Europe Revised Part 9

"'Ave them off, please, sir," he said resignedly. "I'll 'ave to alter them to conform, sir. Come back to-morrow."

I had them off and he altered them to conform, and I went back on the morrow; in fact I went back so often that after a while I became really quite attached to the place. I felt almost like a member of the firm.

Between calls from me the cutter worked on those breeches. He cut them up and he cut them down; he sheared the back away and shingled the front, and shifted the b.u.t.tons to and fro.

Still, even after all this, they were not what I should term an unqualified success. When I sat down in them they seemed to climb up on me so high, fore and aft, that I felt as short-waisted as a crush hat in a state of repose. And the only way I could get my hands into the hip pockets of those breeches was to take the breeches off first. As ear m.u.f.fs they were fair but as hip pockets they were failures. Finally I told him to send my breeches, just as they were, to my hotel address--and I paid the bill.

I brought them home with me. On the day after my arrival I took them to my regular tailor and laid the case before him. I tried them on for him and asked him to tell me, as man to man, whether anything could be done to make those garments habitable. He called his cutter into consultation and they went over me carefully, meantime uttering those commiserating clucking sounds one tailor always utters when examining another tailor's handiwork. After this my tailor took a lump of chalk and charted out a kind of Queen Rosamond's maze of crossmarks on my breeches and said I might leave them, and that if surgery could save them he would operate.

At any rate he guaranteed to cut them away sufficiently to admit of my breast bone coming out into the open once more.

In a week--about--he called me on the telephone and broke the sad news to me. My English riding pants would never ride me again. In using the shears he had made a fatal slip and had irreparably damaged them in an essential location. However, he said I need not worry, because it might have been worse; from what he had already cut out of them he had garnered enough material to make me a neat outing coat, and by scrimping he thought he might get a waistcoat to match.

I have my English raincoat; it is still in a virgin state so far as wearing it is concerned. I may yet wear it and I may not. If I wear it and you meet me on the street--and we are strangers--you should experience no great difficulty in recognizing me. Just start in at almost any spot on the outer orbit and walk round and round as though you were circling a sideshow tent looking for a chance to crawl under the canvas and see the curiosities for nothing; and after a while, if you keep on walking as directed, you will come to a person with a plain but substantial face, and that will be me in my new English raincoat.

Then again I may wear it to a fancy-dress ball sometime. In that case I shall stencil Pike's Peak or Bust! on the sidebreadth and go as a prairie schooner. If I can succeed in training a Missouri hound-dog to trail along immediately behind me the illusion will be perfect.

After these two experiences with the English tailor I gave up. Instead of trying to wear the apparel of the foreigner I set myself to the study of it. I would avoid falling into the habit of making comparisons between European inst.i.tutions and American inst.i.tutions that are forever favorable to the American side of the argument. To my way of thinking there is only one cla.s.s of tourist-Americans to be encountered abroad worse than the cla.s.s who go into hysterical rapture over everything they see merely because it is European, and that is the cla.s.s who condemn offhand everything they see and find fault with everything merely because it is not American. But I must say that in the matter of outer habiliments the American man wins the decision on points nearly every whack.

In his evening garb, which generally fits him, but which generally is not pressed as to trouserlegs and coatsleeves, the Englishman makes an exceedingly good appearance. The swallow-tailed coat was created for the Englishman and he for it; but on all other occasions the well-dressed American leads him--leads the world, for that matter. When a Frenchman attires himself in his fanciest regalia he merely succeeds in looking effeminate; whereas a German, under similar circ.u.mstances, bears a wadded-in, bulged-out, stuffed-up appearance. I never saw a German in Germany whose hat was not too small for him--just as I never saw a j.a.panese in Occidental garb whose hat was not too large for him--if it was a derby hat. If a German has on a pair of trousers that flare out at the bottom and a coat with angel sleeves--I think that is the correct technical term--and if the front of his coat is spangled over with the largest-sized horn b.u.t.tons obtainable he regards himself as being dressed to the minute.

