The Angel and the Author and others

J >> Jerome K. Jerome >> The Angel and the Author and others

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I crossed once with an English lady from Boulogne to Folkestone. At
Folkestone a little French girl--anxious about her train--asked us a
simple question. My companion replied to it with an ease that
astonished herself. The little French girl vanished; my companion
sighed.

"It's so odd," said my companion, "but I seem to know quite a lot of
French the moment I get back to England."

CHAPTER XIII

[How to be Healthy and Unhappy.]

"They do say," remarked Mrs. Wilkins, as she took the cover off the
dish and gave a finishing polish to my plate with the cleanest corner
of her apron, "that 'addicks, leastways in May, ain't, strictly
speaking, the safest of food. But then, if you listen to all they
say, it seems to me, we'd have to give up victuals altogether."

"The haddock, Mrs. Wilkins," I replied, "is a savoury and nourishing
dish, the 'poor man's steak' I believe it is commonly called. When I
was younger, Mrs. Wilkins, they were cheaper. For twopence one could
secure a small specimen, for fourpence one of generous proportions.
In the halcyon days of youth, when one's lexicon contained not the
word failure (it has crept into later editions, Mrs. Wilkins, the
word it was found was occasionally needful), the haddock was of much
comfort and support to me, a very present help in time of trouble.
In those days a kind friend, without intending it, nearly brought
about my death by slow starvation. I had left my umbrella in an
omnibus, and the season was rainy. The kind rich friend gave me a
new umbrella; it was a rich man's umbrella; we made an ill-assorted
pair. Its handle was of ivory, imposing in appearance, ornamented
with a golden snake.

[The unsympathetic Umbrella.]

"Following my own judgment I should have pawned that umbrella,
purchased one more suited to my state in life, and 'blued' the
difference. But I was fearful of offending my one respectable
acquaintance, and for weeks struggled on, hampered by this
plutocratic appendage. The humble haddock was denied to me. Tied to
this imposing umbrella, how could I haggle with fishmongers for
haddocks. At first sight of me--or, rather, of my umbrella--they
flew to icy cellars, brought up for my inspection soles at
eighteenpence a pound, recommended me prime parts of salmon, which my
landlady would have fried in a pan reeking with the mixed remains of
pork chops, rashers of bacon and cheese. It was closed to me, the
humble coffee shop, where for threepence I could have strengthened my
soul with half a pint of cocoa and four "doorsteps"--satisfactory
slices of bread smeared with a yellow grease that before the days of
County Council inspectors they called butter. You know of them, Mrs.
Wilkins? At sight of such nowadays I should turn up my jaded nose.
But those were the days of my youth, Mrs. Wilkins. The scent of a
thousand hopes was in my nostrils: so they smelt good to me. The
fourpenny beefsteak pie, satisfying to the verge of repletion; the
succulent saveloy, were not for the owner of the ivory-handled
umbrella. On Mondays and Tuesdays, perhaps, I could enjoy life at
the rate of five hundred a year--clean serviette a penny extra, and
twopence to the waiter, whose income must have been at least four
times my own. But from Wednesday to Saturday I had to wander in the
wilderness of back streets and silent squares dinnerless, where there
were not even to be found locusts and wild honey.

"It was, as I have said, a rainy season, and an umbrella of some sort
was a necessity. Fortunately--or I might not be sitting here, Mrs.
Wilkins, talking to you now--my one respectable acquaintance was
called away to foreign lands, and that umbrella I promptly put 'up
the spout.' You understand me?"

Mrs. Wilkins admitted she did, but was of opinion that twenty-five
per cent., to say nothing of the halfpenny for the ticket every time,
was a wicked imposition.

"It did not trouble me, Mrs. Wilkins," I replied, "in this particular
instance. It was my determination never to see that umbrella again.
The young man behind the counter seemed suspicious, and asked where I
got it from. I told him that a friend had given it to me."

"'Did he know that he had given it to you?" demanded the young man.

"Upon which I gave him a piece of my mind concerning the character of
those who think evil of others, and he gave me five and six, and said
he should know me again; and I purchased an umbrella suited to my
rank and station, and as fine a haddock as I have ever tasted with
the balance, which was sevenpence, for I was feeling hungry.

