Part 10

The right bank of the river was lined with motors, while the path through the meadows on the opposite side was crowded with those who had come from town on buses and trams, and were now running along the bank, seeking the best places from which to view the struggle. But how a race could be rowed on that river was more than I could guess. One could not have moved a skiff through the mass of boats which crowded it from bank to bank. Yet nothing was done to clear the course. I feared a foul. But just before the time for starting, a little motor-boat shot out from the bank, and without any blowing of whistles or shouting or confusion of any sort, but apparently in answer to the simple request of the official standing in the bow of the launch, boats and punts disappeared, as if by magic, and in a twinkling the course was clear! I thought with shame of what would be seen at home in like conditions--the noise and bullying, on the one hand, and the overflowing of the course as soon as the backs of the police were turned! But this was a striking exhibition at once of the law-abiding spirit of the English and the equal respect of individual rights. For, as I have said, the liberty of the individual was respected up to the last moment, and then the crowd willingly conceded the rights of the community.

Half New York seemed to be there, and one heard the shrill voices of our charming compatriots as the word was passed along: "They are off!"

The betting was in favor of the English crew, and when the boats appeared around the bend of the river, it was easy to see why it should have been.

Harvard had the outside--slightly longer--course, but even so, it was evident that they were outclassed. Better form I never saw than Harvard showed. The men moved like a machine. There was no splashing and no sound was heard as the boat swept by. Not so Cambridge: the water was churned as if with a screw, and there was much shouting. It may have been only the voice of the coxswain, but I thought I distinguished several voices, but the boat _moved_, or, rather, it seemed to leap, after each stroke, while the Harvard shell seemed to settle and wait after each stroke for the next. Just as they passed us Harvard spurted, and a gallant effort it was, but too late, and Cambridge shot under the Mortlake bridge, nearly two lengths ahead. Then I heard what I had never heard before--and what I suppose cannot be heard out of England--the roar of a great multitude. Our college yells seemed thin in comparison--the silence settled down, and the river was filled again with the little boats, which had scuttled to the banks to let the racers go by.

We went on our way wondering why it was that no amateur American crew had ever beaten an English one in a four-mile race. When the car was blocked by a mass of motors a little distance above the bridge, a punt floated slowly by, and a nice-looking lad called out to me: "Which won?" It never occurred to me that he, less than a mile from the finish, did not know the result, when crowds were at that moment reading the bulletins in Times Square and men were discussing it in the clubs in Hong Kong.

So, thinking he was "pulling my leg," I answered "Harvard."

"Hard luck," was all he said, as his punt slipped quickly by.

I was therefore considerably startled when a man in the car next ours remarked, in an indignant tone:

"You had no right to say that. You know it is not true!"

"Why," I replied, "so did he."

"Not at all, or he would not have asked."

"Well, I am sorry; I supposed he was poking fun at me."

But this only made matters worse. For he now shouted:

"You had no right to assume that. The lad was evidently a gentleman and would not have been guilty of such an unsportsmanlike thing."

By this time I felt as if I had poisoned the favorite for the Derby, and in desperation said:

"Well, after all, no great harm was done."

"That is more than you know," replied this uncompromising individual; "he may have had something on it!"

Now I felt as if I had picked the lad's pocket, and did what any pickpocket would do, escaped as soon as possible!

We drove to Maidenhead for tea and had the good luck to find there the Siegels. I don't think you know them. He is one of the so-called "Pittsburgh crowd"--inventor of a patent car-seat or something of the sort--and has made a mint of money. I have been told that in Pittsburgh he is called "Chilled Steel"! Well, he is anything but that when one meets him away from business. He overflows with kindness and fun.

After cordial greetings I told him of my experience on the towing-path, and he was greatly amused.

"But," he said, with mock solemnity, "you ought to have known better than to monkey with sport in England. It is their religion. It was like crying 'To Hell with the Pope' on St. Patrick's Day."

I said it was too bad Harvard was beaten.

"What did you expect?" he asked, and then: "Did you have much on it?"

"Nothing but interest," I replied.

"That's where you are ahead of me," he said. "I had some capital on it!"

"Did you expect Harvard to win?"

"Who, I? Not in a thousand years; but just to cheer the boys up a bit I put a few pounds on them. Well, it's all gone, but I guess I'll charge it up to the 'Charity Fund,' and so have a few coppers left for a cigar after dinner."

