A DIFFERENCE OF CLASS.
It is without doubt the most expensive hotel on the front, and the palatial dining-room in which we have just lunched is furnished and decorated in that sumptuously luxurious style to which only wealth, untrammelled by art, is able to attain. Personally I cannot afford to take my meals at such places, and I know that the same holds good of my fellow-guest, Charteris. Charteris was the best scholar of our year at Oriel, and since his demobilisation he and his wife have been living in two rooms, except during the periods when their son joins them for his holidays from Winchester. But our host is still possessed of an obstinate wealth which even the War has done little to diminish, and, as he himself puts it, is really grateful to those of his old friends who will help him in public to support the ignominy.
At the moment, having finished lunch, we have betaken ourselves to wicker-chairs in the porch, and Charteris and our host being deep in a golf discussion I venture once more to turn a covert attention to the exceedingly splendid couple who have just followed us out from the dining-room. I noticed them first on my arrival, when they were just getting out of their Rolls-Royce, and the admiration which I then conceived for them was even further enhanced during lunch by a near view of the lady's diamonds and of the Cinquevalli-like dexterity shown by her husband in balancing a full load of peas on the concave side of a fork. At present the man, somewhat flushed with champagne, is smoking an enormous cigar with a red-and-gold band round it, while the lady, her diamonds flashing in the sunshine, leans back in her chair and regards with supercilious eyes the holiday crowds that throng the pavement below.
Following her glance my attention is suddenly arrested by the strange behaviour of two passers-by, who have stopped in the middle of the pavement and, after exchanging some excited comments, are staring fixedly towards us. From their appearance they would seem to be a typical husband and wife of the working-class on holiday, and it occurs to me that, given the clothes and the diamonds, they might well be occupying the wicker-chairs of the couple opposite. Evidently the sight of somebody or something in the hotel porch has excited them greatly, for they continue to stare up at us with a hostile concentration that renders them quite unconscious of the frantic efforts of the small child who accompanies them to tug them towards the beach. After a moment they exchange a few more quick words, and the man leaves his companion and makes his way towards us. Ascending the hotel steps with an air of great determination he comes to a halt before the couple opposite.
"'Ere, I've bin lookin' for you," he begins accusingly.
The Rolls-Royce owner takes the cigar from his mouth and gazes in astonishment at the accusing apparition before him.
"A hour ago," pursues the newcomer relentlessly, "you was driving along the front here in the whackin' great car. It ain't no good denyin' it, 'cos I took the number."
"What d'ye mean—denying it?" exclaims Rolls-Royce. "Who's denying anythink?"
"It ain't no good tryin' to deny it," retorts the other. "An' it ain't no good denyin' wot you did neether, 'cos I've got my missus 'ere to prove it."
"What I did?" echoes the astonished man. "What did I do?"
"Ran over my child's b'loon," states the accuser, fixing him with a pitiless eye. For the moment the object of this serious charge is too taken aback to be capable of speech.
"'Ran over my child's b'loon,'" repeats the other inexorably. "Leastways your chauffer did. An' when we 'ollered out to yer to stop you just rushed on like a runaway railway-train."
Rolls-Royce, conscious of the curious gaze of the entire company, pulls himself together and regards his accuser unfavourably.
"First I've 'eard of it," he growls. "Where was the balloon anyway? In the road, I s'pose?"
"Yes, it was in the road," retorts the other defiantly, "where it's got every right to be. Road's there for the convenience of b'loon-fliers just as much as for motor-cars. More."
"Look 'ere, that's enough of it," says the car-owner harshly. "If the balloon got run over it's yer own fault for letting it go in the road."
"That's a nice way to talk," suddenly comes in shrill tones from the woman below, who has edged her way to the foot of the steps. "We don't go buyin' balloons for you to run over in yer cars. We're respectable people, we are, an' we work for our livin'."
"Drivin' about in a car like an express train, runnin' over other people's b'loons," corroborates her husband bitterly. "Wot country d'yer think yer in? Prussia?
