GOLD IN THE CHIMNEY
How can two young people, with a baby and three hundred dollars in cash,
able to count upon a one-year fellowship yielding six hundred dollars,
live a year in Paris? The answer to that question is that it cannot be
done. But we were not in the position to answer it that way. We were in
Paris, and we had the baby. Pride and ambition are factors that refuse
to be overruled by the remorseless logic of figures. If you put a
proposition down on paper, you can prove that almost anything you want
to do is impossible. Successful undertakings are never the result of
logical thinking. Herbert and I would not have had a wedding at all if
we had thought the matter out and had considered the financial side of
life.
Herbert was keeping, however, some prejudices and some prudent reserves,
remembering his father's caution that life has a financial basis.
Sitting there on the packing-case we had picked out for a coal-box in
our study-bedroom, he hauled out an account-book and was fussing over a
missing franc. Our first year was one of constant change of scene, and
we had not "kept house." Now, declared my husband, was the time to turn
over a new leaf. If we knew where and how our money went, financing the
proposition would be easier. With tears in my eyes and biting a pencil
with trembling lips, I rebelled. I could not get interested in that
missing franc.
"I want you to realize now, once for all, that I'm not going to keep
this old cash account. I don't believe in worrying about money. I'm not
going to worry about money and neither are you. There are only three
financial questions: (1) how much money is there? (2) how long is it
going to last? (3) what are we going to do when it's all gone? Two
follows one, and three follows two--one, two, three--just like that!"
I was laughing now, and raised three fingers successively under my
boss's nose.
"As long as we are in one, we are not in two; and when we are in two, we
have not reached three. Let us wait for three until we are in three, or
at least until we know we are about to leave two."
After paying a quarter's rent, the bill for the furniture and cleaning
up sundry little expenses, we had left fifteen hundred francs of the
Gordon Bennett capital. A thousand francs was deposited with Morgan,
Harjes and Company. The other five hundred, in twenty-franc gold-pieces,
the bank gave us in a shiny little pink pasteboard box. Our chimney had
a big hole in the plaster. The wall paper was torn but intact. An ideal
hiding-place. I put the box in the hole and smoothed down the paper.
"This hole is our bank," I announced. "We shall keep no account, and you
and I will take the gold boys when we need them."
Herbert saw a great light. From that moment to this day we have been
free from a useless drudgery and have been able to conserve our energy
for our work. Herbert said, "Agreed! And when the pile gets low, I'll be
like the little boy the old man saw digging."
"What was the little boy digging for?" I chuckled.
"Ground-hogs," answered my husband. "An old man came along and told him
he would never catch a gopher like that, for they could dig quicker than
folks. 'Can't get him?' said the boy. 'Got to get him, the family's out
of meat.'"
Now that the financial credo of the home-makers in the Rue Servandoni is
set forth, I shall not have to talk any more about how we got our money
and how much there was of it. But I had to take my readers into my
confidence, for I did not want them to labor under the misapprehension
that persisted among our neighbors of the Rue Servandoni throughout our
year there. They took it for granted that _les petits américains_ were
living at Twenty-One because that sort of fun appealed to us. We were
just queer. Of course we had plenty of money, and could have lived at
Nineteen or Twenty-Three if we had wanted to! The Parisian, the
Frenchman, the European, of whatever social class, believes that America
is El Dorado and that every American is able to draw at will from
inexhaustible transatlantic gold-mines. During the war the Red Cross,
the Y.M.C.A., and the officers and men of the A.E.F. confirmed and
strengthened this traditional belief. I do not blame my compatriots for
what is a universal attitude among us towards money. On the contrary, my
long years of residence abroad have made me feel that we get more out of
life by looking upon money as our servant than Europeans do, who look
upon it as their master.
The first thing--the practical and imperative thing--when you set up a
home in Paris is to make friends with the concierge. Without his
approval and cooperation, your money, your position, your brains will
not help you in making living conditions easy. The concierge stands
between you and servants, tradespeople, visitors. You are at his mercy.
Traveling in Russia, they used to say to us: lose your pocket-book or
your head, but hold on to your passport. In Paris, dismiss your prize
servant or fall out with your best friend, but hold on to the good-will
of the concierge.
Our first skirmish with the Sempés was an easy victory. We could not
keep the baby-carriage in our apartment, even if we had been willing to
haul it up and down a flight of stairs. Boldly we announced that we
wanted to leave it in the lower hall. "Of course," agreed Monsieur
Sempé. "I was just going to suggest that and to tell you that in my shop
I carry everything, fruits and vegetables as well as dry-groceries."
We took the hint, and seldom went farther afield to do our marketing.
Madame Sempé was the first to call us _les petits américains_. She was
capable and kindly, and our friendship became firmly rooted when she
discovered that we intended to patronize her shop. The Sempé commodities
were good. This was lucky in more ways than one. For the mice knew it
too, and never came upstairs to bother us.
Sempé himself was a genial soul, partly because he always kept a bottle
uncorked. Hard work and temperament, he explained, made him require a
stimulant. He took just enough, you understand, to affect his
disposition pleasantly. If you had a little complaint to make or a favor
to ask, much as you deplored his thirst, you found yourself casting an
eye over the man to make sure of his mood before you spoke. If you
caught him when the bottle was not too full or too empty, he could fix a
lock or put a new mantle on the dining-room gas-jet most graciously.
