SHOPPING EXPERIENCES
In going to Europe timid persons often cover their real design by
claiming the intention of taking German baths, of "doing" Switzerland,
or of learning languages. But everybody knows that the real reason why
most women go abroad is to shop. What cathedral can bring such a look of
rapture to a woman's face as New Bond Street or what scenery such
ecstasy as the Rue de la Paix?
Therefore, as I believe my lot in shopping to be the common lot of all,
let me tell my tale, so that to all who have suffered the same agonies
and delights this may come as a personal reminiscence of their own,
while to you who have Europe yet to view for that blissful first time,
which is the best of all, this is what you will go through.
When I first went to Europe I had all of the average American woman's
timidity about asserting herself in the face of a shopgirl or salesman.
Many years of shopping in America had thoroughly broken a spirit which
was once proud. I therefore suffered unnecessary annoyance during my
first shopping in London, because I was overwhelmingly polite and
affable to the man behind the counter. I said "please," and "If you
don't mind," and "I would like to see," instead of using the martial
command of the ordinary Englishwoman, who marches up to the show-case in
flat-heeled boots and says in a tone of an officer ordering "Shoulder
arms," "Show me your gauze fans!" I used to listen to them standing next
me at a counter, momentarily expecting to see them knocked down by the
indignant salesman and carried to a hospital in an ambulance.
My own tones were so conversational when I said, "Will you please show
me your black satin ribbon?" that, while I did not say it, my voice
implied such questions as "How are your father and mother?" and "I hope
the baby is better?" and "Doesn't that draught there on your back annoy
you?" and "Don't you get very tired standing up all day?"
It was Bee, as usual, who gave me my first lesson in the insolent
bearing which alone obtains the best results from the average British
shopman.
Still without having thoroughly asserted myself, not having been to that
particular manner born, I went next to Paris, where my politeness met
with the just reward which virtue is always supposed to get and seldom
does.
I consider shopping in Paris one of the greatest pleasures to be found
in this vale of tears. The shops, with the exception of the Louvre, the
Bon Marché, and one or two of the large department stores of similar
scope, are all small--tiny, in fact, and exploit but one or two things.
A little shop for fans will be next to a milliner who makes a specialty
of nothing but gauze theatre bonnets. Perhaps next will come a linen
store, where the windows will have nothing but the most fascinating
embroidery, handkerchiefs, and neckware. Then comes the man who sells
belts of every description, and parasol handles. Perhaps your next
window will have such a display of diamond necklaces as would justify
you in supposing that his stock would make Tiffany choke with envy, but
if you enter, you will find yourself in an aperture in the wall, holding
an iron safe, a two-by-four show-case, and three chairs, and you will
find that everything of value he has, except the clothes he wears, are
all in his window.
As long as these shops are all crowded together and so small, to shop in
Paris is really much more convenient than in one of our large department
stores at home, with the additional delight of having smiling interested
service. The proprietor himself enters into your wants, and uses all his
quickness and intelligence to supply your demands. He may be, very
likely he is, doubling the price on you, because you are an American,
but, if your bruised spirit is like mine, you will be perfectly willing
to pay a little extra for politeness.
It is a truth that I have brought home with me no article from Paris
which does not carry with it pleasant recollections of the way I bought
it. Can any woman who has shopped only in America bring forward a
similar statement?
All this changes, however, when once you get into the clutches of the
average French dressmaker. By his side, Barabbas would appear a
gentleman of exceptional honesty. I have often, in idle moments,
imagined myself a cannibal, and, in preparing my daily menu, my first
dish would be a fricassee of French dressmakers. Perhaps in that I am
unjust. In thinking it over, I will amend it by saying a fricassee of
_all_ dressmakers. It would be unfair to limit it to the French.
There is one thing particularly noticeable about the charm which French
shop-windows in one of the smart streets like the rue de la Paix
exercises upon the American woman, and that is that it very soon wears
off, and she sees that most of the things exploited are beyond her
means, or are totally unsuited to her needs. I defy any woman to walk
down one of these brilliant shop-lined streets of Paris for the first
time, and not want to buy every individual thing she sees, and she will
want to do it a second time and a third time, and, if she goes away from
Paris and stays two months, the first time she sees these things on her
return all the old fascination is there. To overcome it, to stamp it out
of the system, she must stay long enough in Paris to live it down, for,
if she buys rashly while under the influence of this first glamour, she
is sure to regret it.