"The haddock is an excellent fish, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "and if, as
you observe, we listened to all that was said we'd be hungrier at
forty, with a balance to our credit at the bank, than ever we were at
twenty, with 'no effects' beyond a sound digestion."

[A Martyr to Health.]

"There was a gent in Middle Temple Lane," said Mrs. Wilkins, "as I
used to do for. It's my belief as 'e killed 'imself worrying twenty-
four hours a day over what 'e called 'is 'ygiene. Leastways 'e's
dead and buried now, which must be a comfort to 'imself, feeling as
at last 'e's out of danger. All 'is time 'e spent taking care of
'imself--didn't seem to 'ave a leisure moment in which to live. For
'alf an hour every morning 'e'd lie on 'is back on the floor, which
is a draughty place, I always 'old, at the best of times, with
nothing on but 'is pyjamas, waving 'is arms and legs about, and
twisting 'imself into shapes unnatural to a Christian. Then 'e found
out that everything 'e'd been doing on 'is back was just all wrong,
so 'e turned over and did tricks on 'is stomach--begging your pardon
for using the word--that you'd 'ave thought more fit and proper to a
worm than to a man. Then all that was discovered to be a mistake.
There don't seem nothing certain in these matters. That's the
awkward part of it, so it seems to me. 'E got 'imself a machine, by
means of which 'e'd 'ang 'imself up to the wall, and behave for all
the world like a beetle with a pin stuck through 'im, poor thing. It
used to give me the shudders to catch sight of 'im through the 'alf-
open door. For that was part of the game: you 'ad to 'ave a current
of air through the room, the result of which was that for six months
out of the year 'e'd be coughing and blowing 'is nose from morning to
night. It was the new treatment, so 'e'd explain to me. You got
yourself accustomed to draughts so that they didn't 'urt you, and if
you died in the process that only proved that you never ought to 'ave
been born.

"Then there came in this new Japanese business, and 'e'd 'ire a
little smiling 'eathen to chuck 'im about 'is room for 'alf an hour
every morning after breakfast. It got on my nerves after a while
'earing 'im being bumped on the floor every minute, or flung with 'is
'ead into the fire-place. But 'e always said it was doing 'im good.
'E'd argue that it freshened up 'is liver. It was 'is liver that 'e
seemed to live for--didn't appear to 'ave any other interest in life.
It was the same with 'is food. One year it would be nothing but
meat, and next door to raw at that. One of them medical papers 'ad
suddenly discovered that we were intended to be a sort of wild beast.
The wonder to me is that 'e didn't go out 'unting chickens with a
club, and bring 'em 'ome and eat 'em on the mat without any further
fuss. For drink it would be boiling water that burnt my fingers
merely 'andling the glass. Then some other crank came out with the
information that every other crank was wrong--which, taken by itself,
sounds natural enough--that meat was fatal to the 'uman system. Upon
that 'e becomes all at once a raging, tearing vegetarian, and trouble
enough I 'ad learning twenty different ways of cooking beans, which
didn't make, so far as I could ever see, the slightest difference--
beans they were, and beans they tasted like, whether you called them
ragout a la maison, or cutlets a la Pompadour. But it seemed to
please 'im.

[He was never pig-headed.]

"Then vegetarianism turned out to be the mistake of our lives. It
seemed we made an error giving up monkeys' food. That was our
natural victuals; nuts with occasional bananas. As I used to tell
'im, if that was so, then for all we 'ad got out of it we might just
as well have stopped up a tree--saved rent and shoe leather. But 'e
was one of that sort that don't seem able to 'elp believing
everything they read in print. If one of those papers 'ad told 'im
to live on the shells and throw away the nuts, 'e'd have made a
conscientious endeavour to do so, contending that 'is failure to
digest them was merely the result of vicious training--didn't seem to
'ave any likes or dislikes of 'is own. You might 'ave thought 'e was
just a bit of public property made to be experimented upon.

"One of the daily papers interviewed an old gent, as said 'e was a
'undred, and I will say from 'is picture as any'ow 'e looked it. 'E
said it was all the result of never 'aving swallowed anything 'ot,
upon which my gentleman for a week lives on cold porridge, if you'll
believe me; although myself I'd rather 'ave died at fifty and got it
over. Then another paper dug up from somewhere a sort of animated
corpse that said was a 'undred and two, and attributed the
unfortunate fact to 'is always 'aving 'ad 'is food as 'ot as 'e could
swallow it. A bit of sense did begin to dawn upon 'im then, but too
late in the day, I take it. 'E'd played about with 'imself too long.
'E died at thirty-two, looking to all appearance sixty, and you can't
say as 'ow it was the result of not taking advice."

