The moment I was in London, and before that Sothewell Abbey cold had
a chance to grip me, I went at it. Starve, stay in bed, and keep the
air out for a day--that’s the way to put a cold out of business.
Unless it be some occasional prodigy endowed with superhuman common
sense and self-restraint, no one learns how to take care of his health
except by experience. The doctors know precious little about disease;
about health they know nothing--naturally, they have no interest in
health. The average human being not only does not know how to take care
of his health, but also does not wish to learn how; health involves
self-denial, cutting down on food, drink, tobacco and the other joys
of life. So he who wishes to avoid enormous payments in discomfort
and pain for slight neglects and transgressions of physical laws has
to work it out for himself. I’ve made several valuable discoveries in
the science and art of living; about the most valuable of them is that
every illness starts under cover of a cold. So I instantly take myself
in hand whenever I begin to sneeze and to have chilly sensations or
a catch in the throat. The result has been that since I was thirty I
have not spent a cent on doctors or lost a day through illness, and
I’ve eaten and drunk about as I pleased. I can see gentle reader’s
expression of disdain at these confessions as to my care for health.
You are welcome to your disdain, gentle reader. It is characteristic of
your shallowness. You see, the chief difference between you and me is
that I have imagination while you have not. And as I have imagination,
illness makes to my mind a picture of revolting internal conditions
which I can no more endure than I could endure having my outside
unclean and frowzy.
Margot, coming by a later train, sent me word that she was ill. She had
called in a doctor. He poured some medicine--some poison--into her, of
course, and so got her into the way of giving him an excuse for robbing
her. In England doctors rank socially with butchers and bakers, rank
scientifically with voodoo quacks and astrologers. They still look on
a cold as a trifle, and treat it by feeding! The food and drugs she
swallowed soon reduced Margot to the state where it was taking all
the reserve force of her youth to save her from severe illness. I was
entirely well the following day, and went to see her. The doctor--five
guineas or twenty-five dollars a visit--was coming twice a day; his
assistant--two guineas or ten dollars a visit--was coming four times a
day. The Marchioness of Crossley, a rich American, was ill. Her social
position and Dr. Sir Spratt Wallet’s rank as a practitioner together
made it imperative that the illness be no ordinary affair. The second
day he issued bulletins to the papers. I attempted to interfere in the
treatment, but Margot would not have it.
“She’s growing worse instead of better,” said I to Wallet.
“Certainly, sir,” replied he. “That is the regular course with a
cold.” And he stroked his whiskers and looked at me with dull,
self-complacent, supercilious eyes. “The regular course, sir.”
“In England, but not in America,” said I.
“I dare say,” said he, with heavy politeness. Then, after a heavy
pause, “her ladyship will be quite fit again in a week--quite fit.”
As she was eating three strapping meals a day and taking rhinitis and
another equally poisonous drug I had my doubts. But once you let a
doctor in you are powerless. If you order him out without giving him an
opportunity in his own good time to cure the mischief he has done the
consequences may be serious. Not to linger over this incident in high
life, Wallet made out of that cold a hundred guineas, not counting his
commissions on the fees of his assistant, on the wages of a trained
nurse, and on the stuff from the chemist. If Margot had been English
born the bill would have been about one fourth that sum--for the same
rank in society. Slay the Midianite! But that’s the rule the world
over. When I am “trimmed” abroad I console myself with reflecting on
the fate of the luckless foreigner visiting America. Europe trims us to
the quick; but we trim to the bone; and when no foreigners are handy we
keep in practice by trimming one another.
Margot’s illness did not interfere with my efforts to right her
matrimonial ship and set it in its course again. I had greatly modified
my original plan. It involved my seeking the Marquis. My new plan was
to compel him to seek me. I proceeded so successfully that on the
morning of the third day of Margot’s “indisposition,” while I was at
breakfast in my sitting room, Markham came in with a grin of triumph on
his face. “You win,” he cried. “But you always do.”
“Dawkins?”
“Here’s his card.”
“Let him up. No--wait.... Tell him I’ll see him in half an hour.”
Gentle reader, you are about to learn why in that controversy over
settlements _I_ abruptly abandoned the struggle and yielded everything.
I worked with Markham at my mail and telegrams for three quarters of an
hour before I let Dawkins in. I saw at a glance that my treatment of
him had produced the effect I had hoped. He was a typical middle-class
Englishman--but all middle-class Englishmen are typical. He was fattish
and baldish and smug. He had a beef-and-beer face, ruddy and smooth
except tufts of red-gray, curling whiskers before either ear. He had
cold, shrewd, pious eyes--the eyes of the hypocrite who serves the
Lord with every breath he draws, and gets a blessing upon every crime
he commits before committing it. In my first interviews with him I,
being new to England, had made the mistake of treating him as an
equal, that is, as a human being. My respect for myself forbids me to
meet any of my fellow-members of the human race in any other fashion.
