Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: _Holds it the same as a slide trombone_]
IN PASTURES NEW
BY
GEORGE ADE
TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED
1906
_Copyright, 1906, by_
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
Published, October, 1906
Copyright, 1906, by George Ade
_Many of the letters appearing in this volume were printed in a
syndicate of newspapers in the early months of 1906. With these
letters have been incorporated extracts from letters written to the
Chicago Record in 1895 and 1898. For the use of the letters which
first appeared in the Chicago Record, acknowledgment is due Mr. Victor
F. Lawson._
CONTENTS
_In London_
CHAPTER
I. Getting Acquainted with the English Language
II. A Life on the Ocean Wave, with Modern Variations
III. With Mr. Peasley in Darkest London
IV. How it Feels to Get into London and then be Engulfed
V. As to the Importance of the Passport and the Handy Little
Cable Code
VI. What one Man Picked up in London and Sent Back to His Brother
_In Paris_
VII. How an American Enjoys Life for Eight Minutes at a Time
VIII. A Chapter of French Justice as Dealt Out in the Dreyfus Case
IX. The Story of What Happened to an American Consul
_In Naples_
X. Mr. Peasley and His Vivid Impressions of Foreign Parts
_In Cairo_
XI. Cairo as the Annual Stamping Ground for Americans and Why
They Make the Trip
XII. Round about Cairo, with and without the Assistance of the
Dragoman or Simon Legree of the Orient
XIII. All about our Visit to the Pyramid of Cheops
XIV. Dashing up the Nile in Company with Mr. Peasley and Others
XV. Day by Day on the Drowsy Nile, with Something about the
Wonderful Hassim
XVI. The Mohammedan Fly and other Creatures along the Nile
XVII. In and around Luxor, with a Side Light on Rameses the Great
XVIII. The Ordinary Human Failings of the Ancient Moguls
XIX. Royal Tombs and other Places of Amusement
_In Cairo_
XX. Mr. Peasley and his Final Size-up of Egypt
IN LONDON
CHAPTER I
GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
It may be set down as a safe proposition that every man is a bewildered
maverick when he wanders out of his own little bailiwick. Did you ever
see a stock broker on a stock farm, or a cow puncher at the Waldorf?
A man may be a large duck in his private puddle, but when he strikes
deep and strange waters he forgets how to swim.
Take some captain of industry who resides in a large city of the Middle
West. At home he is unquestionably IT. Everyone knows the size of his
bank account, and when he rides down to business in the morning the
conductor of the trolley holds the car for him. His fellow passengers
are delighted to get a favouring nod from him. When he sails into the
new office building the elevator captain gives him a cheery but
deferential "good morning." In his private office he sits at a $500
roll top desk from Grand Rapids, surrounded by push buttons, and when
he gives the word someone is expected to hop. At noon he goes to his
club for luncheon. The head waiter jumps over two chairs to get at him
and relieve him of his hat and then leads him to the most desirable
table and hovers over him even as a mother hen broods over her first
born.
This Distinguished Citizen, director of the First National Bank,
trustee of the Cemetery Association, member of the Advisory Committee
of the Y.M.C.A., president of the Saturday Night Poker Club, head of
the Commercial Club, and founder of the Wilson County Trotting
Association, is a whale when he is seated on his private throne in the
corn belt. He rides the whirlwind and commands the storm. The local
paper speaks of him in bated capital letters, and he would be more or
less than human if he failed to believe that he was a very large gun.
Take this same Business Behemoth and set him down in Paris or Rome or
Naples. With a red guide book clutched helplessly in his left hand and
his right hand free, so that he can dig up the currency of the realm
every thirty seconds, he sets forth to become acquainted with mediaeval
architecture and the work of the old masters. He is just as helpless
and apprehensive as a country boy at Coney Island. The guides and
cabmen bullyrag him. Newsboys and beggars pester him with impunity.
Children in the street stop to laugh at his Kansas City hat known to
the trade as a Fedora. When he goes into a shop the polite brigand
behind the showcase charges him two prices and gives him bad money for
change.
[Illustration: _Stop to laugh at his Kansas City hat_]
Why? Because he is in a strange man's town, stripped of his local
importance and battling with a foreign language. The man who cannot
talk back immediately becomes a weakling.
What is the chief terror to travel? It is the lonesomeness of feeling
that one cannot adapt himself to the unfamiliar background and
therefore is sure to attract more or less attention as a curio. And in
what city does this feeling of lonesomeness become most overwhelming?
