Delphi complete works of.., p.330
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 330
But let me pour you out tea from it and then do look at the perfectly darling tea-pot on the shelf beside you. Oh, don’t touch it, please, it won’t stand up.... No.... That’s one of the tests. We know from that it is genuine Swaatsmaacher. None of them stand up.
Did I buy it here? Oh, heavens, no, you couldn’t buy a thing like that here! As a matter of fact, we picked it up in a little gin shop in — what was the name of that place in Holland? Charles, what was the name of the place in Holland where there was a gin shop? What? Ober — what? — oh, yes, of course, Oberhellandam!
Those Dutch names are all so picturesque, aren’t they? Do you know Oberhellandam? No — well, it’s just the dearest little place, nothing but little wee smelly shops filled with most delightful things — all antique, everything broken. They guarantee that there is nothing in the shop that wasn’t smashed at least a hundred years ago ... see the label on it.... It’s in Dutch... Tay poot — I think that is Dutch for tea-pot — gesmosh — that means, smashed — hog — Charles! what is ‘hog’ in Dutch — on the tea-pot darling — hog wort — high value! Oh, of course!...
Would it make good tea — oh, I imagine it would make wonderful tea — only it leaks — that’s one of the things to know it by. It’s what the experts always look for in a Swaatsmaacher. If it doesn’t leak, it’s probably just a faked-up thing not twenty years old.... Silver? — oh, no, that’s another test. The real Swaatsmaachers were always made of pewter bound with barrel-iron off the gin barrels. They try to imitate it now by using silver, but they can’t get it. You see the silver won’t take the tarnish.
It’s the same way with ever so many of the old things. They rust and rot in a way that you simply cannot imitate. I have an old drinking horn that I’ll show you presently — ninth century, isn’t it, Charles? — that is all coated inside with the most beautiful green slime, absolutely impossible to reproduce ... really and truly impossible, they say. Yes, I took it to Squeeziou’s, the Italian place in London. (They are the great experts on horns, you know; they can tell exactly the century and the breed of cow.) And they told me that they had tried in vain to reproduce that peculiar and beautiful rot. One of their head men said that he thought that this horn had probably been taken from a dead cow that had been buried for fifty years. That’s what gives it its value, you know. We asked him — the head man, I mean — how long he thought a cow had to be dead to be of use as an antique, and he said it was very hard to say; but it had to be dead for years and years anyway....
That’s what the man said in London, but of course we didn’t buy the tea-pot in London. London is simply impossible, just as hopeless as New York. You can’t buy anything real there at all.... So, we pick things up here and there, just in any out-of-the-way corners.
That little stool we found at the back of a cow stable in Loch Aberlocherty. They were actually using it for milking. And the two others — aren’t they beautiful? though really it’s quite wrong to have two chairs alike in the same room — came from the back of a tiny little whiskey shop in Galway. Such a delight of an old Irishman sold them to us and he admitted that he himself had no idea how old they were. They might, he said, be fifteenth-century, or they might not ... oh, and that reminds me I’ve just had a letter from Jane (Jane is my sister, you know) that is terribly exciting. She’s found a table at a tiny place in Brittany that she thinks would exactly do in our card room. She says that it is utterly unlike anything else in the room and has quite obviously no connection with cards. But let me read what she says — let me see, yes, here’s where it begins:
... a perfectly sweet-little table. It probably had four legs originally and even now has two which, I am told, is a great find, as most people have to be content with one. The man explained that it could either be leaned up against the wall or else suspended from the ceiling on a silver chain. One of the boards of the top is gone, but I am told that that is of no consequence, as all the best specimens of Brittany tables have at least one board out.
Doesn’t that sound fascinating? Charles! I was just reading to Mrs. Overworld, Jane’s letter about the table in Brittany — don’t you think you’d better cable for it right away — yes, so do I — and Charles! ask them how much extra they would charge to smash one of the legs — and now, my dear, do have some tea. You’ll like it — it’s a special kind I get — it’s Ogosh — a very old China tea, that has been let rot in a coal-oil barrel — you’ll love it.