Dresden and Berlin differ materially from Paris in this respect. Their
shop-windows exploit things less expensive, more suitable to your
every-day needs, and equally unattainable at home. So that if you have
gained some experience by your mistakes in Paris, your outlay in these
German cities will be much more rational.
Leather goods in Germany are simply distracting. There are shops in
Dresden where no woman who appreciates bags, satchels, card-cases,
photograph-frames, book-covers, and purses could refrain from buying
without disastrous results. I remember my first pilgrimage through the
streets of Dresden. Between the porcelains and toilet sets, the
Madonnas, the belts, and card-cases, I nearly lost my mind. The modest
prices of the coveted articles were each time a separate shock of joy.
If these sturdy Germans had wished to take advantage of my indiscreet
expressions of surprise and delight, they might easily have raised their
prices without our ever having discovered it. But day after day we
returned, not only to find that the prices remained the same, but that,
in many instances, if we bought several articles, they voluntarily took
off a mark or two on account of the generosity of our purchases.
Dresden is a city where works of art are most cunningly copied. You can
order, if you like, copies of any but the most intricate of the
treasures of the Green Vaults, and you will not be disappointed with the
results. You can order copies of any of the most famous pictures in the
Dresden galleries, and have them executed with like exquisite skill. Nor
is there any city in all Europe where it is so satisfactory to buy a
souvenir of a town, which you will not want to throw away when you get
home and try to find a place for it. Because souvenirs of Dresden appeal
to your love of art and the highest in your nature. Leather you will
find elsewhere, but the Dresden works of art are peculiarly its own.
In Austria manners differ considerably both from those of Paris and
upper Germany. I should say they were a cross between the two. We
shopped in Ischl, which has shops quite out of proportion to its size on
account of being the summer home of the Emperor, and there we met with a
politeness which was delightful.
In Vienna we had occasion to accompany Jimmie and "Little Papa" on
business expeditions which led him into the wholesale district. There it
was universal for all the clerks to be seated at their work,
particularly in the jeweller's shops. At our entrance, every man and
woman there, from the proprietor to the errand boys, rose to their feet,
bowed, and said "Good day."
When we finished our purchases, or even if we only looked and came away
without buying, this was all repeated, which sometimes gave me the
sensation of having been to a court function.
Vienna fashions are very elegant. Being the seat of the court, there is
a great deal of dress. There is wealth, and the shops are magnificent.
Personally, I much prefer the fashions of Vienna to those of Paris.
Prices are perhaps a little more moderate, but the truly Paris creation
generally has the effect of making one think it would be beautiful on
somebody else. I can go to Worth, Felix, and Doucet, and half a dozen
others equally as smart, and not see ten models that I would like to
own. In Vienna there were Paris clothes, of course, but the Viennese
have modified them, producing somewhat the same effect as American
influence on Paris fashions. To my mind they are more elegant, having
more of reserve and dignity in their style, and a distinct morality.
Paris clothes generally look immoral when you buy them, and feel immoral
when you get them on. There is a distinct spiritual atmosphere about
clothes. In Vienna this was very noticeable. I speak more of clothes in
Paris and Vienna, as there are only four cities in the world where one
would naturally buy clothes,--Paris, Vienna, London, and New York. In
other cities you buy other things, articles perhaps distinctive of the
country.
When you get to St. Petersburg, in your shopping experiences, you will
find a mixture of Teuton and Slav which is very perplexing. We were
particularly anxious to get some good specimens of Russian enamel, which
naturally one supposes to be more inexpensive in the country which
creates them, but to our distress we discovered Avenue de l'Opera prices
on everything we wished. Each time that we went back the price was
different. The market seemed to fluctuate. One blue enamelled belt, upon
which I had set my heart, varied in price from one to three dollars each
time I looked at it. Finally, one day I hit upon a plan. I asked my
friend, Mile, de Falk, to follow me into this shop and not speak to me,
but to notice the particular belt I held in my hand. I then went out
without purchasing, and the next day my friend sent her sister, who
speaks nothing but Russian and French, to this shop. She purchased the
belt for ten dollars less than it had been offered to me. She ordered a
different lining made for it, and the shopkeeper said in guileless
Russian, "How strange it is that ladies all over the world are alike.
