THE ART OF CONVERSATION.
I had a terrible experience yesterday, one of life's inky black hours which will bring a shudder whenever in future days memory seizes an idle moment to refresh herself. I had been dining with Scarfield and his mother at Hampstead, and with the entry of the coffee he had pleaded a sudden dyspepsia and withdrawn. So his mother, a dear colourless old lady, undertook to entertain me. By her desire I lighted a cigar.
She mentioned that she had just returned from a visit to Glasgow, and I remarked intelligently that Glasgow was a fine place. Considering for a moment, she observed that she thought the weather in Glasgow was colder than that of the South of England; and I said, Yes, very likely, I had heard so. In about two minutes she qualified her statement by informing me that the South of England was as a rule milder than Glasgow. I replied that it appeared to me very possible, adding recklessly that they had peculiarly mixed weather in Glasgow, which she seemed to think rather a questionable presentment of the case for the North, for she kept silent and ruminated for seven or eight minutes. My mind took a little excursion to Putney, where I have friends. But, before I had really settled at Putney, the lady's voice intimated that perhaps they had more rain in Glasgow than in the South of England.
I came back from Putney with a slight mental wrench, yet sufficiently clear-headed to say decidedly that Glasgow, on the whole, had a much better climate than the South, because I had once spent a day there, and the sun shone the whole time, so I ought to know. Then I started off again, and had just reached Walham Green (one does not speak of these places, but I may tell you that it is a station on the way to Putney, where I have a friend), when she responded with lightning-like swiftness that it couldn't be healthy to live in Glasgow. This bordered on repartee, so I countered rapidly with the brilliant suggestion that a good many people managed to live there, hoping she would not score by the obvious rejoinder that a good many people died there. If she had, I can't imagine how I should have extricated myself. Luckily she merely murmured, "Ah, yes," and reflected. I was just stepping off the train at a station (Putney—to be explicit, it is a lady friend) when there seemed to be a collision, and I caught myself saying, "Indeed!" though I don't know why. She nodded approval, however, and I ventured on a meditative "Ye-es."
"But they don't seem to mind," she said, glancing at me blandly through her spectacles. "Do they?"
"You see," I answered, chancing it, "they are so used to it." She smiled and agreed.
"That must be the reason," she said. For what, I hadn't the remotest idea; but this just shows what presence of mind will do for one in an emergency.
"What a difference they must find," I went on boldly, and lapsed into a muse. She sighted it, however, and replied in less than five minutes—
"You mean now that the old-fashioned ones are coming in again?"
Here was a catastrophe. Did she refer to hats, or skirts, or Christmas cards? What sudden original observation had I unfortunately missed during that last journey South-westward? At all costs I must keep cool. I pulled myself together and plunged.
"Yes," I said. "You see the old-fashioned ones were so awfully tight, weren't they?"
"Tight?" she echoed. "Not tight."
"Well, not exactly tight," I answered, feeling rather distracted. "I meant large."
She looked at me suspiciously, I thought. "I think they're too long," she said, "and such a lot of people in them."
This was growing too complicated, and I wished heartily we had stuck to Glasgow and its weather.
"One finds them," she added, "so hard to follow."
I racked my miserable brain for anything that was lengthy, populous, and difficult to follow; in vain.
"Still," I gasped, glancing at the door, "one can always ... one can generally ... one can sometimes sit down ... for a rest ... if one is dreadfully tired," I explained.
She gazed at me reproachfully.
"I don't usually stand at the back of the pit," she said. "The last time Fred took me we had stalls."
"How—how jolly!" I murmured. "I was thinking of—of——"
"If you please, Mr. Fred would like some soda-water and a few biscuits taken up, Ma'am," said the servant, entering softly.
I rose.
"Must you go?" protested my conversationalist. "Oh, I am so sorry! But come again soon—you have kept me quite lively. Good-bye."
I took the tube to Charing Cross and changed there for Putney and Ethel. (Did I mention that her name was Ethel?) But when I told Ethel about it afterwards she said she thought sarcasm in elderly ladies was very objectionable.