[Only just in time.]

"On this subject of health we are much too ready to follow advice," I
agreed. "A cousin of mine, Mrs. Wilkins, had a wife who suffered
occasionally from headache. No medicine relieved her of them--not
altogether. And one day by chance she met a friend who said: 'Come
straight with me to Dr. Blank,' who happened to be a specialist
famous for having invented a new disease that nobody until the year
before had ever heard of. She accompanied her friend to Dr. Blank,
and in less than ten minutes he had persuaded her that she had got
this new disease, and got it badly; and that her only chance was to
let him cut her open and have it out. She was a tolerably healthy
woman, with the exception of these occasional headaches, but from
what that specialist said it was doubtful whether she would get home
alive, unless she let him operate on her then and there, and her
friend, who appeared delighted, urged her not to commit suicide, as
it were, by missing her turn.

"The result was she consented, and afterwards went home in a four-
wheeled cab, and put herself to bed. Her husband, when he returned
in the evening and was told, was furious. He said it was all humbug,
and by this time she was ready to agree with him. He put on his hat,
and started to give that specialist a bit of his mind. The
specialist was out, and he had to bottle up his rage until the
morning. By then, his wife now really ill for the first time in her
life, his indignation had reached boiling point. He was at that
specialist's door at half-past nine o clock. At half-past eleven he
came back, also in a four-wheeled cab, and day and night nurses for
both of them were wired for. He also, it appeared, had arrived at
that specialist's door only just in time.

"There's this appendy--whatever they call it," commented Mrs.
Wilkins, "why a dozen years ago one poor creature out of ten thousand
may possibly 'ave 'ad something wrong with 'is innards. To-day you
ain't 'ardly considered respectable unless you've got it, or 'ave 'ad
it. I 'ave no patience with their talk. To listen to some of them
you'd think as Nature 'adn't made a man--not yet: would never
understand the principle of the thing till some of these young chaps
'ad shown 'er 'ow to do it."

[How to avoid Everything.]

"They have now discovered, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "the germ of old
age. They are going to inoculate us for it in early youth, with the
result that the only chance of ever getting rid of our friends will
be to give them a motor-car. And maybe it will not do to trust to
that for long. They will discover that some men's tendency towards
getting themselves into trouble is due to some sort of a germ. The
man of the future, Mrs. Wilkins, will be inoculated against all
chance of gas explosions, storms at sea, bad oysters, and thin ice.
Science may eventually discover the germ prompting to ill-assorted
marriages, proneness to invest in the wrong stock, uncontrollable
desire to recite poetry at evening parties. Religion, politics,
education--all these things are so much wasted energy. To live happy
and good for ever and ever, all we have to do is to hunt out these
various germs and wring their necks for them--or whatever the proper
treatment may be. Heaven, I gather from medical science, is merely a
place that is free from germs."

"We talk a lot about it," thought Mrs. Wilkins, "but it does not seem
to me that we are very much better off than before we took to
worrying ourselves for twenty-four 'ours a day about 'ow we are going
to live. Lord! to read the advertisements in the papers you would
think as 'ow flesh and blood was never intended to 'ave any natural
ills. 'Do you ever 'ave a pain in your back?' because, if so,
there's a picture of a kind gent who's willing for one and sixpence
halfpenny to take it quite away from you--make you look forward to
scrubbing floors, and standing over the wash-tub six 'ours at a
stretch like to a beanfeast. 'Do you ever feel as though you don't
want to get out of bed in the morning?' that's all to be cured by a
bottle of their stuff--or two at the outside. Four children to keep,
and a sick 'usband on your 'ands used to get me over it when I was
younger. I used to fancy it was just because I was tired.

[The one Cure-All.]

"There's some of them seem to think," continued Mrs. Wilkins, "that
if you don't get all you want out of this world, and ain't so 'appy
as you've persuaded yourself you ought to be, that it's all because
you ain't taking the right medicine. Appears to me there's only one
doctor as can do for you, all the others talk as though they could,
and 'e only comes to each of us once, and then 'e makes no charge."