For a week two American young ladies have been in here looking at this
belt, and by a strange coincidence they also wished this same lining."
For once I flatter myself that I "did" a Russian Jew, but his
companions in crime have so thoroughly "done" me in other corners of the
world that I need not plume myself unnecessarily. He is more than even
with me.
All through Russia we contented ourselves with buying Russian
engravings, which are among the finest in the world. Perhaps some of
their charm is in the subject portrayed, which, being unfamiliar,
arouses curiosity. Russian operas, paintings, theatricals, the national
ballet, the interior of churches and mosques are different from those of
every other country. There is in the churches such a strange admixture
of the spiritual and the theatrical. So that the engravings of these
things have for me at least more interest than anything else.
Occasionally we were betrayed into buying a peasant's costume, an ikon,
or an enamel, but in Moscow and Kief, the only way that we could
reproduce to our friends at home the glories and splendours of these two
beautiful cities was by photographs, in which the brilliancy of their
colours brings back the sensations of delight which we experienced.
Shopping in Constantinople is not shopping as we Americans understand
it, unless you happen to be an Indian trader by profession. I am not.
Therefore, the system of bargaining, of going away from a bazaar and
pretending you never intended buying, never wanted it anyhow, of coming
back to sit down and take a cup of coffee, was like acting in private
theatricals. By nature I am not a diplomat, but if I had stayed longer
in the Orient, I think I would have learned to be as tricky as Chinese
diplomacy.
We were given, by several of our Turkish friends, two or three rules
which should govern conduct when shopping in the Orient. One is to look
bored; the second, never to show interest in what pleases you; the
third, never to let your robber salesman have an idea of what you really
intend to buy. This comes hard at first, but after you have once learned
it, to go shopping is one of the most exciting experiences that I can
remember. I have always thought that burglary must be an exhilarating
profession, second only to that of the detective who traps him. In
shopping in the Orient, the bazaars are dens of thieves, and you, the
purchaser, are the detective. We found in Constantinople little
opportunity to exercise our new-found knowledge, because we were
accompanied by our Turkish friends, who saw to it that we made no
indiscreet purchases. On several occasions they made us send things back
because we had been overcharged, and they found us better articles at
less price. Of course we bought a fez, embroidered capes, bolero
jackets, embroidered curtains, and rugs, but we, ourselves, were waiting
to get to Smyrna for the real purchase of rugs, and it was there that I
personally first brought into play the guile that I had learned of the
Turks.
I remember Smyrna with particular delight. The quay curves in like a
giant horseshoe of white cement. The piers jut out into the sapphire
blue of this artificial bay, and are surrounded by myriads of tiny
rowing shells, in which you must trust yourself to get to land, as your
big ship anchors a mile or more from shore.
It was the brightest, most brilliant Mediterranean sunshine which
irradiated the scene the morning on which we arrived at Smyrna. A score
of gaily clad boatmen, whose very patches on their trousers were as
picturesque as the patches on Italian sails, held out their hands to
enable us to step from one cockle-shell to another, to reach the pier.
In the way the boats touch each other in the harbour at Smyrna, I was
reminded of the Thames in Henley week. We climbed through perhaps a
dozen of these boats before we landed on the pier, and in three minutes'
walk we were in the rug bazaars of Smyrna. Such treasures as we saw!
We were received by the smiling merchants as if we were long-lost
daughters suddenly restored, but we practised our newly acquired
diplomacy on them to such an extent that their faces soon began to
betray the most comic astonishment. These people are like children, and
exhibit their emotions in a manner which seems almost infantile to the
Caucasian. Alas, we were not the prey they had hoped for. We sneered at
their rugs; we laughed at their embroideries; we turned up our noses at
their jewelled weapons; we drank their coffee, and walked out of their
shops without buying. They followed us into the street, and there
implored us to come back, but we pretended to be returning to our ship.