"No," he said, speaking seriously for a moment, "I went down to the Harvard quarters yesterday to see Tom Burch's son, who is in the crew, and, say, I hadn't been there five minutes when all the 'pep' began to ooze out of me. Those boys have been training for three weeks in this muggy climate, and it has sapped 'em. I don't say they could have won, anyway, for I understand that that Cambridge bunch is a hard proposition--one of the best crews they have turned out in years--but they might just as well have given our boys a dose of bromide every morning before breakfast as to train them in the Thames valley. If I had the handling of a crew over here, I'd put them on the river the day before the race, so as to learn their way through this winding creek they call a river, and the next day I'd call the race, while those boys still had some U.S. ozone in them. Well, it's all in the family," he continued, "and it will serve as a set-off to the cup races and the polo games, and as long as it was not a German crew that won, I don't much care." I saw by the twitching of his lips that there was a story coming, and was not disappointed. But it is too long for this letter, and so will have to be given in my next.

XXVII

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE

"Mr. Siegel," I said, when tea was finished and we had lighted his cigars, "I thought you were 'German.'"

"You did, hey? Well, I'm German the same way you are English! My grandfather was a _real_ German, but they ran him out in '48, and he went over with Schurz and the rest of that band, and if you can find better Americans than their descendants, I do not know where they are. The German of to-day is another creature, and I want nothing to do with him. Those people are the limit; '_verboten_' this and '_verboten_' that, till a man doesn't dare do anything without asking the policeman if he may. Women have to stand in the gutter till an officer goes by. Why, when we were in Berlin one of them would have run Maria through with his sword if I hadn't told him I was a friend of the Kaiser."

"Jim," exclaimed Mrs. Siegel, "how you do talk! You know he never touched me, and you never spoke to the Kaiser!"

"Well, _he_ didn't know it! And moreover, as I am a friend of Carnegie--now that he has gone out of business--and had on a good suit of clothes, and so looked as if I could lend money to his boss, he believed it was true, and so let you live. Oh, I can manage the army all right, it is the custom-house officer who 'gets my goat.' I understand how to deal with the American breed, but I am helpless with those fellows. However, I have got things fixed now, so that if we ever have to go back there, it will not be as bad as it was at Frankfort."

"What happened at Frankfort?" I asked.

"Well, I'll tell you. My doctor at home wanted to go to Canada for the fishing, and fearing a competitor would get his business away from him, told me to go to Carlsbad and get a good soak. When I had finished with the prune pure, the veal and the water, I started for Frankfort to meet Maria, who had been at St. Moritz. She had the usual twenty-one trunks, and I asked for the keys and began to open them--getting one key in five right, accusing the French maid of having lost some of them, and getting the usual French change in reply.

"Well, sir, if a man is looking for a sweat he has no need to go to Carlsbad, let him try to open his wife's trunks while a German pig in uniform looks on! When you tell him you can't find one key, but it is the one for the soiled-clothes bag, and he says that is the one he most wants to see, you are 'up against it.'

"I should have had a fit in a few minutes, I believe, if I had not caught sight of Charlie Wilson at the other end of the shed, trying to get his wife's trunks open. But he was not showing the same patience and dignity as I was. His language was something awful. He first told the maid he had given her the key to the hat-box, and she said he hadn't. Then he said he had given it to his wife, and _she_ said he hadn't, so I knew he must be badly rattled. When a man begins to change his lies it's a sure sign he has lost his nerve. Mrs. Wilson began to cry, and _her_ pig laughed. So just to cheer them up a bit I called out: 'Hello, Charlie, I thought you were down at your place on Long Island.' Then I thought _Charlie_ was going to cry! He wiped the sweat off his face and, coming over to me, said:

"Jim, this is something fierce! I have a perfectly good home where we can have chowder three times a day, if we want it, and a swim in the surf every evening, and things to drink that are not made out of hair-oil, and I left it all and came over here because that ---- doctor told me to go to Homberg!'

"Well, we finally got all the trunks open, and as they found nothing they could fine me for, we were allowed to drive to the hotel. Mrs. Wilson was still dabbling her eyes with a bit of lace that one tear would have made a sop, and Maria said she was worn out, and was going to bed, and Charlie said he must have a drink, and so I told his wife I would go with him, and see that he did not take two!