CHAPTER XIV

[Europe and the bright American Girl.]

"How does she do it?"

That is what the European girl wants to know. The American girl!
She comes over here, and, as a British matron, reduced to slang by
force of indignation, once exclaimed to me: "You'd think the whole
blessed show belonged to her." The European girl is hampered by her
relatives. She has to account for her father: to explain away, if
possible, her grandfather. The American girl sweeps them aside:

"Don't you worry about them," she says to the Lord Chamberlain.
"It's awfully good of you, but don't you fuss yourself. I'm looking
after my old people. That's my department. What I want you to do is
just to listen to what I am saying and then hustle around. I can
fill up your time all right by myself."

Her father may be a soap-boiler, her grandmother may have gone out
charing.

"That's all right," she says to her Ambassador: "They're not coming.
You just take my card and tell the King that when he's got a few
minutes to spare I'll be pleased to see him."

And the extraordinary thing is that, a day or two afterwards, the
invitation arrives.

A modern writer has said that "I'm Murrican" is the Civis Romanus sum
of the present-day woman's world. The late King of Saxony, did, I
believe, on one occasion make a feeble protest at being asked to
receive the daughter of a retail bootmaker. The young lady,
nonplussed for the moment, telegraphed to her father in Detroit. The
answer came back next morning: "Can't call it selling--practically
giving them away. See Advertisement." The lady was presented as the
daughter of an eminent philanthropist.

It is due to her to admit that, taking her as a class, the American
girl is a distinct gain to European Society. Her influence is
against convention and in favour of simplicity. One of her greatest
charms, in the eyes of the European man, is that she listens to him.
I cannot say whether it does her any good. Maybe she does not
remember it all, but while you are talking she does give you her
attention. The English woman does not always. She greets you
pleasantly enough:

"I've so often wanted to meet you," she says, "must you really go?"

It strikes you as sudden: you had no intention of going for hours.
But the hint is too plain to be ignored. You are preparing to agree
that you really must when, looking round, you gather that the last
remark was not addressed to you, but to another gentleman who is
shaking hands with her:

"Now, perhaps we shall be able to talk for five minutes," she says.
"I've so often wanted to say that I shall never forgive you. You
have been simply horrid."

Again you are confused, until you jump to the conclusion that the
latter portion of the speech is probably intended for quite another
party with whom, at the moment, her back towards you, she is engaged
in a whispered conversation. When he is gone she turns again to you.
But the varied expressions that pass across her face while you are
discussing with her the disadvantages of Protection, bewilder you.
When, explaining your own difficulty in arriving at a conclusion, you
remark that Great Britain is an island, she roguishly shakes her
head. It is not that she has forgotten her geography, it is that she
is conducting a conversation by signs with a lady at the other end of
the room. When you observe that the working classes must be fed, she
smiles archly while murmuring:

"Oh, do you really think so?"

You are about to say something strong on the subject of dumping.
Apparently she has disappeared. You find that she is reaching round
behind you to tap a new arrival with her fan.

[She has the Art of Listening.]

Now, the American girl looks at you, and just listens to you with her
eyes fixed on you all the time. You gather that, as far as she is
concerned, the rest of the company are passing shadows. She wants to
hear what you have to say about Bi-metallism: her trouble is lest
she may miss a word of it. From a talk with an American girl one
comes away with the conviction that one is a brilliant
conversationalist, who can hold a charming woman spell-bound. This
may not be good for one: but while it lasts, the sensation is
pleasant.

Even the American girl cannot, on all occasions, sweep from her path
the cobwebs of old-world etiquette. Two American ladies told me a
sad tale of things that had happened to them not long ago in Dresden.
An officer of rank and standing invited them to breakfast with him on
the ice. Dames and nobles of the plus haut ton would be there. It
is a social function that occurs every Sunday morning in Dresden
during the skating season. The great lake in the Grosser Garten is
covered with all sorts and conditions of people. Prince and commoner
circle and recircle round one another. But they do not mix. The
girls were pleased. They secured the services of an elderly lady,
the widow of an analytical chemist: unfortunately, she could not
skate. They wrapped her up and put her in a sledge. While they were
in the garde robe putting on their skates, a German gentleman came up
and bowed to them.