On our way back through this same street, every proprietor was out in
front of his shop, holding up some special rug or embroidery which he
had hastily dug out of his secret treasures in the vain hope of
compelling our respect. Some of these were Persian silk rugs worth from
one to three thousand dollars each. Although we would have committed any
crime in order to possess these treasures, having got thoroughly into
the spirit of the thing, we turned these rugs on their backs and
pretended to find flaws in them, jeered at their colouring, and went on
our way, followed by a jabbering, excited, perplexed, and nettled horde,
who recklessly slaughtered their prices and almost tore up their mud
floors in their wild anxiety to prove that they had
something--anything--which we would buy. They called upon Allah to
witness that they never had been treated so in their lives, but would we
not stop just once more again to cast our eyes on their unworthy stock?
Having had all the amusement we wanted, and it being nearly time for
luncheon, we went in, and in half an hour we had bought all that we had
intended to buy from the first moment our eyes were cast upon them, and
at about one-half the price they were offered to us three hours before.
Now, if that isn't what you call enjoying yourself, I should like to ask
what you expect.
Ephesus, the graves of the Seven Sleepers, the tomb of St. Luke, the
ruins of the Temple of Diana ("Great is Diana of the Ephesians"), the
prison of St. Paul, are only a part of my vivid experiences in Smyrna.
In Athens we bought nothing modern, but found several antique shops with
Byzantine treasures, also silver ornaments, ancient curios, more
beautiful than anything we found in Italy, and ancient sacred brass
candlesticks of the Greek Church, which bore the test of being
transplanted to an American setting.
In truth, some of my richest experiences have been in exploring with
Jimmie tiny second-hand shops, pawn-shops, and dark, almost squalid
corners, where, amid piles of rubbish, we found some really exquisite
treasures. Mrs. Jimmie and Bee would have been afraid they would catch
leprosy if they had gone with us on some of our expeditions, but Jimmie
and I trusted in that Providence which always watches over children and
fools, and even in England we found bits of old silver, china, and
porcelain which amply repaid us for all the risk we ran. We often
encountered shopkeepers who spoke a language utterly unknown to us and
who understood not one word of English, and with whom we communicated by
writing down the figures on paper which we would pay, or showing them
the money in our hands. Perhaps we were cheated now and then--in fact,
in our secret hearts we are guiltily sure of it, but what difference
does that make?
When you get to Cairo, it being the jumping-off place, you naturally
expect the most curious admixture of stuffs for sale that your mind can
imagine, but, after having passed through the first stages of
bewilderment, you soon see that there are only a few things that you
really care for. For instance, you can't resist the turquoises. If you
go home from Egypt without buying any you will be sorry all the rest of
your lives. Nor ought you to hold yourself back from your natural
leaning toward crude ostrich feathers from the ostrich farms, and to
bottle up your emotion at seeing uncut amber in pieces the size of a
lump of chalk is to render yourself explosive and dangerous to your
friends. Shirt studs, long chains for your vinaigrette or your fan, cuff
buttons, antique belts of curious stones (generally clumsy and
unbecoming to the waist, but not to be withstood), carved ostrich eggs,
jewelled fly-brushes, carved brass coffee-pots and finger bowls, cigar
sets of brilliant but rude enamel, to say nothing of the rugs and
embroideries, are some of the things which I defy you to refrain from
buying. To be sure, there are thousands of other attractions, which, if
you are strong-minded, you can leave alone, but these things I have
enumerated you will find that you cannot live without. Of course, I mean
by this that these things are within reach of your purse, and cheaper
than you can get them anywhere else, unless perhaps you go into the
adjacent countries from which they come.
As you go up the Nile, your shopping becomes more primitive. On the mud
banks, at the stations at which your boat stops, Arabians, Nubians, and
Egyptians sit squatting on the caked mud with their gaudy clothes,
brilliant embroideries, and rugs piled around them all within arm's
reach. Here also you must bring the guile which I have described into
play.
It may be that at Assuan, near the first cataract, I really got into
some little danger. I never knew why, but in the bazaars there I
developed an awful, insatiable desire to make a complete collection of
Abyssinian weapons of warfare. For this purpose, one day, I got on my
donkey and took with me only a little Scotchman, who had presented me
with countless bead necklaces and so many baskets all the way up the
Nile that at night I was obliged to put them overboard in order to get
into my stateroom, and who wore, besides his goggles, a green veil over
his face. We made our way across the sand, into which our donkeys' feet
sank above their fetlocks, to the bazaars of Assuan.