But experience has taught me that in doing business with a man, it
is being absolutely necessary that you dominate him unless you are
willing to have him dominate you, the most skillful care must be taken
to impress him with your superiority. A certain amount of “side” is
useful in America. A lot of it is imperative in England; and if you
are dealing with an Englishman who feels that he is low, you dare not
treat him as an equal or he at once imagines you are lower than he, and
despicable--and you can do nothing with him.
I had suffered, and so had my lawyer, Norman, for our American way of
treating Dawkins. I appreciated my mistake afterwards, and resolved
not to repeat it. I studied the manner of Crossley and Blankenship and
the other upper-class men toward the middle and lower classes, and I
learned to copy it, an accomplishment of which I am not proud, though
common sense forbids me to be ashamed of it. Dawkins, entering with
heels thoroughly cooled, made ready to put out his hand, but did so
hesitatingly. He saw that his worst fears were realized, altered the
handshaking gesture into a tug at his right whiskers. Nor did I offer
him a seat, but simply looked at him pleasantly over the top of my
newspaper and said:
“Ah, Dawkins, is that you?”
“Good morning, Mr. Loring. Hope you are well, sir,” said Dawkins, now
squeezing awkwardly into his proper place.
I half turned my back on him and dictated a note and a telegram to
Markham. Then I glanced at Dawkins again. “Ah, Dawkins, yes--what were
you saying?”
“I would esteem it a favor, sir, if you would give me a few minutes of
your time--alone.”
“We are alone,” said I. “What is it?”
The solicitor shifted his portly frame uneasily, smoothed his top hat
with his gloved left hand, glanced dubiously at Markham. “The matter is
confidential, sir--relating to--to the family.”
“Mr. Markham knows more about my affairs than I do,” said I. “Don’t
beat about the bush, Dawkins. I have no time to waste.”
“Very well, sir. I beg your pardon. It concerns those bonds--the bonds
you turned over to me in arranging the settlements.”
“Yes. I remember. Great Lakes and Gulf bonds, were they not?”
“Precisely, sir. You bound us to a stipulation that they were not to be
converted for at least five years.”
“That’s right,” said I. “In fact, I made it impossible for you to
convert them.”
A pained expression came into the face of Dawkins.
“I believe I conceded everything else your client demanded,” pursued I.
“But it now develops, sir,” said Dawkins, “that that was the only
important thing.”
“Really?” said I.
“You have doubtless seen the papers these last few days--the stock
market.”
“Yes.... Yes--so the bonds _are_ dropping. That’s unfortunate.”
“Dropping rapidly,” said Dawkins. “And there are rumors that Great
Lakes and Gulf will soon be practically worthless.”
“So I’ve read.”
“I’ve come to ask you to release us. We wish to sell. We must sell. If
we don’t the settlement on your son-in-law will be worthless.”
I smiled agreeably. “As worthless as his promises to my daughter. As
worthless as he is.”
Dawkins was breathing heavily. His pious eyes were snapping with rage.
He had prided himself on his astuteness. He had gloated over his
shrewdness in outwitting Norman and me. And now he discovered that the
boot was on the other leg. I had trapped him and put him and his client
in my power.
I leaned back comfortably and smiled. “Of course I know nothing about
it, Dawkins, but I am willing to make a Yankee guess that the bonds
will continue to drop until----”
When my pause became unendurable, he said: “Yes, sir. Until when?”
“Until I discover some signs of value in my son-in-law. Then he may
discover some signs of value in the bonds. Our America is a peculiar
country, Dawkins.”
“Peculiar will do, sir,” said he with respectful insolence. “But I
should have chosen another word.”
I shook my head laughingly. “What bad losers you English are!” said I.
“But--I’ll not detain you. Good morning, Dawkins.”
“Then I am to understand, sir----”
But I had my back squarely to him and was busy with Markham, who took
his cue for the little comedy we were playing like the well-trained
American business man that he was. Presently Markham said, “He’s gone,
and I never saw a madder man get out of a room more awkwardly.”
