“_On earth men style him 'Richard,'_
_But the gods hail him 'Dick._'”
--An English Poet (adapted).
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FRIEND in need.” say the English, “is a friend indeed. And who could be
more in need of a friend than I at that moment? It was like the rolling
up of London fog-banks and the smile of the sun peeping through at
last. No longer was I quite alone in my exile. If you have ever wandered
solitary through an unknown city, listened to a foreign tongue and to
none other, eaten alien viands, fallen into strange misadventures, and
all without a single friendly ear to confide your troubles to, you will
sympathize with the joyous swelling of my heart as I faced my barrister
at that luncheon.
And he, I assure you, was a very other person from the indifferent
Englishman of the journey. The good heart was showing through, still
obscured as it was by the self-contained manner and the remnants of that
suspicion with which every Briton is taught to regard the insinuating
European.
I have already given you a sketch of his exterior--the smooth, fair
hair, the ruddy cheek, the clear eye, and, I should add, the compressed
and resolute mouth; also, not least, the admirable fit of his garments.
Now I can fill in the picture: Name, to begin with, Richard Shafthead;
younger son of honest, conservative baronet; eldest brother provided
with an income, I gather, Dick with injunctions to earn one. Hence
attendance at courts of justice, a respectable gravity of apparel,
and that compression of the lips. In speech, courteous upon a slight
acquaintance, though without any excessive anxiety to please; on
greater intimacy, very much to the point without regarding much the
susceptibilities of his audience. Yet this bluntness was, tempered
always by good-fellowship, and sometimes by a smile; and beneath it
flowed, deep down, and scarcely ever bubbling into the light of day,
a stream of sentiment that linked him with the poetry of his race. My
friend Shafthead would have laughed outright had you told him this.
Nevertheless this secret is the skeleton in the respectable English
cupboard. Your John Bull is an edifice of sentiment jealously covered
by a hoarding on which are displayed advertisements of pills and other
practical commodities. It is his one fear lest any one should discover
this preposterous and hideous erection is not the real building.
Dick's only comment on the above statement would probably be that I had
mixed my metaphors or had exceeded at lunch. But he is shrewd enough
to know in his heart that I have but spoken the truth, even though my
metaphors were as heterogeneous as the ark of Noah. How else can you
explain the astonishing contrast between those who write the songs of
England and those whose industry enables them to recompense the singers?
No doubt there is a noticeable difference between the poet and the
people in every land and every race, but in England it is so staggering.
The hair of the English poet is so very long, his eye so very frenzied,
his voice so steeped in emotion, so buoyed by melody. Even his prose
appeals to the heart rather than to the head. Thackeray weeps as he
writes of good women; Scott blushes as he writes of bad. No one is
cynical but the villains. The heroines are all pure as the best cocoa.
Then look at the check suits and the stony eyes of Mr. Cook's protégées.
Do they understand what Tennyson has written for them? If not, why do
they pay for it?
John Bull and John Milton; William Bull and William Shakespeare; Lord
Bull and Lord Byron; Charles Bull and Charles Dickens; how are these
couples related? By this religious, moral, sentimental stream; welling
in one, hidden in another under ten tons of shyness and roast beef; a
torrent here, a trickle there, sometimes almost dry in a dusty season.
That is how.
Does Dick again recommend teetotalism as a cure for these speculations?
Come with me to your rooms, my friend, and let us glance through your
library.
I take up a volume of Shakespeare and find it contains the sonnets.
“Ah, Shakespeare's sonnets,” I say, with an air of patronage towards
that eminent poet. “You know them?”
“Used to know 'em a little.” He is giving me another taste of that
characteristic British stare. Evidently he is offended by my tone, and
will fall an easy victim to my next move.
“They are much overrated,” I say, putting the book away.
“You should write to the _Times_ about it,” he replies, sarcastically,
and then adds, with conviction, “They are about the finest things in
English.”
“Yet no Englishman reads them,” I remark, lightly.
“I used to know half a dozen of 'em by heart,” he retorts.
Half a dozen of those miracles of sensuous diction off by heart! Prosaic
Briton! I do not say this aloud, but take next the songs of Kipling,
and profess not to understand one of them. To convince me it is not mere
nonsense, he reads and expounds.
He has been round the world, and shot wild beasts on the veldt and in
the jungle, and can explain allusions and share exotic sentiments.
Is this man mere plum-pudding and international perfidy, who feels thus
the glamour of the song?
“Ah, here is a novel of Zola!” I exclaim. “You enjoy him, of course?”
“A filthy brute,” says Dick. “I read half of that, and I am keeping it
now for shaving-papers.”
There is perhaps more strength of conviction than critical judgment in
this comment. I might retort that all the water in the world neither has
been passed through a filter nor foams over a fall, and that the pond
and the gutter have their purpose in the world. I do not make this
reply, however; I merely note that a strong sentiment must underlie a
strong prejudice.
As you will perhaps have gathered, my good Dick had his limitations.