MODEL MONOLOGUES: No. III
MRS. EIDERDOWN ROUGHS IT IN THE BUSH*
* See Preface.
Yes, we come up every autumn. We’re both so passionately fond of the open air. Ransome, will you close that window? There’s a draught....
And we love to do everything for ourselves. Ransome, will you please pass me that ash-tray from across the table?
And we live here quite without form or ceremony — that’s what makes it so nice, it’s all so simple. Gwendoline, you may put on the finger-bowls, and tell William to serve the coffee in the card-room....
We like the roughness of it, you know, the journey up, and everything. Of course, it’s not quite so rough to come up now as it used to be, now that they have built the new main highway. This time we were able to drive up both the town cars, and before that it was always a question just what we could bring up.
I do think the big closed cars are so much nicer when one is roughing it — Gwendoline, the cigarettes, please — they keep the air out so much better, and our new one, perhaps you noticed it, is the kind in which you can draw the curtains and arrange it something like a drawing-room on a train. We are able to come up at night in it. I always think it much nicer — don’t you? — to come up through the mountains at night. One sleeps better than in the day.
Of course, it is not all so easy. The food up here is always such a question. Of course, we can always get meat from the village — there is quite a village now, you know, though when my husband first came up twenty years ago there was nothing — and we can get milk and eggs and vegetables from the farmers, and, of course, the men bring in fish all the time, and our gardener manages now to raise a good deal of fruit under glass, but beyond that it is very difficult to get anything.
Only yesterday, the housekeeper came to tell me that we had not enough broilers for lunch; somebody had made a silly mistake and we were one short. We had to send Alfred (he drives fastest) back to the city with the big car to get one. Even then, lunch was half an hour late. Things like that happen all the time. One has to learn to be philosophical.
But surely it is worth it — isn’t it? — for the pleasure of being up here in the wilderness, so far away from everything and everybody. I sometimes feel up here as if one were cut off from the whole world — William, will you turn on the radio?
I think there will be news of the municipal elections and, of course, my husband is tremendously interested. His company has been trying to get better city government for so long; they need pure government because of their franchises, and it has been costing them a tremendous lot of money to get. What do you say, William, not working? Then will you please ask Jones to tell the electrician to look at it?
Gwendoline, I think you had better tell James to give us more furnace heat and see that there are fires in the upper bedrooms to-night. It’s turning a little chilly.
I always like to see to everything myself. It takes trouble, but it’s the only way. But, I beg your pardon, you were asking me something. Fishing! Oh, yes, there is the most glorious fishing up here. I must tell Gwendoline to tell Mrs. Edwards to see that they give you fish at breakfast. It’s just an ideal fishing country, my husband says. We send William out every morning, and sometimes William and Ransome both. Often, so my husband tells me, when the weather is really clear he has William up and out by four o’clock — my husband is so fond of early rising, though he can’t get up now himself the way he used to — but he always likes to get William and Ransome out early.
They bring back the most beautiful fish. Trout, I think. I don’t precisely know because, of course, I never go myself, but I think trout and sea-bass and finnan-haddock — they keep us beautifully supplied. William caught some finnan-haddie this morning, I think — or did he say dory?...
Thank you, William, you can take the glasses; we’re done with them. You see, William knows all about fish, as he comes from Newfoundland, or some place of the sort.
You say, doesn’t my husband go fishing himself? Oh yes, indeed, Peter’s a tremendous fisherman! — simply adores it! But of course, he can’t go in the early morning — the chill, you know, my dear — he has to avoid a chill.
Our doctor, Dr. Slyder, a very old friend, always says to Peter:— ‘Remember, Eiderdown, a chill simply won’t do!’ So my husband is positively cut off from early rising, the thing he’d love best to do if he dared.... But Dr. Slyder — he comes up here himself, you know, and goes fishing with Peter, Dr. Slyder says— ‘Absolutely no! I forbid it.’ He insists that neither of them get up before ten-thirty and then they go and fish together. Dr. Slyder is just as keen on fishing as my husband is — in fact, they’re both experts.
They go and fish about the middle of the day — they like to go in a very simple way — just in the large motor launch you may have seen as you passed the corner of the lake. My husband would have preferred an ordinary fishing-smack, but he couldn’t get one here — he’s having one made in New York.