You, gentle reader, who know about as much of the science of
managing men in practical life as you know of any other phase of the
world-that-is--you, gentle reader, are shocked by my rudeness to a
polite, well-educated, well-dressed Englishman. And you hope--and
feel--that I overreached myself. But let me inform you--not for your
instruction but for my own satisfaction--courtesy has to be used most
sparingly. Human vanity is so monstrous that men eagerly read into
politeness to them--the most ordinary politeness--evidence that their
superiority is inspiring fear, awe and desire to conciliate them.
You often hear men in high place severely criticised for being rude,
short, arrogant, insulting. Do not condemn them too hastily. It may be
that they were driven into this attitude toward their fellows by the
disastrous consequences of courtesy. Be polite to a man and he will
misunderstand. Be cool to him and he, thickly enveloped in his own good
opinion of himself, will not feel it. Rudeness, overt and unmistakable,
is often the one way to reach him and save not only yourself but also
him from the consequences of his vanity. It is the instinct of big men
to be big and simple and natural in their dealings with their fellows.
The mass of little men with big vanities compels them to suppress this
instinct; and by suppression it inevitably becomes in time crushed out
of existence. How can one who is busy continue to show consideration
for others if they, instead of showing a return consideration for him,
take it as tribute to their importance and begin to rear and impose and
trample?
To cite my own relatively unimportant case, I have long had a
reputation for coldness and meager civility in my business relations.
I recall distinctly the desperate pressure of sheer imposition that
led me to abandon my early openness to all comers at all times. And I
admit that I did change; rather abruptly, too, for it suddenly came to
me why I was slipping backwards. But looking only at my career _since_
the change, when I think of the boredom I have endured, the folly I
have permitted to waste my valuable time--when I recall the forbearance
I have shown in sparing impudent and lazy incompetence where I might,
yes, ought to have used the ax--when I think of my good-natured
tolerance in face of extremest daily provocation, year after year,
I marvel at myself and feel how unjust, how characteristically the
verdict of little shallow men, is the attack on me as cold and
unsympathetic. When I consider how the leaders of the human race have
been tempted to tyranny, I cannot understand why history is able to
record comparatively few real tyrants, most of them being homicidal
lunatics like Nero, or success-crazed megalomaniacs like Napoleon,
and almost none men of sanity. If the great of earth were as vain, as
selfishly, as egotistically inconsiderate of the small as the small are
of the great and of each other, would not the story of history have
come to an end long ago for lack of surviving characters?
Two days after Dawkins came Crossley. I knew that in America there is
no one so easily frightened as a rich man who has inherited his wealth
and does not know whether, if he lost it, he could make a living or
not. All rich men are cowards, but that species is craven. I suspected
that the same thing was true of the European type--the nobleman
with the grotesque pose of disdain for money that convinces and
captivates you, gentle reader, and your favorite authors. Crossley’s
face instantly showed me that my suspicion was correct. He had been
dissipating wildly for several weeks, but it did not account for the
look in his eyes. If, gentle reader, you wish to learn the truth about
the aristocracy you worship--which you do not--get an aristocrat
where you can cut off or turn on his supply of cash at will. You will
then discover that he who has a stiff neck also has supple knees--the
stiffer the neck the suppler the knees.
Crossley was a clever chap in his way; that is, he knew his business
of idle spender of unearned money thoroughly. Another mode of putting
it would be the commonplace and less exact if more alluring phrase
“aristocrat to his finger tips.” There are many modes of cringing. He
showed judgment and taste--judgment of me, taste in sparing himself--in
his choice of the mode. With fright and wariness in his eyes--the look
of readiness to go to any depths of self-abasement in gaining his
end--he put a tone of manly, bluff, shamefaced contrition into his
voice as he said:
“Pardon my breaking in on you this way. I’ve just heard. Is _she_ very
ill?”
He meant he had just heard about the bonds. I knew he meant that, and
he knew I knew it. But we were men of the world. “Not desperately
ill,” said I. “Only about twenty guineas a day.”
He smiled a faint but flattering appreciation of my humor, then resumed
his gloomy anxiety and self-reproach. “But she _is_ ill. I read it in
one of those screaming ha’penny rags and came as fast as ever I could.
The truth is--well, we’ve had a bit of a row. Has she told you?”
“Not much,” said I. “A little.”
“I’ve acted the skunk, the howling skunk--and I want to-- Do you think
she’ll see me?”
“If you wish, I’ll find out.”
“I’d be no end grateful,” said he with enthusiasm.
She saw him as soon as she could make herself presentable--and her
delay gave him a chance to tone up his nerves and to smooth out his
face. That afternoon I was able to telegraph Edna that all was well
The Crossleys were reconciled; Love had scored another of his famous
triumphs. She came over the following day, but I had sailed for America
a few hours before.