He could be sympathetic; if, for instance, he were to see me insulted,
beaten, robbed of my purse and my mistress, and blinded in one eye, he
would, I am sure, feel for me deeply, and show himself most tactful in
his consolation. But it would require some such well-marked instance to
open the gates of his heart; and in minor matters I should not dream
of applying to him, unless, indeed, it was a practical service he could
perform.
He himself had held his peace and confided in no one when his fair
cousin married the wealthy manufacturer of soda-water, and his heart had
long since healed. In the days of his wild oats, when duns were knocking
at his door, he had retired from St. James Street to a modest apartment
in the Temple, sold such of his effects as were marketable, and
philosophically sought a cheap restaurant and a coarser tobacco. His
debts were now paid and all was well again. When he did not get the
degree he was expected to at Oxford, he may have said “damn,” but I
doubt if he enlarged on this observation. What did that disappointment
matter to-day? Then why should other people make a fuss if they were
hurt?
Yet his heart was as a child's if you could extract it from its
wrappings of tin-foil and brown paper, and I am happy I knew him long
enough to see him “play the fool,” as he would term it.
On that first afternoon of our acquaintance I found him courteous before
lunch, genial after (I took care to “make him proud.” as the English
say). I was perfectly frank; told him my true name, the plot that had
miscarried, my flight to England--everything.
“I am not Bunyan, I am not even Cellarini, but merely Augustine
d'Haricot, eternally at your service,” I said. “You have saved me from
prison, perhaps from the scaffold.”
He laughed.
“It wouldn't have been as bad as that, but I'm glad to have been of any
use.”
And then changing the subject, as an Englishman does when complimented
(for they hold that either you lie and are a knave, or tell the truth
and are a fool), he asked:
“What are you going to do now?”
“That depends upon your advice,” I replied. “What is my danger? How wise
is it to move freely in this country?”
“There is no danger at all if it is only a political offence,” he
answered. “Unless you've been picking pockets, or anything else as
well.”
I answered him I had not, and he promised to inquire into the case and
give me a full assurance on the next morning.
“And now,” I said, “tell me, my friend, how to live as an Englishman. I
do not mean to adopt the English mind, the English sentiment, but only
to move in your world, so long as I must live in it. I want to see, I
want to hear, I want to record my impressions and my adventures. As the
time is not ripe to wield the sword, I shall wield the eyes and the pen.
Also, I shall doubtless fall in love, and I should like to hunt a fox
and shoot a pheasant.”
We laughed together at this programme; in brief, we made a good
beginning.
That afternoon we set out together to look for suitable apartments for
myself, and by a happy chance we had hardly gone a hundred paces before
we spied a gentleman approaching us whom Shafthead declared to be a
veritable authority on London life; also a cousin of his own.
“But will he not be busy?” I inquired.
“Young devil,” answered Shafthead, “it will serve to keep him out of
mischief for an hour or two.”
Thereupon I was presented to Mr. Teddy Lumme, a young gentleman of
small stature, with a small, cheerful, clean-shaven, dark face, and a
large hat that sloped backward and sideways towards a large collar. His
elbows moved as though he were driving a cab; his boots shone brightly
enough to serve for mirrors; his morning-coat was cut in imitation of
the “pink” of a huntsman; a large mass of variegated silk was fastened
beneath his collar by a neat pearl pin; in a word, he belonged to a type
that is universal, yet this specimen was unmistakably English. In age I
learned afterwards that he was just twenty-five, emancipated for little
more than a year from the University of Oxford, and still enjoying the
relief from the rigorous rules of that institution. No accusation
of reticence to be made against Mr. Lumme! He talked all the time,
cheerfully and artlessly.
“You want rooms?” he said. “Quelle chose? I mean, don't you know, what
kind? I don't know much French, I'm afraid. Oh, you talk English?
Devilish glad to hear it. I say, Dick, you remember that girl I told you
of? Well, it's just as I said. I knew, damn it all. What do you want to
give?” (This to me.) “You don't care much? That simplifies matters.”
In this strain Mr. Lumme entertained us on our way, Shafthead regarding
him with a half-amused, half-sardonic grin, of which his relative
seemed entirely oblivious, while I enjoyed myself amazingly. I felt like
Captain Cook on the gallant _Marchand_ palavering with the chiefs of
some equatorial state.
“I demand a cold bath and an English servant,” I said. “Anything else
characteristic you can add, but those are essential.”
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I do not know whether Lumme quite understood this to be a jest. He took
me to three sets of apartments, and at each asked first to be shown the
bathroom, and then the servant, after which he inquired the price, and
whether a tenant was at liberty to introduce any guest at any hour.
Finally, to end the story of that day, which began in jail and ended
so merrily, I found myself the tenant of a highly comfortable set of
apartments, with everything but the valet supplied at an astonishingly
high price.
“However,” I said to myself, “it may be expensive, but it is better than
ten years' transportation for burgling Fisher!”
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