Out and About London

OUT OF TOWN

It was an empty day, in the early part of the year, and I was its very idle singer; so idle that I was beginning to wonder whether there would be any Sunday dinner for me. I took stock of my possessions in coin, and found one-and-ten-pence-halfpenny. Was I downhearted? Yes. But I didn't worry, for when things are at their worst, my habit is always to fold my hands and trust. Something always happens.

Something happened on this occasion: a double knock at the door and a telegram. It was from the most enlightened London publisher, whose firm has done so much in the way of encouraging young writers, and it asked me to call at once. I did so.

"Like to go to Monte Carlo?" he asked.

When I had recovered from the swoon, I begged him to ask another.

"Here's an American millionaire," he said, "writing from Monte Carlo. He wants to write a book, and he wants some assistance. How would it suit you?"

I said it would suit me like a Savile Row outfit of clothes.

"When can you go?"

"Any old time."

"Right. You'd better wire him, and tell him I told you to. Don't let yourself go cheap. Good-bye."

I didn't fall on his neck in an outburst of gratitude: he wouldn't have liked it. But I yodelled and chirruped all the way to the nearest post-office, having touched a friend for ten shillings on the strength of the stunt. All that day and the next, telegrams passed between Monte Carlo and Balham. I asked a noble salary and expenses, and a wire came back: "Start at once." I replied: "No money." Ten pounds were delivered at my doorstep next morning, with the repeated message "Start at once."

But starting at once, in war-time, was not so easily done. There was a passport to get. That meant three days' lounging in a little wooden hut in the yard of the Foreign Office. Having got the passport, I spent four hours in a queue outside the French Consulate before I could get it visé. Six days after the first telegram, I stood shivering on Victoria Station at seven o'clock of a cadaverous January morning. Having been well and truly searched in another little hut, and having kissed the book, and sworn full-flavoured oaths about correspondence, and thought of a number, and added four to it, I was allowed to board the train.

Half the British Army was on that train, and Mr. Jerome K. Jerome and myself were the only civilians in our carriage. You will rightly guess that it was a lively journey. I had always wondered, in peace-time, why the jew's-harp was invented. I understand now. In the histories of this war, the jew's-harp will take as romantic a place as the pipes of Lucknow or the drums of Oude in the histories of other wars.

At Folkestone there were more searchings, more stamping of passports, more papers and "permissions" to bulk one's pocket and perplex one's mind. On the boat, standing-room only, and when a gestic stewardess sought seats for a fond mother and five little ones in the ladies' saloon, she found all places occupied by khaki figures stretched at full length.

"Seulement les dames!" she cried, pointing to a notice over the door.

"Aha, madame!" said a stalwart Australian, "mais c'est la guerre!" In other words "Aubrey Llewellyn Coventry Fell to you!"

Yes, it was war; and it was tactfully suggested to us by the crew, for, when we were clear of Folkestone harbour, all boats were slung out, and lifeboats were placed in tragic heaps on either side. It was a cold, angry sea, and stewards and stewardesses became aggressively prophetic about the fine crossing that we were to have. Germany had a few days before declared her first blockade of the English coast, and every speck on the sea became dreadfully portentous. At mid-Channel a destroyer stood in to us and ran up a stream of signals.

"This is it," chortled a Cockney, between violent trips to the side; "this is it! Now we're for it!"

Next moment I got a push in the back, and I thought it had come. But it was the elbow of one of the crew who had rushed forward, and was sorting bits of bunting from an impossibly tangled heap at my side. In about two seconds, he found what he wanted and hauled at a rope. Up went what looked like a patchwork counterpane, until the breeze caught it, when it became a string of shapes and colours, straining deliriously against its fastenings. Then down it came; then up again; then down; then up; then down; and that was the end of that conversation. I don't know what it signified, but half an hour later we were in Boulogne harbour.

More comic business with papers; then to the train. Yes, it was war. The bridge over the Oise had not then been repaired; so we crawled to Paris by an absurdly crab-like route. We left Boulogne just after twelve. We reached Paris at ten o'clock at night. There was no food on the train, and from six o'clock that morning, when I had had a swift cup of tea, until nearly midnight I got nothing in the way of refreshment. But who cared? I was going South to meet an American millionaire, and I had money in my pocket.

