A CONNOISSEUR'S APPRECIATION.
Sharp Rise of Great Britain in the Estimation of U.S.A.
The first-class carriage was empty. I threw my coat into a corner and settled myself in the seat opposite. Just as the train started to move, the door was flung open and a tall lean body hurled itself into the compartment and dropped on my coat. He was followed instantaneously by a leather bag which crashed on to the floor.
"Say, these cars pull out pretty slick."
My intelligence at once conjectured that this was an American, one of the thousands who have lately taken advantage of the exchange to spy out the nakedness of our land.
I must admit that I understand American only with great difficulty. I try to guess the meaning of each sentence from the unimportant words which I can interpret. I surmised somehow that his speech referred to the bag on the floor.
So I answered, civilly enough, "I hope your bag is undamaged. Excuse me, I will relieve you of my coat." So saying, I pulled it from beneath him and with a single movement flung it on the rack over my own head.
The stranger spoke again after some moments. He appeared to have spent the interval in repeating my words to himself, as though to grasp their meaning. Yet, heaven knows, I speak plainly enough.
This time he said, "Guess my grip's O.K. But I ain't plunkin' my bucks on the guy that says the old country's in the sweet and peaceful."
After this most extraordinary and unintelligible communication he began to feel his pockets and his person all over, as though searching for something. I felt myself at liberty to resume my study of The Spectator.
However, I was not to be left alone. Again he addressed me. "Guess I gotta hand it to you."
"I beg your pardon," I observed, lowering my paper.
"You've got 'em all whipped blocks," he went on, his absurd smile still persisting. "You're a cracker jack, you're a smart aleck. You've done to me what the fire did to the furnishing shack. You've dealt me one in the spaghetti joint. Oh, I gotta hand it to you."
I could understand little of the words, but I gathered from his manner that he was congratulating me on something in the extravagant but interesting fashion of the North-American tribes.
"You sure put the monkey-wrench on me," he continued. "You make me feel like I couldn't operate a pea-nut stand. I'm the rube from the back-blocks, sure thing. I ain't going to holler any—not me. I'm real pleased to get acquainted. Shake."
I took his hand with as little self-consciousness as possible, not yet having been able to understand what praiseworthy act I had accomplished. I must admit none the less that I felt vaguely pleased at his encomiums.
"There was a guy way back in Nevada used to have a style like yours. They called him Happy Cloud Sim, and he had a hand like a ham. See that grip? Well, Sir, Sim 'ud come right in here, lay his hand somewheres about, and that grip 'ud vanish into the sweet eternal. You could search the hull of the cars from caboose to fire-box and nary a grip. He was an artist. Poor Sim, he overreached himself in Albany, trying to attach a cash-register. The blame thing started ringing a bell and shedding tickets all along the sidewalk. The sleuths just paper-chased him through the burg. He was easy meat for the calaboose that Fall."
I was at a loss to understand the relevance of this extremely improbable narrative. It did not appear, on the face of it, complimentary to connect me with a declared thief and gaol-bird. Still it was my duty to be courteous to one who was for the time a national guest.
"A most interesting story," I remarked, "and one which has the further advantage of conveying a moral lesson."
"But you got Sim beat ten blocks," he resumed. "The way you threw your top-coat up made Sim look like a last year's made-over. I never set eyes on a dry-goods clerk as could fix a package slicker. I'll have a lil something to tell the home town."
He looked out of the window. "Guess this is Harrow," he remarked, "and we're pulling into the deepo. I may as well have my wad back."
So saying he put his hand into the folds of the coat over my head and withdrew a roll of notes fastened with a rubber band. This roll he then stuffed into his hip-pocket. I began to see the meaning of his insinuations.
"If you think," said I indignantly, "that I saw you drop your notes and deliberately rolled them up in the coat——"
"Nix on that stuff," he retorted jovially. "I know them dollar-bills; they kinder skin theirselves off the wad and when you come to pay the bartender they've hit the trail and you stand lonesome with a bitter taste in your mouth, like Lot's wife."
The train stopped; the man stepped out with the unnecessary haste of his kind.
"Well, I'm pleased to have met you," he concluded, still smiling amiably through the window; "if ever you strike Rapid City, Wis., you'll find me rustling wood somewheres near the saloon. I'd like to have got better acquainted, but I promised the folks I'd stop off here and get wise as to how boys is raised in your country. They sure grow up fine men. I reckon we 're way behind the times in Rapid City——"
The train passed out leaving me speechless with indignation.
It took me some moments to recover my normal balance. Then I confess I was delighted to notice that the fellow, in his enthusiasm over the alleged lightness of my fingers, had left his precious "grip" behind him.
It travelled with me to my destination. I hope it is still travelling.
