Ben brought me occasional reports of her progress and whatever other
news there might be; and I looked forward to these visits.
"We've been having the oddest applications," she said. "You have no
idea how helpless people can be. They want advice on everything."
"The astonishing thing," I replied, "is that you can give it on such a
variety of subjects."
"I don't know that I can," she said, "but I try to. And if one is
fairly emphatic, it seems to satisfy them. I suppose decisiveness is
very comforting. I see them positively adding an inch or two to their
stature when I just say 'Yes' or 'No,' without any qualifications to
dilute those excellent words. It's extraordinary how few people seem to
have any initiative. And if one can't answer a question oneself," she
went on, "one probably knows someone who can. I am requisitioning all
my friends. Some day I shall put an awkward client on to you."
"I hope you will," I said.
"It isn't only that they ask ridiculous things," Ben confirmed, "but
they so often want something more, for nothing. 'Now that I _am_ here,
they say, 'perhaps you could tell me this.' Only to-day a woman who
had come about Spanish lessons for her daughter asked me, as she was
leaving and had paid, what to do with a cook who stole. I asked her if
she could cook well, and when she said 'Yes,' I told her to keep her,
even if she stole diamonds and pearls. But it was nothing but odds and
ends. 'Odds and ends are replaceable,' I said, 'but a cook isn't. The
whole world wants cooks at this moment. Besides,' I said, 'to take odds
and ends isn't stealing at all--to a cook. We all have our code, and a
cook's code permits her to take odds and ends and smuggle them out of
the house, where she would be a pillar of honesty in the midst, say,
of money or jewellery.' Every one is dishonest somewhere. My father,
I'm sure, is scrupulous in most ways, but he boasts that he always does
railway companies if he can. The best parlourmaids take cigarettes. The
nicest people pocket matches. If you want to know something about petty
purloinings by what are supposed to be the elect, ask the secretary
of any women's club. And I'm told that in quite crack men's clubs the
nailbrushes have to be chained.
"We have every kind of question and from every nationality," she
went on. "A little Japanese woman came in the other day to know how
to get lessons in English--at least, not exactly lessons. What she
wanted was someone to read English books aloud with her. Not _to_ her;
_with_ her. They were to sit side by side so that she could follow
the pronunciation. She knew English perfectly, but had some of the
words most comically wrong. But how natural! Indeed I don't know how
foreigners ever get our words right. This little Japanese pet was
completely puzzled by 'July,' for instance. She used the word as if
it rhymed with 'truly.' And why not? We say 'duly' and 'unduly' and
'unruly' and 'Julius' and 'Juliet.' And then we say, 'July.' It's too
absurd."
"And could you help her?" I asked.
"As it happened, I could. I remembered an old friend of ours who was
only too glad to do it, and she has been writing since to thank me for
giving her the opportunity of meeting anyone so charming."
"What I want to know," I said, "is how the dickens do you know what to
charge?"
"There are several ways," said Ben. "There's a fixed tariff for certain
things, and there's so much a quarter of an hour for interviews. For
shopping I charge a fee. A time-chart is kept and they pay so much an
hour and for cabs. But I don't do that for strangers, or, at any rate,
not for anyone without an introduction.
"Most people," she continued, "want either servants or rooms; and
I send them on to registry offices or house-agents, and share the
commission. I couldn't as a regular thing go into either of those
businesses myself. There would be no time left.
"Let me think of some of our recent applications," she said. "Oh,
yes! A South African woman came in yesterday to know something about
London churches. She was to be here for six months and wanted to take
sittings somewhere; could I tell her the best preachers? They must be
evangelical or, at any rate, low. Anything in the nature of ritualism
she couldn't endure.
"And then," she went on, "there was a widow from Cheltenham who
wanted advice about dogs. What was the best kind of dog for a lady
living alone? She had noticed that the dogs of most ladies of her own
age--that is to say, elderly--were very disobedient; but that would be
no use to her. She did not want a dog that had to be led. I said that
the most popular dog with elderly ladies at the moment was a Sealyham
or West Highland. White, in any case. But I doubted if they were very
obedient.
"She asked whether I thought a lady dog or a gentleman dog the more
suitable. Really, people are marvellous."
"And how did you charge her?" I asked.
"I didn't. I said that the matter was off my beat, and gave her the
address of a dog-fancier.
"She thanked me and went away, and ten minutes later left a box of
chocolates and a bunch of flowers.
"Then they want to know the best musical comedy; the name of a play
that it would be all right to take auntie to; the place to buy the best
linen sheets; whether or not one has to dress in certain restaurants;
what time the National Gallery opens; how long a car takes to Hampton
Court; how to get Sunday tickets for the Zoo; and where one has the
best chance of seeing the Prince of Wales.
"But what most of them want," said Ben, "is what they call a
_pied-à-terre_. You've no idea what hosts of people there are who
would be happy if they only had a foot to the earth!--in other words,
a week-end cottage. The simplest place in the world, where they can
rough it, you know; return to nature, shake the horrible city off!
But when we come to particulars there must always be a tennis lawn,
hot water laid on, bathroom and so forth. Sometimes they insist on
a telephone. I could let twenty of these places a week; and there's
nothing so difficult to find! As it is, most of the real country folk,
the cottagers proper, have been dispossessed in order that their homes
may be converted for week-end purposes.
"Another thing we are always being asked for is a man and his wife. But
they are difficult to get, too, because if the man's any good, the wife
isn't, and if the wife is capable, the man drinks.
"But most of them," she added, "I don't see at all. Jan or Dolly
disposes of them; and of course they don't pay. But we can't be rude to
them. And after all, if you call your office, 'The Beck and Call,' you
are rather, as Dolly says, 'arstin' for it.' In fact, Dolly wants us to
make a charge for everything. He produced some placards the other day,
which he had spent all Sunday on, to be hung up. One was for his own
desk with:--
LONDON QUESTIONS
ANSWERED TO THE
BEST OF OUR ABILITY
2/6 EACH
on it.
"And one was for Jan:--
GENERAL INFORMATION
GIVEN
2/6 EACH REPLY
"And for my door:--
MISS STAVELEY
INTERVIEWS
AT THE RATE OF 10/6
FOR QUARTER OF AN HOUR
OR LESS
"But I wouldn't let him put them up. 'No,' I said. 'Save them for when
you set up in business for yourself.'"
"'Me?' he said. 'Not 'arf. I'm going to be a bookie.' And I expect he
is. 'I'd be one now,' he said, 'if I had any capital. That's all you
want--a little capital to begin with. The rest is like shelling peas.'"
"'But in that case why are you here?' I asked him. 'Oughtn't you to be
in a bookmaker's office?'"
"'I dare say I ought,' he said. 'But I prefer this job at the time.'"
"'Why?' I asked."
"'Because, to tell you the brutal truth, miss,' he replied, 'I like
you.'"