I arrived at Paris too late to connect with that night's P.L.M. express, so I had twenty-four hours to kill. I strolled idly about, and found Paris very little changed. There was an air about the people of irritation, of questioning, of petulant suffering; they had a manner expressive of "A quoi bon?" Somebody in high quarters had brought this thing upon them. Somebody in high quarters might rescue them from its evils – or might not. They moved like stricken animals, their habitual melancholy, which is often unnoticed because it is overlaid with vivacity, now permanently in possession.

I caught the night express to Monte Carlo. Our carriage contained eight sombre people, and the corridors were strewn with sleep-stupid soldiers. I was one sardine among many, and, with a twenty-seven-hour journey before me in this overheated, hermetically sealed sardine-tin, I began to think what a fool I had been to make this absurd journey to a place that was strange to me; to meet a millionaire about whom I knew nothing, and who might have changed his mind, millionaire-fashion, and left Monte Carlo by the time I got there; and to undertake a job which I might find, on examination, was beyond me.

Then, with a French girl's head on one shoulder, and my other twisted at an impossible angle into the window-frame, I went to sleep and awoke at Lyons, with a horrible headache and an unbearable mouth, the result of the boiling and over-spiced soup I had swallowed the night before. I think we all hated each other. It was impossible to wash or arrange oneself decently, and again there was no food on the train. But, as only the Latin mind can, we made the best of it and pretended that it was funny. Girls and men, complete strangers, drooped in abandonment against one another, or reclined on unknown necks. A young married couple behaved in a way that at other times would have meant a divorce. The husband rested his sagging head on the bosom of a stout matron, and a poilu stretched a rug across his knees and made a comfortable pillow for the little wife. N'importe. C'était la guerre.

On the platform at Lyons were groups of French Red Cross girls with wagons of coffee. This coffee was for the soldiers, but they handed it round impartially to civilians and soldiers alike, and those who cared could drop a few sous into the collecting basin. That coffee was the sweetest draught I had ever swallowed.

At Marseilles it was bright morning, and I was lucky enough to get a pannier, at a trifling cost of seven francs. These panniers are no meal for a hungry man. They contain a bone of chicken, a scrap of ham, a corner of Gruyère, a stick of bread (that surely was made by the firm that put the sand in sandwich), a half-bottle of sour white wine, a bottle of the eternal Vichy, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.

I had just finished it when we rolled into Toulon, and there I got my first glimpse of the true, warm South. I suffered a curious sense of "coming home." I had not known it, but all my childish dreams must have had for their background this coloured South, for, the moment it spread itself before me, bits of Verdi melodies ran through my heart and brain and I danced a double-shuffle. Since I was old enough to handle a fiddle, all music has interpreted itself to me in a visualization of blue seas, white coasts, green palms with lemon and nectarine dancing through them, and noisy, sun-bright towns, and swart faces and languorous and joyfully dirty people. The keenest sense of being at home came later, when, at Monte Carlo, I met Giacomo Puccini, the hero of my young days, whose music had illumined so many dark moments of my City slavery; who is in the direct line of succession from Verdi.

This first visit to Monte Carlo showed me Monte Carlo as she never was before. Half the hotels were closed or turned into hospitals, since all the German hotel-staffs had been packed home. In other times it would have been "the season," but now there was everywhere a sense of emptiness. Wounded British and French officers paraded the Terrace; disabled blacks from Algeria were on every hotel verandah or wandering aimlessly about the hilly streets with a sad air of being lost. The Casino was open, but it closed at eleven, and all the cafés closed with it; the former happy night-life had been nipped off short. At midnight the place was dead.

I was accommodated at an Italian pension in Beausoleil, which, in peace-times, was patronized by music-hall artists working the Beausoleil casino. The Casino had been turned into a barracks, but one or two Italian danseuses from the cabarets of San Remo were taking a brief rest, so that the days were less tiresome than they might have been. My millionaire was a charming man, who used my services but a few hours each day. Then I could dally with the sunshine and the Chianti and the breaking seas about the Condamine.