They just take Edward, the mechanic, for the engine, and Thomas, the fisherman, to look after the lines (Dr. Slyder forbids my husband to handle his own hooks for fear of infection) — and of course, one of the indoor men for the lunch — even that very simple — a little cold salmon on ice and a bottle or two of champagne — my husband says it’s amazing how little you eat when you are fishing — a little salmon, a salad, and a meat pie — is all that he and the doctor ever take. But they do take champagne because Dr. Slyder insists that in Peter’s case he must take it as a preventative — with just a little spirits — cognac — after it. Dr. Slyder is very strict as to cognac.
They generally fish a little, while the men prepare the lunch on the shore, — you noticed the little islands no doubt — and then after lunch, just a little nap. Dr. Slyder refuses to let Peter fish for an hour after a meal, and then off they go again till it’s time for afternoon tea. But of course it’s a little too late in the year now. Several times lately Dr. Slyder has insisted on their playing billiards instead.
You say, ‘Do we have any trouble getting servants up here?’ My dear, it was simply the bane of my life trying to get them, until at last we decided to import them from England and Scotland. The people round here — I really don’t know why — seem quite unfitted to be servants. So, as I say, we bring them out.
You may have noticed McAlister in the garden — or no, perhaps, he was in his greenhouse (he goes there when he doesn’t want to be disturbed) — well, my dear, he’s a perfect treasure — and such a character. I don’t know how we could get another like him. And yet in a way McAlister is a perfect tyrant. My dear, he simply won’t allow us to pick the roses; and if any of us walk across the grass he is furious. And he positively refuses to let us use the vegetables. He told me quite plainly that if we took any of his young peas or his early cucumbers he would leave. We are to have them later on when he’s finished growing them.
Of course we have trouble with McAlister at times, but he’s always very reasonable when we put things in the right light. Last week, for example, I was afraid that we had gone too far with him. He is always accustomed to have a quart of beer every morning at half-past ten — the maids are told to bring it out to him — and after that he goes to sleep in the little arbour beside the tulip bed. And the other day when he went there he found that one of our guests, who hadn’t been told, was actually sitting in there reading. Of course he was furious. I was afraid for the moment that he would give notice on the spot. But we explained to him that it was only an accident and that the person hadn’t known, and that it wouldn’t occur again. After that he was softened a little, but he went off muttering to himself, and that evening he dug up all the new tulips and threw them over the fence. We saw him do it, but of course we didn’t dare say anything. You see if we had, we might have lost McAlister, and I don’t know where we could possibly get another man like him: at least not on this side of the water....
What society we have in a place so isolated as this? Do you know, my dear, people so often ask me that and I simply answer, ‘none at all.’ We don’t need it — we come here to be isolated and what we want is to be just quietly alone by ourselves. Of course, Peter generally brings Dr. Slyder with him because the doctor says he never feels quite comfortable about what Peter eats and drinks unless he’s with him, and very often Major Boozer and Mr. Ace come — you met them before dinner, didn’t you? — because they are Peter’s partners and Peter feels it wise to keep in touch with them and know what they’re doing. But beyond that we bring no one except any odd guests one happens to want to bring — you noticed at dinner that we weren’t more than a dozen — we seldom go beyond that — so here we always are as a sort of life in ourselves.
There are, of course, a few people around. The Upstocks have laid out a very beautiful place at the other end of the lake. And the Brokes have built a really handsome place, done in stone in a simple Roman style that suits the rough country — these and a few others, but, of course, nothing like the crush of the city. And they all get into the same simple ways. Mrs. Upstock always comes over just as she is, and I go over there in the launch just as I am: and Mr. Upstock is terribly informal: often walks over here just in his braces. So you see it isn’t society.
What do you say — our amusements here? Oh, we simply don’t have any. We have always both felt that up here in this beautiful air (that french window at the end of the room needs closing, Ransome) it is amusement enough just to be alive. So we have never bothered to think about amusements. Of course, my husband had the billiard-room built because that is really his one pastime, and this card-room because it is mine, and we put in the tennis courts, though it was hard to do so, so as to have them for the children. But that is all. We have the golf links, of course — perhaps you noticed them as you came up.
