, and made a lot of noise around

ancient shrines, and sent local prices sky-rocketing wherever they

stayed, and threw their weight and fifty-dollar tips about, and "Say'd"

and "My'd" and "Gee'd" up and down the Strand; that kind of American.

These people did their country a lot of harm, because I and thousands of

other people received them as Americans and disliked them; just as

wealthy trippers to and from other countries leave bad impressions of

their people. I made up my mind on America from my meetings with these

parvenus. I had forgotten that the best and typical people of a country

are the hard-working, stay-at-home people, whose labours just enable

them to feed and clothe their children and provide nothing for gadding

about to other countries. To-day, the solid middle-class people of

England and America are meeting and mixing, and all political history is

washed out by the waters of social intercourse between them. High

officials and diplomats are for ever telling one another over official

luncheon tables that the friendship of this and that nation is sealed,

but such remarks are valueless until the common people of either country

have met and made their own decision; and the cost of living does not

permit such meetings. Thus we have wars and unholy alliances. If only

the common people of all countries could meet and exchange views in a

common language, without the prejudice inspired by Press and politician,

international amity would be for ever established, as Anglo-American

amity is now established by the free-and-easy meeting of hard-working,

middle-class Americans and the same social type of Englishman.

After meeting hundreds of Americans of a class and position similar to

my own, I have changed all my views of America. We have everything in

common and nothing to differ about. I don't care a damn on whose side

was right or wrong in 1773. I have taken the boys round London. I have

played their games. I have eaten their food. I have talked their slang

and taught them mine. They have eaten my food, and we have sported

joyfully together, and discussed music and books and theatres, and

amiably amused ourselves at the expense of each other's social

institutions and ceremonies. As they are guests in England, I have

played host, and, among other entertainment that I have offered, I have

been able to give them what they most needed; namely, evenings and odd

hours in real middle-class English homes, where they could see an

Englishwoman pour out tea and see an English baby put to bed. I found

that they were sick of the solemn "functions" arranged for their

entertainment. They didn't want high-brow receptions or musical

entertainments in Mayfair. They preferred the spontaneous entertainment

arising from a casual encounter in the street, as by asking the way to

this or that place, leading to an invitation to a suburban home and a

suburban meal. From such a visit they get an insight into our ways, our

ideals, our outlook on life, better than they ever could from a Pall

Mall club or a Government official's drawing-room. They get the real

thing, which is something to write home about. In the "arranged" affairs

they are "guests"; in the others, they are treated with the rude,

haphazard fellowship which we extend to friends.

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."

Further search produced a flat aluminium match-case containing twelve