When I next want a cheap holiday I shan't go to Brighton, or Eastbourne, or Cromer; I shall go to Monte Carlo. The dear Italian Mama who kept the pension treated me like a prince for thirty-five francs a week. I had a large bedroom, with four windows looking to the Alpes Maritimes, and a huge, downy French bed; I had coffee and roll in the morning; a four-course lunch of Italian dishes, with a bottle of Chianti or Barolo; and a five-course dinner, again with a bottle. Those meals were the most delightful I have ever taken. The windows of the dining-room were flung wide to the Mediterranean, and between courses we could bask on the verandah while one of the girls would touch the guitar, the mandolin, or the accordion (sometimes we had all three going at once), in effervescent Neapolitan melody. My contribution to these meal-time entertainments was an English song of which they never tired: "The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carr-rr-lo!" Sometimes it was demanded five or six times in an evening. Immediately I arrived I was properly embraced and kissed by Mama and the three girls, and these rapturous kisses seemed to be part of the etiquette of the establishment, for they happened every morning and after all meals. M'selle Lola was allotted to me; a blonde Italian, afire with mischief and loving-kindness and little delicacies of affection.

On the third day of my visit I met a kindred soul, the wireless operator from the Prince of Monaco's yacht, L'Hirondelle, which was lying in the harbour on loan to the French Government. He was a bright youth; had been many times on long cruises with the yacht, and spoke English which was as good as my French was bad. We had some delightful "noces" together, and it was in his company that I met and had talks with Caruso at the Café de Paris. An opera season was running at the Casino, and on opera nights the café remained open until a little past midnight. After the evening's work Caruso would drop into the café and talk with everybody. His naïve gratification when I told him how I had saved money for weeks, and had waited hours at the gallery door of Covent Garden to hear him sing, was delightful to witness. Prince George of Serbia was also there, recuperating; but though the Terrace at mid-day was crowded and pleasantly bright, I was told that against the Terrace in the old seasons it was miserably dull.

On ordinary nights, when we felt still fresh at eleven o'clock, we would take a car to Mentone, cross the frontier into Italy (which was not then at war), and spend a few cheery hours at Bordighera or San Remo, which were nightless. Then back to Monte Carlo at about five, to bed, and up again at nine, with no feeling of fatigue. It was curious to note how, under that sharp sunshine and keen night sky, all moral values were changed, or wholly obliterated. The first breath of the youthful company at the pension blew all London cobwebs away. It was all so abandoned, yet so sweet and wholesome; and, by contrast, the English seaside resort, where the girls play at "letting themselves go," was a crude and shameful farce. Whatever happened at Monaco seemed to be right; nothing was wrong except frigidity and unkindness.

My dear Italian Mama said to me one evening at dinner, when I had (in the English sense) disgraced myself by a remark straight from the heart: —

"M'sieu Thomas, on m'a dit que les anglais ont froid. C'est pas vrai!"

No, dear Mamina; but it was true before I stayed at the Pension Poggio at Beausoleil.

My work with the millionaire spread itself over two months; then, with a fat wad, I was free to return. It was not until I went to the Consulate to get my passport visé that I discovered how many war-time laws of France I had broken. I had not registered myself on arrival; I had not reported myself periodically; and I had not obtained a permis de séjour. The Consul informed me cheerfully that heaps of trouble would be waiting for me when I went to the Mairie to get my laissez-passer, without which I could not buy a railway ticket. However, after being stood in a corner for two hours until all other travellers had received attention, a laissez-passer was thrown at me on my undertaking to leave Monte Carlo that night. A gendarme accompanied me to the station to see that I did so.

At Paris, a few hours spent with the police, the military, Hôtel-de-Ville, and the British Consulate resulted in permission to kick my heels there for a day or so.

A few mornings later arrived the millionaire's precious MS., which I had left behind so that he might revise it, with a message to hustle. I hustled. I reached London the same night. Next morning I negotiated with a publisher. In two days it was in the printer's hands and in a fortnight it was in the bookshops; and I was again out of a job.

IN SEARCH OF A SHOW

I have been looking for a needle in a haystack, and I have not found it. I have been looking for an hour's true entertainment in London's theatres and music-halls during this spring season of 1918.