In London.
The American must go to England in order to learn for a dead certainty
that he does not speak the English language. On the Continent if he
kicks on the charges and carries a great deal of hand luggage and his
clothes do not fit him any too well he may be mistaken for an
Englishman. This great joy never awaits him in London.
I do not wish to talk about myself, yet I can say with truthfulness
that I have been working for years to enrich the English language.
Most of the time I have been years ahead of the dictionaries. I have
been so far ahead of the dictionaries that sometimes I fear they will
never catch up. It has been my privilege to use words that are unknown
to Lindley Murray. Andrew Lang once started to read my works and then
sank with a bubbling cry and did not come up for three days.
It seems that in my efforts to enrich the English language I made it
too rich, and some who tried it afterward complained of mental
gastritis. In one of my fables, written in pure and undefiled Chicago,
reference was made to that kind of a _table d'hote_ restaurant which
serves an Italian dinner for sixty cents. This restaurant was called a
"spaghetti joint." Mr. Lang declared that the appellation was
altogether preposterous, as it is a well-known fact that spaghetti has
no joints, being invertebrate and quite devoid of osseous tissue, the
same as a caterpillar. Also he thought that "cinch" was merely a
misspelling of "sink," something to do with a kitchen. Now if an
American reeking with the sweet vernacular of his native land cannot
make himself understood by one who is familiar with all the ins and
outs of our language, what chance has he with the ordinary Londoner,
who gets his vocabulary from reading the advertisements carried by
sandwich men?
This pitiful fact comes home to every American when he arrives in
London--there are two languages, the English and the American. One is
correct; the other is incorrect. One is a pure and limpid stream; the
other is a stagnant pool, swarming with bacilli. In front of a shop in
Paris is a sign, "English spoken--American understood." This sign is
just as misleading as every other sign in Paris. If our English cannot
be understood right here in England, what chance have we among
strangers?
One of the blessed advantages of coming here to England is that every
American, no matter how old he may be or how often he has assisted at
the massacre of the mother tongue, may begin to get a correct line on
the genuine English speech. A few Americans, say fifty or more in
Boston and several in New York, are said to speak English in spots.
Very often they fan, but sometimes they hit the ball. By patient
endeavor they have mastered the sound of "a" as in "father," but they
continue to call a clerk a clerk, instead of a "clark," and they never
have gained the courage to say "leftenant." They wander on the suburbs
of the English language, nibbling at the edges, as it were. Anyone
living west of Pittsburg is still lost in the desert.
It is only when the Pilgrim comes right here to the fountain head of
the Chaucerian language that he can drink deep and revive his parched
intellect. For three days I have been camping here at the headwaters
of English. Although this is my fourth visit to London and I have
taken a thorough course at the music halls and conversed with some of
the most prominent shopkeepers on or in the Strand, to say nothing of
having chatted almost in a spirit of democratic equality with some of
the most representative waiters, I still feel as if I were a little
child playing by the seashore while the great ocean of British idioms
lies undiscovered before me.
Yesterday, however, I had the rare and almost delirious pleasure of
meeting an upper class Englishman. He has family, social position,
wealth, several capital letters trailing after his name (which is long
enough without an appendix), an ancestry, a glorious past and possibly
a future. Usually an American has to wait in London eight or ten years
before he meets an Englishman who is not trying to sell him dress
shirts or something to put on his hair. In two short days--practically
at one bound--I had realised the full ambition of my countrymen.
Before being presented to the heavy swell I was taken into the chamber
of meditation by the American who was to accompany me on this flight to
glory. He prepared me for the ceremony by whispering to me that the
chap we were about to meet went everywhere and saw everybody; that he
was a Varsity man and had shot big game and had a place up country, and
couldn't remember the names of all his clubs--had to hire a man by the
year just to remember the names of his clubs.
May I confess that I was immensely flattered to know that I could meet
this important person? When we are at long range we throw bricks at
the aristocracy and landed gentry, but when we come close to them we
tremble violently and are much pleased if they differentiate us from
the furniture of the room.
[Illustration: _Just to remember the names of his clubs_]
Why not tell the truth for once? I was tickled and overheated with
bliss to know that this social lion was quite willing to sit alongside
of me and breathe the adjacent atmosphere.
