Peeps at People Part 10

"A very good idea," said I. "And will this be published over your own name?"

"No, madam," he replied. "That is where we British authors who write about America make a mistake. We ruin ourselves if we tell the truth. My book will ostensibly be the work of 'Sandy Scootmon.'"

"Good name," said I. "And a good rhyme as well."

"To what?" he asked.

"Hoot mon!" said I, with a certain dryness of manner.

Just then the train-bell rang, and the London Express was ready.

"Here, Doctor," said I, handing him the usual check as I rose to depart.

"Here is a draft on London for $5000. Our thanks to go with it for your courtesy."

He looked annoyed.

"I told you I didn't wish any money," said he, with some asperity. "I have more American fifty-cent dollars now than I can get rid of. They annoy me."

And he tore the check up. We then parted, and the train drew out of the station. Opposite me in the carriage was a young woman who I thought might be interested in knowing with whom I had been talking.

"Do you know who that was?" I asked.

"Very well indeed," she replied.

"Ian Maclaren," I said.

"Not a bit of it," said she. "That's one of our head detectives. We know him well in Liverpool. Dr. Maclaren employs him to stave off American interviewers."

I stared at the woman, aghast.

"I don't believe it," I said. "If he'd been a detective, he wouldn't have torn up my check."

"Quite so," retorted the young woman, and there the conversation stopped.

I wonder if she was right? If I thought she was, I'd devote the rest of my life to seeing Ian Maclaren at home; but I can't help feeling that she was wrong. The man was so entirely courteous, after I finally cornered him, that I don't see how it could have been any one else than the one I sought; for, however much one may object to this popular author's dialect, England has sent us nothing finer in the way of a courteous gentleman than he.

RUDYARD KIPLING

An endeavor to find Rudyard Kipling at home is very much like trying to discover the North Pole. Most people have an idea that there is a North Pole somewhere, but up to the hour of going to press few have managed to locate it definitely. The same is true of Mr. Kipling's home. He has one, no doubt, somewhere, but exactly where that favored spot is, is as yet undetermined. My first effort to find him was at his residence in Vermont, but upon my arrival I learned that he had fled from the Green Mountain State in order to escape from the autograph-hunters who were continually lurking about his estate. Next I sought him at his lodgings in London, but the fog was so thick that if so be he was within I could not find him. Then taking a P. & O. steamer, I went out to Calcutta, and thence to Simla. In neither place was he to be found, and I sailed to Egypt, hired a camel, and upon this ship of the desert cruised down the easterly coast of Africa to the Transvaal, where I was informed that, while he had been there recently, Mr. Kipling had returned to London. I immediately turned about, and upon my faithful and wobbly steed took a short-cut catacornerwise across to Algiers, where I was fortunate enough to intercept the steamer upon which the object of my quest was sailing back to Britain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERCEPTED THE STEAMER]

He was travelling _incog._ as Mr. Peters, but I recognized him in a moment, not only by his vocabulary, but by his close resemblance to a wood-cut I had once seen in the advertis.e.m.e.nt of a famous dermatologist, which I had been told was a better portrait of Kipling than of Dr.

Skinberry himself, whose skill in making people look unlike themselves was celebrated by the publication of the wood-cut in question.

He was leaning gracefully over the starboard galley as I walked up the gang-plank. I did not speak to him, however, until after the vessel had sailed. I am too old a hand at interviewing modest people to be precipitate, and knew that if I began to talk to Mr. Kipling about my mission before we started, he would in all probability sneak ash.o.r.e and wait over a steamer to escape me. Once started, he was doomed, unless he should choose to jump overboard. So I waited, and finally, as Gibraltar gradually sank below the horizon, I tackled him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE LANYARD DECK]

"Mr. Kipling?" said I, as we met on the lanyard deck.

"Peters," said he, nervously, lighting a jinrikisha.

"All the same," I retorted, taking out my note-book, "I've come to interview you at home. Are you a good sailor?"

"I'm good at whatever I try," said he. "Therefore you can wager a spring bonnet against a Kohat that I am a good sailor."

"Excuse me for asking," said I. "It was necessary to ascertain. My instructions are to interview you at home. If you are a good sailor, then you are at home on the sea, so we may begin. What work are you engaged on now?"

"The hardest of my life," he replied. "I am now trying to avoid an American lady journalist. I know you are an American by the Cuban flag you are wearing in your b.u.t.ton-hole. I know that you are a lady, because you wear a bonnet, which a gentleman would not do if he could. And I know you are a journalist, because you have confessed it. But for goodness' sake, madam, address me as Peters, and I will talk on forever.

If it were known on this boat that I am Kipling, I should be compelled to write autographs for the balance of the voyage, and I have come away for a rest."

"Very well, Mr. Peters," said I. "I will respect your wishes. Why did you go to South Africa?"

"After color. I am writing a new book, and I needed color. There are more colored people in Africa than anywhere else. Wherefore--"

"I see," said I. "And did you get it?"

"Humph!" he sneered. "Did I get it? It is evident, madam, that you have not closely studied the career of Rudyard--er--Peters. Did he ever fail to get anything he wanted?"

"I don't know," I replied. "That's what I wanted to find out."

"Well, you may draw your own conclusions," he retorted, "when I speak that beautiful and expressive American word 'Nit.'"

I put the word down for future use. It is always well for an American to make use of her own language as far as is possible, and nowhere can one gain a better idea of what is distinctively American than from a study of English authors who use Americanisms with an apology--paid for, no doubt, at s.p.a.ce rates.

"Have you been at work on the ocean?" I inquired.

"No," said he. "Why should I work on the ocean? I can't improve the ocean."

"Excuse me," said I. "I didn't know that you were a purist."

"I'm not," said he. "I'm a Peters."

There was a pause, and I began to suspect that beneath his suave exterior Mr. Kipling concealed a certain capacity for being disagreeable.

"I didn't know," I said, "but that you had spent some of your time interviewing the boilers or the engines of the ship. A man who can make a locomotive over into an attractive conversationalist ought to be able to make a donkey-engine, for instance, on shipboard, seem less like a noisy jacka.s.s than it is."

"Good!" he cried, his face lighting up. "There's an idea there. Gad!

I'll write a poem on the donkey-engine as a sort of companion to my McAndrews Hymn, and, what is more, I will acknowledge my debt to you for suggesting the idea."

"I'm much obliged, Mr.--er--Peters," said I, coldly, "but you needn't.

You are welcome to the idea, but I prefer to make my own name for myself. If you put me in one of your books, I should become immortal; and while I wish to become immortal, I prefer to do it without outside a.s.sistance."

Peters, _ne_ Kipling, immediately melted.