As for the women, I believe even the super-critical mantuamakers of Paris have begun to concede that, as a nation, the American women are the best-dressed women on earth. The French women have a way of arranging their hair and of wearing their hats and of draping their furs about their throats that is artistic beyond comparison. There may be a word in some folks' dictionaries fitly to describe it--there is no such word in mine; but when you have said that much you have said all there is to say. A French woman's feet are not shod well. French shoes, like all European shoes, are clumsy and awkward looking.

English children are well dressed because they are simply dressed; and the children themselves, in contrast to the overdressed, overly aggressive youngsters so frequently encountered in America, are mannerly and self-effacing, and have sane, simple, childish tastes. Young English girls are fresh and natural, but frequently frumpy; and the English married woman is generally dressed in poor taste and appears to have a most limited wardrobe. Apparently the husband buys all he wants, and then, if there is any money left over, the wife gets it to spend on herself.

Venturing one morning into a London chapel I saw a dowdy little woman of this type kneeling in a pew, chanting the responses to the service. Her blouse gaped open all the way down her back and she was saying with much fervor, "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done."

She had too, but she didn't know it, as she knelt there unconsciously supplying a personal ill.u.s.tration for the spoken line.

The typical highborn English woman has pale blue eyes, a fine complexion and a clear-cut, rather expressionless face with a profile suggestive of the portraits seen on English postage stamps of the early Victorian period; but in the arranging of her hair any French shopgirl could give her lessons, and any smart American woman could teach her a lot about the knack of wearing clothes with distinction.

In England, that land of caste which is rigid enough to be cast iron, all men, with the exception of petty tradespeople, dress to match the vocations they follow. In America no man stays put--he either goes forward to a circle above the one into which he was born or he slips back into a lower one; and so he dresses to suit himself or his wife or his tailor. But in England the professional man advertises his calling by his clothes. Extreme stage types are ordinary types in London.

No Southern silver-tongued orator of the old-time, string-tied, slouch-hatted, long-haired variety ever clung more closely to his official makeup than the English barrister clings to his spats, his shad-bellied coat and his eye-gla.s.s dangling on a cord. At a glance one knows the medical man or the journalist, the military man in undress or the gentleman farmer; also, by the same easy method, one may know the workingman and the penny postman. The workingman has a cap on his head and a neckerchief about his throat, and the legs of his corduroy trousers are tied up below the knees with strings--else he is no workingman.

When we were in London the postmen were threatening to go on strike.

From the papers I gathered that the points in dispute had to do with better hours and better pay; but if they had been striking against having to wear the kind of cap the British Government makes a postman wear, their cause would have had the cordial support and intense sympathy of every American in town.

It remains for the English clerk to be the only Englishman who seeks, by the clothes he wears in his hours of ease, to appear as something more than what he really is. Off duty he fair1y dotes on the high hat of commerce. Frequently he sports it in connection with an exceedingly short and bobby sackcoat, and trousers that are four or five inches too short in the legs for him. The Parisian shopman harbors similar ambitions--only he expresses them with more attention to detail. The noon hour arriving, the French shophand doffs his ap.r.o.n and his air of deference. He puts on a high hat and a frock coat that have been on a peg behind the door all the morning, gathers up his cane and his gloves; and, becoming on the instant a swagger and a swaggering boulevardier, he saunters to his favorite sidewalk cafe for a cordial gla.s.sful of a pink or green or purple drink. When his little hour of glory is over and done with he returns to his counter, sheds his grandeur and is once more your humble and ingratiating servitor.

In residential London on a Sunday afternoon one beholds some weird and wonderful costumes. On a Sunday afternoon in a sub-suburb of a Kensington suburb I saw, pa.s.sing through a drab, sad side street, a little c.o.c.kney man with the sketchy nose and unfinished features of his breed. He was presumably going to church, for he carried a large Testament under his arm. He wore, among other things, a pair of white spats, a long-tailed coat and a high hat. It was not a regular high hat, either, but one of those trick-performing hats which, on signal, will lie doggo or else sit up and beg. And he was riding a bicycle of an ancient vintage!