These bazaars deserve more than a passing mention, as they are unlike
any that I ever saw. They are all under one roof on both sides of tiny
streets or broad aisles, just as you choose to call them, and through
these aisles your donkey is privileged to go, while you sit calmly on
his back, bargaining with the cross-legged merchants, who scream at you
as you pass, thrusting their wares into your face, and, even if you
attempt to pass on, they stop your donkey by pulling his tail. On this
particular day I left my donkey at the door and made my way on foot, as
I was eager to make my purchases.
Perhaps I was careless and ought to have taken better care of my
Scotchman, because he was so little and so far from home, but I regret
to say that I lost him soon after I went into the bazaar, and I didn't
see him again for three hours. Never shall I forget those three hours.
In Smyrna, Turkey, and Egypt the bargaining language is about the same.
"What you give, lady?"
"I won't give anything! I don't want it! What! Do you think I would
carry that back home?"
"But you take hold of him; you feel him silk; I think you want to buy.
Ver' cheap, only four pound!"
"Four pounds!" I say in French. "Oh, you don't want to sell. You want to
keep it. And at such a price you will keep it."
"Keep it!" in a shrill scream. "Not want to sell? Me? I _here_ to sell!
I sell you everything you see! I sell you the _shop_!" and then more
wheedlingly, "You give me forty francs?"
"No," in English again. "I'll give you two dollars."
"America! Liberty!" he cries, having cunningly established my
nationality, and flattering my country with Oriental guile.
"Exactly," I say, "liberty for such as you if you go there. None for me.
Liberty in America is only free to the lower classes. The others are
obliged to _buy_ theirs."
He shakes his head uncomprehendingly. "How much you give for him? Last
price now! Six dollars!"
We haggle over "last prices" for a quarter of an hour more, and after
two cups of coffee, amiably taken together, and some general
conversation, I buy the thing for three dollars.
Bee says my tastes are low, but at any rate I can truthfully say that I
get on uncommonly well with the common herd. I got about thirty of these
jargon-speaking merchants so excited with my spirited method of not
buying what they wanted me to that a large Englishman and a tall, gaunt
Australian, thinking there was a fight going on, came to where I sat
drinking coffee, and found that the screams, gesticulations, appeals to
Allah, smiting of foreheads, brandishing of fists, and the general
uproar were all caused by a quiet and well-behaved American girl sitting
in their midst, while no less than four of them held a fold of her
skirt, twitching it now and then to call attention to their particular
howl of resentment. They rescued me, loaded my purchases on my donkey
boy, and found my donkey for me, beside which, sitting patiently on the
ground and humbly waiting my return, I found my little Scotchman.
With all this cumulative experience, as Jimmie says, "of how to
misbehave in shops," we got back to London, where I could bring it into
play, and in a manner avenge myself for past slights.
I was so grateful to Jimmie for the King Arthur that he gave me at
Innsbruck that I decided to surprise him by something really handsome on
his birthday.
When we got to Paris, there seemed to be an epidemic of gun-metal
ornaments set with tiny pearls, diamonds, or sapphires. Of these I
noticed that Jimmie admired the pearl-studded cigar-cases and
match-safes most, but for some reason I waited to make my purchase in
London, which was one of the most foolish things I ever have done in all
my foolish career, and right here let me say that there is nothing so
unsatisfactory as to postpone a purchase, thinking either that you will
come back to the same place or that you will see better further along,
for in nine cases out of ten you never see it again.
When we got to London, Bee and I put on our best street clothes and
started out to buy Jimmie his birthday present. We searched everywhere,
but found that all gun-metal articles in London were either plain or
studded with diamonds. We couldn't find a pearl. Finally in one shop I
explained my search to a tall, heavy man, evidently the proprietor, who
had small green eyes set quite closely together, a florid complexion,
and hay-coloured side-whiskers. His whiskers irritated me quite as much
as the fact that he hadn't what I wanted. Perhaps my hat vexed him, but
at any rate he looked as though he were glad he didn't have the pearls,
and he finally permitted his annoyance, or his general British rudeness,
to voice itself in this way:
"Pardon me, madame," he said, "but you will never find cigar-cases of
gun-metal studded with pearls, no matter how much you may desire it, for
it is not good taste."