Also I was perturbed and stage frightened because I knew that I spoke
nothing but the American language, and that probably I used my nose
instead of my vocal chords in giving expression to such thoughts as
might escape from me. Furthermore, I was afraid that during our
conversation I might accidentally lapse into slang, and I knew that in
Great Britain slang is abhorred above every other earthly thing except
goods of German manufacture. So I resolved to be on my guard and try
to come as near to English speech as it is possible for anyone to come
after he has walked up and down State street for ten years.
My real and ulterior motive in welcoming this interview with a
registered Englishman was to get, free of charge, an allopathic dose of
24-karat English. I wanted to bask in the bright light of an intellect
that had no flickers in it and absorb some of the infallibility that is
so prevalent in these parts.
We met. I steadied myself and said:--"I'm glad to know you--that is, I
am extremely pleased to have the honour of making your acquaintance."
He looked at me with a kindly light in his steel blue eye, and after a
short period of deliberation spoke as follows:--"Thanks."
[Illustration: "_Thanks_"]
"The international developments of recent years have been such as
should properly engender a feeling of the warmest brotherhood between
all branches of the Anglo-Saxon race," I said. "I don't think that any
fair-minded American has it in for Great Britain--that is, it seems to
me that all former resentment growing out of early conflicts between
the two countries has given way to a spirit of tolerant understanding.
Do you not agree with me?"
He hesitated for a moment, as if not desiring to commit himself by a
hasty or impassioned reply, and then delivered himself as
follows:--"Quite."
"It seems to me," I said, following the same line of thought, "that
fair-minded people on both sides of the water are getting sore--that
is, losing patience with the agitators who preach the old doctrine that
our attitude toward Great Britain is necessarily one of enmity. We
cannot forget that when the European Powers attempted to concert their
influence against the United States at the outset of the late war with
Spain you bluffed them out--that is, you induced them to relinquish
their unfriendly intentions. Every thoughtful man in America is on to
this fact--that is, he understands how important was the service you
rendered us--and he is correspondingly grateful. The American people
and the English people speak the same language, theoretically. Our
interests are practically identical in all parts of the world--that is,
we are trying to do everybody, and so are you. What I want to convey
is that neither nation can properly work out its destiny except by
co-operating with the other. Therefore any policy looking toward a
severance of friendly relations is unworthy of consideration."
"Rot!" said he.
"Just at present all Americans are profoundly grateful to the British
public for its generous recognition of the sterling qualities of our
beloved Executive," I continued. "Over in the States we think that
'Teddy' is the goods--that is, the people of all sections have
unbounded faith in him. We think he is on the level--that is, that his
dominant policies are guided by the spirit of integrity. As a
fair-minded Briton, who is keeping in touch with the affairs of the
world, may I ask you your candid opinion of President Roosevelt?"
After a brief pause he spoke as follows:--"Ripping!"
"The impulse of friendliness on the part of the English people seems to
be more evident year by year," I continued. "It is now possible for
Americans to get into nearly all the London hotels. You show your
faith in our monetary system by accepting all the collateral we can
bring over. No identification is necessary. Formerly the visiting
American was asked to give references before he was separated from his
income--that is, before one of your business institutions would enter
into negotiations with him. Nowadays you see behind the chin whisker
the beautiful trade mark of consanguinity. You say, 'Blood is thicker
than water,' and you accept a five-dollar bill just the same as if it
were an English sovereign worth four dollars and eighty-six cents."
"Jolly glad to get it," said he.
"Both countries have adopted the gospel of reciprocity," I said, warmed
by this sudden burst of enthusiasm. "We send shiploads of tourists
over here. You send shiploads of English actors to New York. The
tourists go home as soon as they are broke--that is, as soon as their
funds are exhausted. The English actors come home as soon as they are
independently rich. Everybody is satisfied with the arrangement and
the international bonds are further strengthened. Of course, some of
the English actors blow up--that is, fail to meet with any great
measure of financial success--when they get out as far as Omaha, but
while they are mystifying the American public some of our tourists are
going around London mystifying the British public. Doubtless you have
seen some of these tourists?"
The distinguished person nodded his head in grave acquiescence and then
said with some feeling:--"Bounders!"
"In spite of these breaches of international faith the situation taken
as a whole is one promising an indefinite continuation of cordial
friendship between the Powers," I said. "I am darned glad that such is
the case; ain't you?"
"Rather," he replied.
Then we parted.
It was really worth a long sea voyage to be permitted to get the
English language at first hand; to revel in its unexpected sublimities,
and gaze down new and awe-inspiring vistas of rhetorical splendour.