The most impressively got-up civilians in England--or in the world, either, for that matter--are the a.s.sistant managers and the deputy cashiers of the big London hotels. Compared with them the lilies of the field are as lilies in the bulb. Their collars are higher, their ties are more resplendent, their frock coats more floppy as to the tail and more flappy as to the lapel, than it is possible to imagine until you have seen it all with your own wondering eyes. They are haughty creatures, too, austere and full of a starchy dignity; but when you come to pay your bill you find at least one of them lined up with the valet and the waiter, the manservant and the maidservant, the ox and the a.s.s, hand out and palm open to get his tip. Having tipped him you depart feeling enn.o.bled and uplifted--as though you had conferred a purse of gold on a marquis.

Chapter XI

Dressed to Kill

With us it is the dress of the women that gives life and color to the shifting show of street life. In Europe it is the soldier, and in England the private soldier particularly. The German private soldier is too stiff, and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian private soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work--what with his d.i.n.ky cap tilted over one eye, and his red tunic that fits him without blemish or wrinkle, and his snappy little swagger stick flirting the air. As a picture of a first-cla.s.s fighting man I know of but one to match him, and that is a khaki-clad, service-hatted Yankee regular--long may he wave!

There may be something finer in the way of a military spectacle than the change of horse-guards at Whitehall or the march of the foot-guards across the green in St. James' Park on a fine, bright morning--but I do not know what it is. One day, pa.s.sing Buckingham Palace, I came on a footguard on duty in one of the little sentry boxes just outside the walls. He did not look as though he were alive. He looked as though he had been stuffed and mounted by a most expert taxidermist. From under his bearskin shako and from over his brazen chin-strap his face stared out unwinking and solemn and barren of thought.

I said to myself: "It is taking a long chance, but I shall ascertain whether this party has any human emotions." So I halted directly in front of him and began staring fixedly at his midriff as though I saw a b.u.t.ton unfastened there or a buckle disarranged. For a s.p.a.ce of minutes I kept my gaze on him without cessation.

Finally the situation grew painful; but it was not that British grenadier who grew embarra.s.sed and fidgety--it was the other party to the transaction. His gaze never shifted, his eyes never wavered--but I came away feeling all wriggly.

In no outward regard whatsoever do the soldiers on the Continent compare with the soldiers of the British archipelago. When he is not on actual duty the German private is always going somewhere in a great hurry with something belonging to his superior officer--usually a riding horse or a specially heavy valise. On duty and off he wears that woodenness of expression--or, rather, that wooden lack of expression--which is found nowhere in such flower of perfection as on the faces of German soldiers and German toys.

The Germans prove they have a sense of humor by requiring their soldiers to march on parade with the goose step; and the French prove they have none at all by incasing the defenseless legs of their soldiers in those foolish red-flannel pants that are manufactured in such profusion up at the Pantheon.

In the event of another war between the two nations I antic.i.p.ate a frightful mortality among pants--especially if the French forces should be retreating. The German soldier is not a particularly good marksman as marksmen go, but he would have to be the worst shot in the world to miss a pair of French pants that were going away from him at the time.

Still, when all is said and done, there is something essentially Frenchy about those red pants. There is something in their length that instinctively suggests Toulon, something in their breadth that makes you think of Toulouse. I realize that this joke, as it stands, is weak and imperfect. If there were only another French seaport called Toubagge I could round it out and improve it structurally.

If the English private soldier is the trimmest, the Austrian officer is the most beautiful to look on. An Austrian officer is gaudier than the door-opener of a London cafe or the porter of a Paris hotel. He achieves effects in gaudiness which even time Italian officer cannot equal.