I was warm, irritated, and my dress was too tight in the belt, so I just
leaned my two elbows on that show-case, and I said to him:
"Do you mean to have the impertinence, my good man, to tell two American
ladies that what they are looking for is not in good taste, simply
because you are so stupid and insular as not to keep it in stock? Do you
presume to express your opinion on taste when you are wearing a green
satin necktie with a pink shirt? If you had ever been off this little
island, and had gone to a land where taste in dress, and particularly in
jewels, is understood, you would realise the impertinence of criticising
the taste of an American woman, who is trying to find something worth
while buying in so hopelessly British a shop as this. Now, my good man,"
I added, taking up my parasol and purse, "I shall not report your
rudeness to the proprietor, because doubtless you have a family to
support, and I don't wish to make you lose your place, but let this be a
warning to you never to be so insolent again," and with that, I simply
swept out of his shop. I seldom sweep out. Bee says I generally crawl
out, but this time I was so inflated with an unholy joy that I
recklessly cabled to Paris for Jimmie's pearls, and to this day I
rejoice at the way that man covered his green satin tie with his large
hairy red hand, and at the ecstatic smiles on the faces of two clerks
standing near, for I _knew_ he was the proprietor when I called him "My
good man."
If you want to open an account in London, you have to be vouched for by
another commercial house. They won't take your personal friends, no
matter how wealthy, no matter if they are titled. Your bank's opinion of
you is no good. Neither does it avail you how well and favourably you
are known at your hotel for paying your bill promptly. This, and the
custom in several large department stores of never returning your money
if you take back goods, but making you spend it, not in the store, but
in the department in which you have bought, makes shopping for dry goods
excessively annoying to Americans.
I took back two silk blouses out of five that I bought at a large shop
in Regent Street much frequented by Americans, which carries on a store
near by under the same name, exclusively for mourning goods. To my
astonishment, I discovered that I must buy three more blouses, or else
lose all the money I paid for them. In my thirst for information, I
asked the reason for this. In America, a lady would consider the reason
they gave an insult. The shopwoman told me that ladies' maids are so
expert at copying that many ladies have six or eight garments sent home,
kept a few days, copied by their maids and returned, and that this
became so much the custom that they were finally forced to make that
obnoxious rule.
I have heard complaints made in America by proprietors of large
importing houses that women who keep accounts frequently order a
handsome gown, wrap, or hat sent home on approval, wear it, and return
it the next day. If this is the custom among decent self-respecting
American women, who masquerade in society in the guise of women of
refinement and culture, no wonder that shopkeepers are obliged to
protect themselves. There is nowhere that the saying, "the innocent must
suffer with the guilty," obtains with so much force as in shopping,
particularly in London.
It is a characteristic difference between the clever American and the
insular British shopkeeper that in America, when a thing such as I have
mentioned is suspected, the saleswoman or a private detective is sent to
shadow the suspect, and ascertain if she really wore the garment in
question. In such cases, the garment is returned to her with a note,
saying that she was seen wearing it, when it is generally paid for
without a word. If not, the shop is in danger of losing one otherwise
valuable customer, as she is placed on what is known as the "blacklist,"
which means that a double scrutiny is placed on all her purchases, as
she is suspected of trickery.
In this same shop in Regent Street, of which I have been speaking, we
submitted to several petty annoyances of this description without
complaint, the last and pettiest of which was when Mrs. Jimmie, being
captivated by an exquisite hundred-guinea gown of pale gray, embroidered
in pink silk roses, and veiled with black Chantilly lace, bought it and
ordered it altered to her figure. For this they charged her two pounds
ten in addition to that frightful price for about an hour's work about
the collar. Mrs. Jimmie seldom resents anything, and in her gentleness
is easily governed, so this time I persuaded her to protest, and
dictated a furious letter of remonstrance to the proprietor, citing only
this one case of extortion. Jimmie sat by, smoking and encouraging me,
as I paced up and down the room with my hands behind my back, giving
vent to sentences which, when copied down in Mrs. Jimmie's ladylike
handwriting, made Jimmie scream with joy. I think Mrs. Jimmie never had
any intention of sending the letter, having written it down as a
safety-valve for my rather explosive nature, but Jimmie was so carried
away by the artistic incongruities of the situation that he whipped a
stamp on it and mailed it before his wife could wink.
