It was in the early part of February last that, acting under
instructions from headquarters, I set forth from my office in London
upon my pilgrimage to the shrines of the world's illustrious. Readers
everywhere are interested in the home life of men who have made
themselves factors in art, science, letters, and history, and to these
people I was commissioned to go. But one restriction was placed upon me
in the pursuit of the golden Notoriety, and that was that I should spare
no expense whatever to attain my ends. At first this was embarrassing.
Wealth suddenly acquired always is. But in time I overcame such
difficulties as beset me, and soon learned to spend thousands of
dollars with comparative ease.
And first of all I decided to visit Nansen. To see him at home, if by
any possibility Nansen could be at home anywhere, would enable me to
open my series interestingly. I remembered distinctly that upon his
return from the North Pole he had found my own people too cold for
comfort. I called to mind that, having travelled for months seeking the
Pole, he had accused my fellow-countrymen of coming to see him out of
"mere curiosity," and I recalled at the same time that with remarkable
originality he had declared that we heated our railway trains to an
extent which suggested his future rather than his past. Wherefore I
decided to visit Nansen to hear what else he might have to say, while
some of the incidents of his visit were fresh in our minds.
The next thing to discover, the decision having been reached, was as to
Nansen's whereabouts. Nobody in London seemed to know exactly where he
might be found. I asked the manager of the house in which I dwelt, and
he hadn't an idea--he never had, for that matter. Then I asked a
policeman, and he said he thought he was dancing at the Empire, but he
wasn't sure. Next I sought his publishers and asked for his banker's
address. The reply included every bank in London, with several trust
companies in France and Spain. To my regret, I learned that we Americans
hold none of his surplus.
"But where do you send his letters?" I demanded of his publisher, in
despair.
"Dr. Nansen has authorized us to destroy them unopened," was the reply.
"They contain nothing but requests for his autograph."
"But your letters to him containing his royalties--where do they go?" I
demanded.
"We address them to him in our own care," was the answer.
"And then?" I queried.
"According to his instructions, they are destroyed unopened," said the
publisher, twisting his thumbs meditatively.
It seemed hopeless.
Suddenly an idea flashed across my mind. I will go, I thought, to the
coldest railway station in London and ask for a ticket for Nansen. A man
so fastidious as he is in the matter of temperature, I reasoned, cannot
have left London at any one of their moderately warm stations. Where the
temperature is most frigid, there Nansen must have gone when leaving, he
is such a stickler for temperature. Wherefore I went to the Waterloo
Station--it is the coldest railway station I know--and I asked the agent
for a ticket for Nansen.
He seemed nonplussed for a moment, and, to cover his embarrassment,
asked:
"Second or third class?"
"First," said I, putting down a five-pound note.
"Certainly," said he, handing me a ticket to Southampton. "Do you
think you people in the States will really have war with Spain?"
I will not dilate upon this incident. Suffice it to say that the ticket
man sent me to Southampton, where, he said, I'd be most likely to find a
boat that would carry me to Nansen. And he was right. I reached
Sjwjcktcwjch within twenty-four hours, and holding, as I did, letters of
introduction from President McKinley and her Majesty Queen Victoria,
from Richard Croker and Major Pond, Mr. Nansen consented to receive me.
[Illustration: "I BOARDED A PJINE RJAFT"]
He lived in an Esquimau hut on an ice-floe which was passing the winter
in the far-famed Maelstrom. How I reached it Heaven only knows. I
frankly confess that I do not. I only know that under the guidance of
Svenskjold Bjonstjon I boarded a plain pjine rjaft, such as the
Norwegians use, and was pjaddjled out into the seething whirlpool, in
the midst of which was Nansen's more or less portable cottage.
When I recovered I found myself seated inside the cottage, which, like
everything else in the Maelstrom, was waltzing about as if at a military
ball or Westchester County dance.
"Well," said my host, looking at me coldly. "You are here. _Why_ are you
here?"
[Illustration: "'MR. NANSEN?' SAID I"]
"Mr. Nansen?" said I.
"The very same," said he, taking an icicle out of his vest pocket and
biting off the end of it.
"The Polar Explorer?" I added.
"There is but one Nansen," said he, brushing the rime from his eyebrows.
"Why ask foolish questions? If I am Nansen, then it goes without saying
that I am the Polar Explorer."
"Excuse me," I replied. "I merely wished to know." And then I took a
one-dollar bill from my purse. "Here, Mr. Nansen, is my dollar. That is,
I understand, the regular fee for seeing you. I should like now to
converse with you. What is your price per word?"
"Have you spoken to my agents?" he asked.
"No," said I.
"Then it will only cost you $160 a word. Had you arranged through them,
I should have had to charge you $200. You see," he added,
apologetically, "I have to pay them a commission of twenty per cent."
"I understand that," said I. "I have given public readings myself, and
after paying the agent's commission and travelling expenses I have
invariably been compelled to go back and live with my mother for six
months."
"Miss Witherup," said Nansen, rising, "you did not intend to do it, and
I therefore forgive you, but for the moment you have made me feel warmly
towards you. Please do not do it again. Frigidity is necessary to my
business. What can I do for you?"
"Talk to me," said I.