The tag of Mr. Gus Elen's old song, "'E dunno where 'e are," very aptly describes the condition of the regular theatre-goer to-day. What would the old laddies of the Bodega-cheese days have thought, had any prophesied that at one swift step the Oxford and the Pavilion would simultaneously move into the ranks of the "legitimate;" that His Majesty's Theatre would be running a pantomime; that smoking would be allowed in the Lyceum, the Comedy, the Vaudeville, and the Garrick? Many people have lost their individuality by being merged into one or other war-movement since 1914; many streets have entirely lost those distinctive features which enable us to recognize them at one glance or by sound or smell; but nowhere has the war more completely smashed personality than in theatre-land.

In the old days (one must use that pathetic phrase in speaking of ante-1914), the visitor to London knew precisely the type of entertainment and the type of audience he would find at any given establishment. To-day, one figures his bewilderment – verily, 'e dunno where 'e are. Formerly, he could be sure that at the Garrick he would find Mr. Bourchier playing a Bourchieresque part. At His Majesty's he would find just what he wanted – or would want what he found – for going to His Majesty's was not a matter of dropping in: it was a pious function. At the Alhambra or the Empire he would be sure of finding excellent ballet at about ten o'clock, when he could sip his drink, stroll round the promenade, and leave when he felt like it. At the time I write he finds Mr. Bourchier playing low comedy at a transformed music-hall, and at the Alhambra or the Empire he finds a suburban crowd, neatly seated in rows – father, mother and flappers – watching a quite innocuous entertainment.

Managers were long wont to classify in their minds the "Garrick" audience, the "Daly" audience, the "Adelphi" audience, the "Haymarket" audience; and plays would be refused by a manager on the ground that "our audience wouldn't stand it; try the Lyric." To-day they are all in the melting-pot, and the poor habitué of the So-and-so Theatre has to take what is given him, and be mighty thankful for it.

At one time I loved a show, however cheap its kind; but in these days, after visiting a war-time show and suffering the feeling of assisting at some forbidden rite, I always wish I had wasted the evening in some other manner. Since 1914 the theatres have not produced one show that any sober man would pay two pence to see. The stuff that has been produced has paid its way because the bulk of the public is drunk – with war or overwork. The story of the stage since 1914 may be given in one word – "Punk." Knowing that we are all too preoccupied with solemn affairs to examine very closely our money's-worth, and knowing that the boys on leave are not likely to be too hypercritical, the theatrical money-lords – with one noble exception – have taken advantage of the situation to fub us off with any old store-room rubbish. We have dozens of genuine music-hall comedians on the stage to-day, but they are all slacking. Some of them get absorbed by West End shows, and at once, when they appear on the gigantic American stages of some of our modern theatres, surrounded by crowds of elephantine women, they lose whatever character and spontaneity they had. Others give the bulk of their time and brains to earning cheap notoriety by raising funds for charities or cultivating allotments – both commendable activities, but not compatible with the serious business of cheering the public. Gradually, the individual is being frozen out, and the stages are loaded with crowds of horsey, child-aping women, called by courtesy a beauty chorus; the show being called, also by courtesy, a revue. These shows resemble a revue as much as the short stories of popular magazines resemble a conte. They dazzle the eye and blast the ear, and, instead of entertaining, exhaust.

The artists have, allowing for human nature, done their best under trying circumstances; but playing to an audience of overseas khaki and tired working-people, who applaud their most maladroit japes, has had the effect of wearing them down. They no longer work. They take the easiest way, knowing that any remark about the Kaiser, Old Bill, meat-cards, or the Better 'Ole is sure of a laugh.

One solitary example of money's-worth in war-time I found – but that is outside the lists of vaudeville or drama. I mean Sir Thomas Beecham's operative enterprise. Beginning, in 1915, to develop his previous tentative experiments – fighting against indifference, prejudice, often against active opposition – he went steadily on; and it is he whom our men must thank if, on returning, they find in England something besides factories and barracks. There is no man who, amid this welter of blood and hate, has performed work of higher national importance. While every effort was made to stifle or stultify every movement that made towards sanity and vision, he went doggedly forward, striving to save from the wreckage some trifle of sweetness and loveliness for those who have ears to hear. Had certain good people had their way, he, his ideals, his singers, his orchestra and his band instruments would have been flung into the general cesspool, to lie there and rot. But he won through; and I think only that enemy of civilization, the screaming, flag-wagging patriot, will disagree with a famous Major-General who, in full war-paint, stood at my side in the theatre bar between the acts of Tristan, and, turning upon a querulous civilian who had snorted against Wagner, cried angrily: —