The Italian officer is addicted to c.o.c.k feathers and horsetails on his helmet, to bits of yellow and blue let into his clothes, to tufts of red and green hung on him in unexpected and unaccountable spots. Either the design of bottled Italian chianti is modeled after the Italian officer or the Italian officer is modeled after the bottle of chianti--which, though, I am not prepared to say without further study of the subject.

But the Austrian officer is the walking sunset effect of creation. For color schemes I know of nothing in Nature to equal him except the Grand Canon of the Colorado. Circus parades are unknown in Austria--they are not missed either; after an Austrian officer a street parade would seem a colorless and commonplace thing. In his uniform he runs to striking contrasts--canary yellow, with light blue facings; silvers and grays; bright greens with scarlet slashings--and so on.

His collar is the very highest of all high collars and the heaviest with embroidery; his cloak is the longest and the widest; his boots the most varnished; his sword-belt the broadest and the shiniest; and the medals on his bosom are the most numerous and the most glittering. Alf Ringling and John Philip Sousa would take one look at him--and then, mutually filled with an envious despair, they would go apart and hold a grand lodge of sorrow together. Also, he constantly wears his spurs and his sword; he wears them even when he is in a cafe in the evening listening to the orchestra, drinking beer and allowing an admiring civilian to pay the check--and that apparently is every evening.

There was one Austrian colonel who came one night into a cafe in Vienna where we were and sat down at the table next to us; and he put our eyes right out and made all the lights dim and flickery. His epaulets were two hairbrushes of augmented size, gold-mounted; his Plimsoll marks were outlined in bullion, and along his garboard strake ran lines of gold braid; but strangest of all to observe was the locality where he wore what appeared to be his service stripes. Instead of being on his sleeves they were at the extreme southern exposure of his coattails; I presume an Austrian officer acquires merit by sitting down.

This particular officer's saber kept jingling, and so did his spurs, and so did his bracelet. I almost forgot the bracelet. It was an ornate affair of gold links fastened on his left wrist with a big gold locket, and it kept slipping down over his hand and rattling against his cuff. The chain bracelet locked on the left wrist is very common among Austrian officers; it adds just the final needed touch. I did not see any of them carrying lorgnettes or shower bouquets, but I think, in summer they wear veils.

One opportunity is afforded the European who is neither a soldier nor a hotel cashier to dress himself up in comic-opera clothes--and that is when he a-hunting goes. An American going hunting puts on his oldest and most serviceable clothes--a European his giddiest, gayest, gladdest regalia. We were so favored by gracious circ.u.mstances as to behold several Englishmen suitably attired for the chase, and we noted that the conventional morning costume of an English gentleman expecting to call informally on a pheasant or something during the course of the forenoon consisted, in the main, of a perfect dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over plaits and pockets, with large leather b.u.t.tons like oak-galls adhering thickly to it, with a belt high up under the arms and a saucy tail sticking out behind; knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high leggings of buff or white, and a special hat--a truly adorable confection by the world's leading he-milliner.

If you dared to wear such an outfit afield in America the very d.i.c.keybirds would fall into fits as you pa.s.sed--the chipmunks would lean out of the trees and just naturally laugh you to death! But in a land where the woodlands are well-kept groves, and the undergrowth, instead of being weedy and briery, is sweet-scented fern and gorse and bracken, I suppose it is all eminently correct.

Thus appareled the Englishman goes to Scotland to shoot the grouse, the gillie, the heather c.o.c.k, the niblick, the haggis and other Scotch game.

Thus appareled he ranges the preserves of his own fat, fair shires in ardent pursuit of the English rabbit, which pretty nearly corresponds to the guinea pig, but is not so ferocious; and the English hare, which is first cousin to our molly cottontail; and the English pheasant--but particularly the pheasant.