"When this had been done I went to my room, took off my coat and collar, and sat down to wrestle with the problem of trunks. After a while it came to me, and I rang for the porter. He came, in his field-marshal's uniform, and said, 'Bitter?' and I said, 'Very bitter,' and then asked him if he could speak the English language? He said he could speak all languages. I guess that was right, but it would have been better if he had spoken one at a time! However, he finally got it into his head that I wanted a locksmith, and said he thought he could get one that evening or the next morning.

"I said: 'My friend, you listen to me: every minute you delay takes off a mark from what is coming to you when I leave, so you can calculate how much will be owing me if you don't get a move on.'

"Well, that got under his skin, and before long he returned with a man in a green apron, who, he said, was a locksmith.

"I explained to the porter that I wanted the locks taken off every trunk, and twenty-one new locks put on, which one key would fit. It took him some time to understand that I did not want twenty-one keys and one lock, but when he did, he translated it into one of his five branches of languages. The man in the green apron began to run around in circles and said there were not twenty-one locks alike in Frankfort. I asked where they could be gotten, and Green Apron said only at the factory.

"Well, where was that?

"In Munich or near there. If he wrote he might be able to get them in a week.

"I asked if his health did not permit him to travel.

"When he got that, he was instructed to take the first train to Munich and get those locks, bring them back and have them on the trunks by noon the next day. It was Maria's birthday, and I wanted to give her a surprise.

"Well, sir, it was done, and now life is easy. The only drawback was that there were no more German custom-houses for us to pass through, and so no more officers who wanted to see how many pieces we had in the wash, for we shipped our baggage 'in bond' and when we reached England the officer said: 'If you will open that one, it will be all that I shall require,' and when I offered him what would be expected at home, he declined it! However, I shall have some fun at home when we get on the dock where the officers loaf while distracted passengers hunt for keys.

"The porter got his tip, but whether it was not as much as he had expected, or whether he thought I had not shown proper respect for the field-marshal's uniform, or for some other reason, he did not seem grateful and said something about tags. I told him I didn't need any, as I had had mine printed before we left home.

"Maria says that I did not understand, that the Germans are expecting a sort of Day of Judgment, and that Tag means Day. Well, if it comes while I'm still here, I'm willing to take what's coming to me if sentence can be suspended till I see some of those army and custom-house officers get theirs. I worked in the rolling-mills, when I was young, and I guess I can stand it better than some!"

"Jim," said Mrs. Siegel, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself, talking that way before Mr. Dobson."

"I guess that's right, mother, but Dobson dresses and talks and acts so like a man that I keep forgetting that he is a preacher."

As we drove away toward Windsor I said to Ruth: "Is he not typical of hundreds we know, and, in spite of their roughness, what a power they are in the land!"

But Ruth had not found him so amusing as I did. She said that she found that continuous exaggeration, which is supposed to be the essence of American humor, rather tiring, and added:

"I do not deny his good spirit and kindliness, but underneath there seems to be a kind of hardness in men of his sort that frightens me. Your neighbor of this afternoon who rebuked you, was unquestionably lacking in a sense of humor--or at any rate in the kind we are used to--but he was a finer type than this man, and I cannot help feeling that the man who has an awful sense of truth is a greater national asset than the man we have just left."

When Ruth takes that tone I do not dare to answer, but I may say to you that I do not think she does these men justice. If "Der Tag" ever comes--and in my opinion it will not come--I think all this talk is just _fluff_--still, if it should come, I believe these reckless talkers, but shrewd--well, perhaps also hard--men will give to the nation all the shrewdness and all the energy which went into the upbuilding of their business, and yet will keep on laughing at the world, and at themselves, too, all the time!

XXVIII

THE "ROB" ROOM

I asked John if he was writing to you and he grinned and said perhaps I had better write. The fact is, he has not been behaving very well, and is, I suspect, rather ashamed of himself--at least, I hope he is!

We came to Windsor and put up at what John insisted upon calling the "Purple Sow," though it is really the "White Heifer."