He was a nice young man of prepossessing appearance and amiable
manners. They could not call to mind his name, but remembered having
met him, somewhere, and on more than one occasion. The American girl
is always sociable: they bowed and smiled, and said it was a fine
day. He replied with volubility, and helped them down on to the ice.
He was really most attentive. They saw their friend, the officer of
noble family, and, with the assistance of the German gentleman,
skated towards him. He glided past them. They thought that maybe he
did not know enough to stop, so they turned and skated after him.
They chased him three times round the pond and then, feeling tired,
eased up and took counsel together.

"I'm sure he must have seen us," said the younger girl. "What does
he mean by it?"

"Well, I have not come down here to play forfeits," said the other,
"added to which I want my breakfast. You wait here a minute, I'll go
and have it out with him."

He was standing only a dozen yards away. Alone, though not a good
performer on the ice, she contrived to cover half the distance
dividing them. The officer, perceiving her, came to her assistance
and greeted her with effusion.

[The Republican Idea in practice.]

"Oh," said the lady, who was feeling indignant, "I thought maybe you
had left your glasses at home."

"I am sorry," said the officer, "but it is impossible."

"What's impossible?" demanded the lady.

"That I can be seen speaking to you," declared the officer, "while
you are in company with that--that person."

"What person?" She thought maybe he was alluding to the lady in the
sledge. The chaperon was not showy, but, what is better, she was
good. And, anyhow, it was the best the girls had been able to do.
So far as they were concerned, they had no use for a chaperon. The
idea had been a thoughtful concession to European prejudice.

"The person in knickerbockers," explained the officer.

"Oh, THAT," exclaimed the lady, relieved: "he just came up and made
himself agreeable while we were putting on our skates. We have met
him somewhere, but I can't exactly fix him for the moment."

"You have met him possibly at Wiesman's, in the Pragerstrasse: he is
one of the attendants there," said the officer.

The American girl is Republican in her ideas, but she draws the line
at hairdressers. In theory it is absurd: the hairdresser is a man
and a brother: but we are none of us logical all the way. It made
her mad, the thought that she had been seen by all Dresden Society
skating with a hairdresser.

"Well," she said, "I do call that impudence. Why, they wouldn't do
that even in Chicago."

And she returned to where the hairdresser was illustrating to her
friend the Dutch roll, determined to explain to him, as politely as
possible, that although the free and enlightened Westerner has
abolished social distinctions, he has not yet abolished them to that
extent.

Had he been a commonplace German hairdresser he would have understood
English, and all might have been easy. But to the "classy" German
hairdresser, English is not so necessary, and the American ladies had
reached, as regards their German, only the "improving" stage. In her
excitement she confused the subjunctive and the imperative, and told
him that he "might" go. He had no wish to go; he assured them--so
they gathered--that his intention was to devote the morning to their
service. He must have been a stupid man, but it is a type
occasionally encountered. Two pretty women had greeted his advances
with apparent delight. They were Americans, and the American girl
was notoriously unconventional. He knew himself to be a good-looking
young fellow. It did not occur to him that in expressing willingness
to dispense with his attendance they could be in earnest.

There was nothing for it, so it seemed to the girls, but to request
the assistance of the officer, who continued to skate round and round
them at a distance of about ten yards. So again the elder young
lady, seizing her opportunity, made appeal.

[What the Soldier dared not do.]

"I cannot," persisted the officer, who, having been looking forward
to a morning with two of the prettiest girls in Dresden, was also
feeling mad. "I dare not be seen speaking to a hairdresser. You
must get rid of him."

"But we can't," said the girl. "We do not know enough German, and he
can't, or he won't, understand us. For goodness sake come and help
us. We'll be spending the whole morning with him if you don't."

The German officer said he was desolate. Steps would be taken--later
in the week--the result of which would probably be to render that
young hairdresser prematurely bald. But, meanwhile, beyond skating
round and round them, for which they did not even feel they wanted to
thank him, the German officer could do nothing for them. They tried
being rude to the hairdresser: he mistook it for American chic.
They tried joining hands and running away from him, but they were not
good skaters, and he thought they were trying to show him the cake
walk. They both fell down and hurt themselves, and it is difficult
to be angry with a man, even a hairdresser, when he is doing his best
to pick you up and comfort you.

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