To his delight, Mrs. Jimmie received, three days later, a letter from
the astonished proprietor, which showed in every line of it the jolt
that my letter must have been to his stolid British nerveless system. He
began by thanking her for having reported the matter to him, apologised
humbly, as a British tradesman always does apologise to the bloated
power of wealth, and said that her letter had been sent to all the
various heads of departments for their perusal. He declared that for
five years he had been endeavouring to bring the directors to see that,
if they were to possess the coveted American patronage for which they
always strove, they must accommodate themselves to certain American
prejudices, one of which was the unalterable distaste Americans
displayed in paying for refitting handsome gowns. He was delighted to
say that her letter had been couched in such firm, decisive, and
righteously indignant language, such as he himself never would have been
capable of commanding, had carried such weight, and had been productive
of such definite results with the directors that he was pleased to
announce that henceforward a radical change would appear in the
government of their house, and that never again would an extra charge be
made for refitting any garment costing over ten pounds. He thanked her
again for her letter, but could not resist saying at the close that it
was the most astonishing letter he had ever received in his life, and he
begged to enclose the two pounds ten overcharge.
Jimmie fairly howled for joy as he read this letter aloud; Bee looked
very much mortified; Mrs. Jimmie exceedingly perplexed, as if uncertain
what to think, but I confess that all my irritation against British
shopkeepers fell away from me as a cast-off garment. I blush to say that
I shared Jimmie's delight, and when he solemnly made me a present of the
two pounds ten I had so heroically earned, I soothed my ladylike
sister's refined resentment by inviting all three to have broiled
lobster with me at Scott's.
I imagine, however, that one woman's experience with dressmakers is like
all others. I have noticed that to introduce the subject of my personal
woes in the matter is to make the conversation general, in fact I might
say composite, no matter how formal the gathering of women. Like the
subject of servants, it is as provocative of conversation as classical
music.
Far be it from me, however, to class all shopping in London under the
head of dry goods, or the rage one gets into with every dressmaker. In
most of the shops, in fact, I may say, in all of them (for the one
unfortunate experience I have related in the jeweller's shop was the
only one of the kind I ever had in London), the clerks are universally
polite, interested, and obliging, no matter how smart the shop may be.
Take for instance, Jay's, or Lewis and Allenby's. The instant you stop
before the smallest object a saleswoman approaches and says, "Good
morning." You say, "What a very pretty parasol!" and she replies, "It
_is_ pretty, isn't it, modom?" She wears a skin-tight black cashmere
gown with a little tail to it. Her beautiful broad shoulders, flat back,
tiny waist, bun at the back of her head, and the invisible net over the
fringe, all proclaim her to be an Englishwoman, but her pronunciation of
the simplest words, and the way her voice goes up and down two or three
times in a single sentence, sometimes twice in a single word, might
sometimes lead you to think she spoke a foreign tongue.
The English call all our voices monotonous, but it was several weeks
after I reached London for the first time before I could catch the
significance of a sentence the first time it was pronounced. All over
Europe our watchword with the Russians, Turks, Egyptians, Arabs, French,
Germans, and Italians was always "Do you speak English?" and in London
it is Jimmie's crowning act of revenge to ask the railway guards and
cab-drivers the same insulting question. Imagine asking London cabbies
the question, "Do you speak English?" It puts him in a purple rage
directly.
But shopkeepers all over Europe are quick to anticipate all your wants,
to suggest tempting things which have not occurred to you to buy, and
to offer to have things made, if nothing in stock suits you. I suppose I
am naturally slow and stupid. Bee says I am, but having been brought up
in America, in the South, where nothing is ever made, and where we had
to send to New York for everything, and where even New York has to
depend on Europe for many of its staples, my surprise overpowered me so
that it mortified Bee, when they offered to have silk stockings made for
me in Paris.
Like most Americans, I am in the habit of turning away disappointed, and
preparing to go without things if I cannot find what I want in the
shops, but in London and Paris they will offer of their own accord to
make for you anything you may describe to them, from a pair of gloves to
a pattern of brocade. This is one and perhaps the only glory of being an
American in Europe, for, as my friend in Naples, of the firm of Ananias,
Barabbas, and Company, said to me:
"Behold! you are an American, and by Americans do we not live?"