Our friendship became undying when Monsieur found out that we were the
solution of his financial pinches. He came up one night, and, hooking
his thumbs in his purple suspenders, asked for a loan of "_shong
shanquante francs shusqua sheudi_." _Jeudi_ never came. To Sempé's
intense relief, we agreed to take out the debt in groceries. This was
the beginning of a sort of gentlemen's agreement. A paper, thumb-tacked
to a shelf in the shop, kept the record of our transactions. When I came
to make purchases in the morning or when Herbert dropped in of an
evening to buy a supplement to our dinner for unexpected guests or our
own good appetites, we could see at a glance whether to pay cash for
what we bought or whether we should do a sum in subtraction. It was
generally subtraction, and Sempé, wagging his head, would say, "This
goes well--soon I shall be square with you." But the satisfaction of
being square with the world was never Sempé's for long. The arrival of a
barrel of wine or a load of potatoes would send him running up the
stairs for the money to help finance his business. In spite of our
slender resources we did not feel this to be a hardship. Not
infrequently it was an advantage. First of all things one has to eat. We
always began to get our money back immediately in the necessities of
life. Instead of having our money out in an uncertain loan we took the
attitude that our board was paid for two or three weeks in advance.
In another connection, we had the benefit of the advantageous side of
the Golden Rule.
In our study of Turkish history we had constant use of Von Hammer's
_Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman_. This meant much transcribing by
long-hand at the Bibliothèque Nationale where the typewriter could not
be used. If only we had Von Hammer at home! But it was a rare
book--eighteen volumes and an atlas--far beyond our means. One day we
were browsing at Welter's, the most wonderful bookshop in Paris, on the
Rue Bernard-Palissy off the Rue de Rennes near Saint-Germain-des-Près.
Monsieur Welter, who took pains to become acquainted with and discover
the specialty of every passing _client_, told us that he had a set of
Von Hammer, recently purchased at a London auction. He sent a boy to
bring it out. Oh how tempting it looked, beautifully bound in calf! We
handled it fondly, but turned regretfully away when he said that the
price was two hundred francs.
"Do you not want it?" asked Monsieur Welter, astonished. "It is
indispensable for your work and you do not get a chance often to
purchase a set of Von Hammer. Never will you find it cheaper than this."
"I do want it, and it isn't the price. I'll come back later, hoping you
will not have sold it."
We each had a volume in our hands. I poked my nose between the pages of
mine to sniff the delightful odor to be found only in old books.
Monsieur looked at us, smiled, and said, "You mean that you haven't the
money. You will have it some day. No hurry. Give me your address and the
books will be sent around this afternoon."
The delightful relationship thus began lasted until August, 1914, when
Welter (who never became naturalized although his sons were in the
French army) had to flee to escape internment. His business was
sequestrated. German though he was, we never cease to mourn the only
expert bookman in Paris. We have tried a dozen since, some of them
charming men, but none with the slightest idea of how to sell books.
Welter had book-buyers all over the world. Whenever he came across rare
books in your line, he mailed them to you with the bill. If you did not
want them, you sent them back. Every three months, a statement of the
quarter's purchases came, and you sent a check when you had the money.
One's attention was brought to many valuable sources, and one was able
to buy books of immense value, the possibility of whose acquisition one
had never dreamed of.
Monsieur Welter told me years later, when I recalled the Von Hammer
incident, that he didn't lose five hundred francs a year in bad bills.
"The dealer in old books who does not give all the credit the buyers
need is crazy," he said. "What man interested in the things I deal in
would think of cheating me? Your husband wanted Von Hammer. I saw that.
Any man who wanted Von Hammer would pay for it in time."
We had never had a French book-seller offer us credit, much less send
books on approval when we had not ordered them.
When I think of the hundreds and hundreds of books we bought from
Welter, I realize one of the secrets of the inferiority of the French to
the Germans in business. The French cannot bring themselves to give
credit: they have an innate fear of being cheated, and understand
commercial transactions only in terms of cash. For years I have made a
point of watching French shopkeepers. Invariably they arrange that the
money is in their hands before they give you your package.
The other night I went to the Champs-Elysées theatre to see a show given
by American soldiers of the 88th Division. One act opens with Hiram
Scarum bringing a military trunk into his hotel. Staggering under the
weight, Hiram hobbles across the stage, plants his trunk on the floor,
and sits down on it to mop his brow. He spies a paper across the room,
and investigates to find it is the tag belonging to the trunk. Pulling
himself together, Hiram spits on his hands, wearily shoulders the burden
again, and carries it across the room where he ties the tag to the
handle of the trunk. Then he picks up the trunk and carries it back
where he had first put it down. Hiram is like French commerce. The
Frenchman, with a sense of self-congratulation on his own industry,
carries the trunk to the tag. He is surprised to discover that while he
has been carrying the trunk to the tag, his German competitor has
carried a great many tags and has tied them to a great many trunks. We
hear much in these days about the war after the war. We are told by
Paris newspapers how the French business men are going to capture trade
from Germany. How can the French win in the commercial game? I'm sure I
don't know. One is concerned lest the inability to take the large view
end in disappointment and disaster for the Frenchmen we love. We are
just as sure that our French friends will continue to carry the trunk to
the tag as we are that they ought to get a hustle on, give up their old
ways, and win the game.