There was great excitement while we were in England concerning the pheasants. Either the pheasants were preying on the mangel-wurzels or the mangel-wurzels were preying on the pheasants. At any rate it had something to do with the Land Bill--practically everything that happens in England has something to do with the Land Bill--and Lloyd George was in a free state of perspiration over it; and the papers were full of it and altogether there was a great pother over it.

We saw pheasants by the score. We saw them first from the windows of our railroad carriage--big, beautiful birds nearly as large as barnyard fowls and as tame, feeding in the bare cabbage patches, regardless of the train chugging by not thirty yards away; and later we saw them again at still closer range as we strolled along the haw-and-holly-lined roads of the wonderful southern counties. They would scuttle on ahead of us, weaving in and out of the hedgerows; and finally, when we insisted on it and flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, they would get up, with a great drumming of wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing tailfeathers on the part of the c.o.c.k birds, and go booming away to what pa.s.ses in Suss.e.x and Kent for dense cover--meaning by that thickets such as you may find in the upper end of Central Park.

They say King George is one of the best pheasant-shots in England.

He also collects postage stamps when not engaged in his regular regal duties, such as laying cornerstones for new workhouses and receiving presentation addresses from charity children. I have never shot pheasants; but, having seen them in their free state as above described, and having in my youth collected postage stamps intermittently, I should say, speaking offhand, that of the two pursuits postage-stamp collecting is infinitely the more exciting and dangerous.

Through the closed season the keepers mind the pheasants, protecting them from poachers and feeding them on selected grain; but a day comes in October when the hunters go forth and take their stands at s.p.a.ced intervals along a cleared aisle flanking the woods; then the beaters dive into the woods from the opposite side, and when the tame and trusting creatures come cl.u.s.tering about their feet expecting provender the beaters scare them up, by waving their umbrellas at them, I think, and the pheasants go rocketing into the air--rocketing is the correct sporting term--go rocketing into the air like a flock of Sunday supplements; and the gallant gunner downs them in great mult.i.tudes, always taking due care to avoid mussing his clothes. For after all the main question is not "What did he kill?" but "How does he look?"

At that, I hold no brief for the pheasant--except when served with breadcrumb dressing and currant jelly he is no friend of mine. It ill becomes Americans, with our own record behind us, to chide other people for the senseless murder of wild things; and besides, speaking personally, I have a reasonably open mind on the subject of wild-game shooting. Myself, I shot a wild duck once. He was not flying at the time. He was, as the stockword goes, setting. I had no self-reproaches afterward however. As between that duck and myself I regarded it as an even break--as fair for one as for the other--because at the moment I myself was, as we say, setting too. But if, in the interests of true sportsmanship, they must have those annual ma.s.sacres I certainly should admire to see what execution a picked half dozen of American quail hunters, used to snap-shooting in the cane jungles and brier patches of Georgia and Arkansas, could accomplish among English pheasants, until such time as their consciences mastered them and they desisted from slaughter!

Be that as it may, pheasant shooting is the last word in the English sporting calendar. It is a sport strictly for the gentry. Except in the capacity of innocent bystanders the lower orders do not share in it. It is much too good for them; besides, they could not maintain the correct wardrobe for it. The cla.s.ses derive one substantial benefit from the inst.i.tution however. The sporting instinct of the landed Englishman has led to the enactment of laws under which an ordinary person goes smack to jail if he is caught sequestrating a clandestine pheasant bird; but it does not militate against the landowner's peddling off his game after he has destroyed it. British thrift comes in here. And so in carload lots it is sold to the marketmen. The result is that in the fall of the year pheasants are cheaper than chickens; and any person who can afford poultry on his dinner table can afford pheasants.

The Continental hunter makes an even more spectacular appearance than his British brother. No self-respecting German or French sportsman would think of faring forth after the incarnate brown hare or the ferocious wood pigeon unless he had on a green hat with a feather in it; and a green suit to match the hat; and swung about his neck with a cord a natty fur m.u.f.f to keep his hands in between shots; and a swivel chair to sit in while waiting for the wild boar to come along and be bowled over.