When I had been a dozen years or more in London, a man I knew bewailed
to me one night the fact that he had to leave Fenchurch Street Station
in the small hours of the next morning, and did not know how on earth
he would manage it.
'Why not sleep there to-night?' I suggested carelessly.
'Sleep there!' he repeated with a stare. 'But there are no hotels in
that part of the world.'
'Oh, bless you, yes!' said I. 'You try the Blue Boar. You will find it
almost as handy as sleeping in the booking-office, without nearly so
strong a smell of kippers and dirt.'
I do not think my friend ventured upon the Blue Boar; but I did, a
dozen years earlier, and stayed there for two nights. I wonder if any
other new arrival from Australia has done that! Hardly, I think. And
yet there is something to be said for it. It was quite inexpensive, as
London hotels go. (They are all much more expensive than Australian
hotels, though the cost of living in England is appreciably lower than
it is in the Antipodes.) And putting up there obviates the
embarrassing necessity of taking a cab from the station, when you
cannot think of a place to which you can tell the man to drive.
I cherish the thought that I have become something of a tradition at
the Blue Boar, where I have reason to think I am probably remembered
to-day by a now aged Boots and others--many, many others--as 'The
genelmun as orduder bawth.'
On rising after my first insomnious night there, I went prowling all
about the house in search of the bathroom. Finally, I was routed back
to my room by a newly-wakened maid (in curl-pins), who told me rather
crossly that I could not have a 'bawth' unless I ordered it
'before'and.' She did not say how long beforehand. But I was in a
hurry to get out of doors, so I did without my bath, and promised
myself I would see to it later in the day.
That afternoon, footsore, tired, and feeling inexpressibly grimy, I
interviewed the lady again, and begged permission to have a bath. She
was then in a much brighter humour, and in curls in place of pins. She
promised to arrange the matter shortly, and send some accredited
representative to warn me when the psychological moment arrived. Where
could I be found?
'Oh, I'll go and undress at once,' I said.
'No, don't do that, sir; I cawn't get a bawth all in a minute,' she
told me. 'Perhaps you'd like to wite in the smokin'-room.'
Grateful for the absence of the morning's crossness I agreed at once,
and retired to the fly-blown smoking-room, where there was ample
choice of distraction for a writing man between a moth-eaten volume
called _King's Concordance_ and a South-Eastern Railway time-table
cover, very solidly fashioned, with lots of crimson and gold, but no
inside. Here I smoked half a pipe, and would have rested, but that I
felt too dirty. Presently Boots came in, elderly and sad but furtively
bird-like, both in the way he held his head on one side and in the
jerky quickness of his movements:
'You the genelmun as orduder bawth?' he asked anxiously. I admitted
it, and he gave a long sigh of relief.
'Oo! All right,' he said, almost gladly. 'I'll letcher know when it's
ready.'
And he hopped out. I finished my pipe, yawned, opened the Concordance,
and shut it again hastily, by reason of the extraordinarily pungent
mustiness its pages emitted. Then I went prospecting into the passage
between the stairs and the private bar. Here I passed a sort of
ticket-office window, at which a middle-aged Hebrew lady sat, eating
winkles from a plate with the aid of a hairpin. Her face lit up with
sudden interest as she saw me:
'Oo!' she cried with spirit, 'er you the genelmun has orduder bawth?'
Again I pleaded guilty, and with a broad, reassuring smile, as of one
who should say: 'Bless you, we've had visitors just as mad as you
before this, and never attempted to lasso or otherwise constrain them.
There's no limit to our indulgence toward gentlemen afflicted as you
are,' she nodded her ringleted head, and said: 'Right you are, sir.
I'll send Boots to letcher know when it's ready.'
Apart from consideration of her occupation, which seemed to me to
demand privacy, I could not stand gazing at this lady, though I was
momentarily inclined to ask if the Lord Mayor and his Aldermen had
been invited to attend my bathing; so I passed on to the only refuge
from the Concordance room--the private bar. There was a really
splendid young lady in attendance here, who smiled upon me so sweetly
that I felt constrained to order something to drink. Also, I was
greatly athirst. But the trouble was it happened I had never tasted
beer, and could think of nothing else suitable that was likely to be
available. While I pondered, one hand on the counter, the still
smiling barmaid opened conversation brightly:
'Er you the genelmun what's orduder bawth?' she asked engagingly.
I began to feel that there must be some kind of a special London joke
about this formula. Perhaps it is a phrase in the current comic opera,
I thought. A pity that ignorance should prevent my capping it! At all
events I was saved for the moment from choosing a drink, for three
hilarious city gentlemen entered from the street just then, and
demanded instant attention. As I hung indeterminately, waiting, I
heard a voice in the passage outside, and recognised it as belonging
to that elderly bird, the Boots.
'No, I ain't awastin' uv me time,' it said. 'I'm alookin' fer
somebody. I serpose you ain't seed the genelmun as orduder bawth
anywhere abart, 'ave yer?'
Fearful lest further delay should lead to the bricking up of the
bathroom, or to a crier being sent round the town for 'the genelmun,'
etc., I hastened out almost into the arms of the retainer, and
forcibly checked him, as he began on an interrogative note to cheep
out: 'You the genelmun as orduder----'
Coming from a country where, even in the poorest workman's house, the
bathroom at all events is always in commission, I was greatly struck
by this incident; more especially when, an hour later, I heard the
chambermaid cry out over the banisters:
'Mibel! The genelmun as orduder bawth sez 'e'll 'ave a chop wiv 'is
tea!'