The next morning we went to St. George's Chapel, which seemed to me the most beautiful church I had ever seen, and where the music would have filled your heart with joy. By some ill chance, it was one of the days when they sing the Athanasian Creed, and, to my horror, John refused to stand up! He said it was "blasphemous," and I felt like asking, like the man at Barchester: "If you once begin, where will you end?" But thought it best to let him alone.

The same afternoon we were shown over the castle with a horde of sightseers. John was perfectly quiet until we came to the room in which the trophies are displayed. As we were standing before one of the glass cases in which are splendid swords and cups of gold and jewels from India and China, and "the uttermost parts of the sea"--a record of the least admirable page in English history--John, I could see by the expression of his face, was _thinking_. I could only hope he would not "start" anything! But he is like Benny Joyce, who, when he was asked in Sunday School if he had any faults, replied that he thought he could say he was without any, except when his brother Tony provoked him!

Well, John's "brother Tony" was near at hand, in the person of the typical English shop-keeper.

Turning to John, he said, in a tone half-ashamed and half-exultant:

"I say, we have collared a lot of things, have we not?"

"Yes," replied John, "that is why it is called the 'Rob' room!"

I must say, while I wished he had said nothing, I do think this was awfully quick!

The man looked puzzled for a moment, and then replied: "I suppose you mean the Robe Room." But as he received no answer he evidently thought it over, and then burst out with:

"Oh, I say! That's awfully good. I see, 'Rob' room! Would you mind if I told that to my wife?"

John grimly remarked that he would be delighted. So he trotted off to the other side of the room and began talking with evident glee to a woman with a most uncompromising face. Apparently her reaction was not what he had expected, and his countenance fell. He returned to John, and in a most truculent tone, remarked:

"You are an American, aren't you?"

To which John, in an equally aggressive tone answered: "I thank God I am."

"I thought so," he replied. "And, if you don't mind my saying so, my wife thinks, and I quite agree with her, that your remark was a most objectionable one."

Did you ever hear of anything more absurd? I am glad to say John had the good sense not to make a scene. So we withdrew--but not with the honors of war! Do you wonder he does not feel like writing to you?

We had intended going west from here and resuming our interrupted journey, but a letter from Lady Groves, who is a friend of Maud's, asking us to spend the night with them at their place, near Reading, delayed us again.

We did not arrive this time for tea as there was something the matter with the car--ignition trouble, I believe--but fortunately it was put right in time for us to reach our destination for dinner.

How can one express the charm of a welcome to an English house? These people, who seem so "standoffish," when one does not know them, expand into the most winning cordiality when they receive one into their own homes. So that one feels that an "Englishman's house is not alone his castle, but also a hospice!"

The bedroom, to which I was shown, called the "Bird" room, because of the pattern of the paper and the chintz, was filled with real "Sheriton," which had never even heard of Grand Rapids! There was a dressing-room for John, equally attractive, but more "manly."

John, as usual, declined to give up his keys to the footman, and threw his things around everywhere, in what looked like hopeless confusion, but in a way which, as he said, enables him to "find things."

There were but two guests besides ourselves at dinner, a Mr. and Miss Buckthorne. Sir William took me in and Mr. Buckthorne Lady Groves, so Miss Buckthorne fell to John.

It seems the Buckthornes had one of the finest private collections of "Sir Joshua's" in England, but they are "land-poor" and so have been obliged to sell most of them. I thought it might interest Miss Buckthorne to hear about one of them, which Mr. Frazer bought, and began to explain how it was hung in his new gallery.

Perhaps it was not tactful to speak of it at all, at any rate she was not in the least interested, and from her manner I thought John was not likely to have a good time.

Her brother, on the other hand, was a most interesting person, so much so that I listened so intently to his conversation that I forgot all about John and his partner. When, however, I did look at him, I found that there was an ominous silence on his side of the table. When we went upstairs I inquired how he had enjoyed himself. He was delighted with his host and hostess, and said that he found Mr. Buckthorne one of the best-informed men he had ever talked with, but rudely remarked that "she," meaning, I gathered, Miss Buckthorne, "was the limit."

I said: "I noticed you did not have much to say to one another."

"I had plenty to say to her," he growled, "but after the first course she never spoke to me."

"Oh, John," I said, "tell me just what happened."

"Well," he said, looking rather sheepish, "we did not hit it off."

"I hope you did not criticise England?"