By this time a small crowd has gathered on the pavement and is gazing up at the protagonists with ghoulish interest. The lady in the diamonds, a prey to mingled indignation and alarm, has leant towards her spouse and is whispering to him urgently, but he shakes her off with an impatient movement.
"Not on yer life," he snaps. "They won't get a cent out o' me."
"Ho, won't we!" exclaims his accuser hotly. "We'll soon see about that. We're English people, we are—we don't allow people to go about destroyin' our b'loons."
"No wonder they're so rich," cries the woman at the bottom of the steps in satirical tones. "That's the way to get rich, that is—destroyin' other people's prop'ty an' then refusin' to pay for it. Anybody could get rich that way."
Reflections on the feasibility of this novel financial scheme are cut short by the appearance at the top of the steps of the hotel porter, who touches the originator of the disturbance on the shoulder.
"Come on, you're not allowed up 'ere, you know," he observes.
"Ho, ain't I?" retorts the man defiantly. "Is this Buckingham Pallis?"
"You can't come up 'ere unless you've got business in the 'otel," states the porter unmoved.
"So I 'ave got bisness 'ere," declares the other. "Bisness c'nected with my son's b'loon."
"An' we don't leave 'ere till it's settled, neither," cries the lady on the pavement. "'Alf-a-crown that balloon cost, an' we don't budge from 'ere till we get it."
This is altogether too much for the owner of the Rolls-Royce.
"'Alf-a-crown?" he explodes and turns indignantly to the company. "'Alf-a-crown for a child's balloon, and then they go on strike."
Derisive cheers and counter-cheers go up from the crowd below as the incensed balloon-owner bursts forth into an impassioned defence of his inalienable right as a free-born Briton to strike or to buy half-crown balloons as the spirit moves him. Simultaneously the lady in the diamonds rises and, producing a coin from her gold bag, holds it with a superb gesture at arm's length beneath his nose. For a moment or two he pays no attention to her, then takes the coin impatiently with the air of one brushing aside an irritating interruption and continues his harangue.
"Come on," puts in the porter; "you've got yer 'alf-crown. S'pose you move on."
"Got me 'alf-crown, 'ave I'?" he retorts. "Wot about my rights as a man? Does 'alf-a-crown buy them?"
No one venturing to solve this social problem he turns slowly and, glaring over his shoulder at Rolls-Royce, descends the steps.
"I'm an Englishman, I am," he concludes from the pavement. "No one can't close my mouth with 'alf-crowns."
For a brief space he stands scowling up at the porch as though challenging all and sundry to perform this feat, then, taking his wife by the arm, moves off with her and the still insistent child towards the beach. The crowd on the pavement, regretfully convinced that the entertainment is at an end, disperses slowly. Rolls-Royce, seemingly unconscious of the interest of Charteris and our host, who are looking at him covertly as at some zoological specimen, relights his cigar and sits glowering across the road, and silence falls upon the scene—a silence broken at last by the lady in the diamonds, who has resumed her languid pose in the wicker-chair.
"'Orrible people!" she observes, addressing the occupants of the porch generally. "Nice state o' things when you can't even be safe from 'em in yer own 'otel. You don't seem to be able to get away from these low-class people hanywhere—you don't reely!"
Energetic Motor-Cyclist. "Why the deuce don't you sit still? You'll have us over in a minute."
40-1920 A.D.
Caligula the man (quite mad, of course)
Conferred the consulship upon his horse.
Caligula the colt (a trifle saner)
Makes kings of jockey, purchaser and trainer.
Sanity counts; I raise my cup of massic
Not to the earlier but the later "classic."
Journalistic Modesty.
"I was his [Irving's] guest regularly at all Lyceum first nights for a whole quarter of a century.... He delighted in the company of third-rate people."
C.K.S. in "The Sphere."
The Master. "Tcha! This bacon tastes simply beastly."
The Mistress. "Gladys, what did you do with the bacon we set aside for poisoning the rats?"