It was really quite a triumph for my husband making the courses here. He did every bit of it himself. At one time he had nearly two hundred Italians working. My husband, as you know, is terribly energetic; I often call him a dynamo. The summer when he was building the golf course he never seemed to stop; always sitting with his cigar in his mouth, first under a tree on one side, looking at his Italians, and then on the other side — in fact, he was always somewhere. I used to wonder how he could keep it up.
It was just the same way when my husband was putting in the tennis courts — I must show it you in the morning. Peter was determined that one thing we must have was proper en tout cas tennis courts. But Peter, as I say, is such a dynamo that he went right at it, taking it over and doing it all himself. Do you know that he blasted through ten feet of rock to get the foundations he wanted? Two of the Italians were blown up with the dynamite, but Peter wasn’t discouraged for a minute — he sent for two more and went right on — and of course Peter paid all the expenses of the two he had blown up, funeral, insurance, everything. He said that it was only fair as it was his risk not theirs. Peter is like that.
But, I am so sorry, I am afraid it is time I was ordering you all off to bed. We keep such early hours here that we go to bed at midnight.
But perhaps you’d rather stay up a little and play billiards or cards, and there are always one or two of the servants up — at any rate till about three, and then I think my husband is sending William fishing. Good night.
MODEL MONOLOGUES: No. IV
MRS. EASY HAS HER FORTUNE TOLD
Mrs. Easy entering her apartment to find a friend waiting for her.
Oh, my dear Mary, I’m so sorry, I’m just exhausted. Martha, put the chain back on the door, please — I do hope I haven’t kept you waiting long — about twenty minutes? Oh, what a shame!
But I’ve just had such an exciting experience! I’m just done out! I must tell you all about it. But just wait a minute till I ring and tell Martha to make a cocktail. You’ll have one, won’t you? Martha, make two cocktails — no, make four — or no (calling louder as Martha has left) — Martha — make six. My dear Mary, I need it. I’m just all done in.
I’ve just come from having my fortune told, at least I don’t mean that, I mean having my horoscope read. You must excuse my being so breathless, I’m not really breathless, it’s just the excitement. My dear Mary, I must say it, I can’t keep it to myself — I’m going to be kidnapped! Yes, kidnapped, now, at any minute, right here! Martha, is the chain on the door? Don’t open it for anyone....
Ah! thank goodness for that cocktail — excuse me if I drink it right off (noise of drinking) — ah! that’s better: it makes one feel calmer, doesn’t it? I think I’ll take another — yes, my dear (more resignedly), I’m expecting to be kidnapped at any moment.
Did Mrs. Brown say that was my fortune? Oh, goodness, no! I don’t mean I went to old Mrs. Brown, or anybody of that class — she’s all right, of course, Mrs. Brown, I’ve often been to her and she’s a dear old soul. I must have gone to her nearly once a week last winter. But she never says anything, and even what she says is so ordinary, don’t you know.
She prophesied that Henry would live to ninety. That’s all right. I hope he does, I’m sure, and Henry’s as good as husbands go anyway. But ninety! And after all that’s not the kind of thing you pay to hear. Of course, she did prophesy that we’d go to Bermuda at Easter. But that had been in the paper anyway....
But this fortune-teller (sinking her voice to mystery), is utterly different. He’s not just a fortune-teller. He’s a Yogi soothsayer — it’s quite different, he’s Mr. Yahi-Bahi, and he’s a Parsee, you know what that is — it means a sort of Hindu, only higher up. You know how all the Hindus are divided into castes; if you’re in the lowest caste, you have to live on garbage and you mustn’t speak to anyone, and then there are a lot of in-between castes who have to be vegetarians and worship cows. You see, I know all about India because Henry and I were on a round-the-world-cruise and we had a whole day in Bombay, and there was a Chinese gentleman on board with us, a Mr. O-Hoo, and he was all right, he’d been at Harvard for four months and he told us all about the Hindu religion and why it is so far ahead of Christianity.