* * * * *
The day after my arrival in New York I saw Mary Kirkwood and Hartley
Beechman lunching together at Delmonico’s. In those days that meant
an engagement actual or impending--or, at least, a flirtation far
advanced into the stage of loverlike intimacy. I was in the passageway
looking through the glass and the screen of palms. I stood there long,
noting every detail of her. She was well, perfectly well--of that much
her eyes and her color assured me. Is there anything lovelier than
a clear dark skin, tastefully set off by black-brown hair? Was she
happy? I could not tell. Still in her face was that restless, expectant
look--not unlike the expression of a child being shown a picture
book and too impatient for the next page rightly to examine the one
that is open. An intense interest in life, an intense vitality--that
fascinating capacity to love, if she found the right man. And her
beauty----
Beauty she undoubtedly had. But charm does not lie in beauty--physical
charm, I mean. There is a certain light in the eyes, a certain curve of
cheek and throat, of bosom and arm--and the blood flames and rushes.
She had charm for me. Her beauty impressed others; it was her charm
that made her the one woman to me.
Blankenship came to take me into the café where we were to lunch. I
went with the meager consolation that while I had stood there she had
given Beechman not a single glance with any suggestion of a feeling it
would have wounded me to the quick to see. Should I speak to her? Did
I dare risk the attempt? Would not speaking to her be merely a useless
torment? After a long struggle that could have but one end, I said:
“Excuse me,” rose and went to the palm room. They were gone; the waiter
was clearing the table at which they had been sitting. I stared round
dazedly, returned to Blankenship.
“You’re not up to the mark--what?” said he.
“New York doesn’t agree with me.”
“I hate towns. They give you such dirty second-hand stuff to breathe.
Let’s move on--what?”
“To-morrow,” I said.
But it seemed there was no place on earth for me. Don’t judge me so
poorly as to think, or to imagine I thought, this was due wholly to
Mary Kirkwood. I wish to be carefully, exactly accurate in this frank
recital of a man’s point of view. She was responsible for my forlorn
state to the extent that loving her had revealed to me the futility
and failure of my own life and had made me see another sort of life
that would have been possible with her, that was impossible without
her--without love and comradeship. But loving her did not make my life
empty; it was already empty, though I had not realized it. I understood
now why the big business men, as soon as they reached security,
cast about for some real interest. Most of them--nearly all--were
as unfortunate in their family relations as I. They had trivial
wives and trivial children--mere silly strutters and spenders. They
sought interest in art, in science, in religion, in exploration, in
philanthropy, in politics, in stamps and butterflies, in old books and
antiques, in racing stables and prize fighting, in gambling, in drink,
in women. Their craving was now mine. How to find an interest that
would make life attractive to me, with Mary Kirkwood left out--there
was my problem.
While waiting for the solution, I followed Blankenship to the
Northwest. The second day from New York, as he and I were walking
up and down the platform during a halt--at St. Paul, I think it
was--Hartley Beechman joined us.
“Didn’t I see you in the café at Delmonico’s a few days ago?” said he.
“I was getting my hat and stick in a rush. It certainly looked like
your back.”
“It was,” said I. And I was seized with a wild longing to escape from
him and a wilder longing to hold on to him and to pour out question
after question.
“Mrs. Kirkwood and I were lunching together,” he went on. “We talked of
you. I told her I thought I had seen you, and she said she heard you
were in town and was much hurt because you hadn’t looked her up.”
“I was merely passing through,” said I.
“She has an enormous admiration for you,” continued he. “She says you
have imagination--which means that she thinks you in the small class.
You know the world divides into sheep and goats on imagination, with
the mass in the have-not class. I believe it’s the true distinction
between House of Have and House of Have-not.”
“She is well?” said I.
“Always. She knows how to take care of herself. I never knew a woman so
sensible--and sensible means the reverse of what it’s usually supposed
to mean when applied to a woman.”
This hardly sounded like an engaged man talking of his fiancée. On the
other hand, Beechman was a peculiar chap.
“Does she still live in the country?”
“Just now--yes. Last winter she kept house for Bob in New York.”
But you will not be interested in how I drew from him bit by bit a
hundred details of her life, stories of what she had said and done.
I saw Beechman several hours every day until he left us at Seattle.
Alternately I thought him merely her closest man friend and her
accepted lover. At times I thought he was not quite sure, himself, in
which position he stood. When we were having our last talk together I
nerved myself and said:
“I heard in London that she was to be married.”