WAITING FOR THE SPARK.
(With thanks to the London Telephone Directory.)
I doubt if you have ever taken the book seriously, dear reader (if any). You dip into it for a moment, choose a suitable quotation and scribble it down with a blunt pencil on your blotting-pad; then you wind the lanyard of the listening-box round your neck and start talking to the germ-collector in that quiet self-assured voice which you believe spells business success. Then you find you have got on to the Institute of Umbrella-Fanciers instead of the Incorporated Association of Fly-Swatters, which you wanted, and have to begin all over again. But that is not the way to treat literature.
In calm hours of reflection, rather, when the mellow sunlight streams into the room and, instead of the dull gray buildings opposite, you catch a mental glimpse of green tree-tops waving in the wind, and hear, above the rumbling of the busy 'buses, the buzzes ... the bumbling ... what I mean to say is you ought to sit down calmly and read the book from cover to cover, as I am doing now.
For it isn't like a mere Street Directory, which puts all the plot into watertight compartments, and where possibly all the people in Azalea Terrace know each other by sight, even across the gap where it says:—
Here begins Aspidistra Avenue, like the lessons in church.
Nor, again, is it like Who's What, where your imagination is hampered and interfered with by other people butting in to tell you that their recreations are dodging O.B.E.'s and the Income Tax Commission. Publications: Hanwell Men as I knew Them. Club: The Philanderers, and so forth. This cramps your style.
But the book before us now is pregnant with half-hidden romances, which you can weave into any shape that you will, and, what is more, it is written in a noble beautiful English which you have probably never had time to master. I want you to do that now. Suppose, for instance, that in private life your hostess introduced you to Museum 88901 Wilkinson Arthur Jas.—let us say at a Jazz tea. And suppose you were to ask him what his business was, and he told you that he was an Actnr and Srvyr or a Pprhngr. Probably you would be surprised; possibly even you wouldn't believe him. But it's all there in the book.
The type too is diversified by sudden changes which intrigue me greatly. All over London I like to fancy little conversations of this sort are going on:—
Hop 1900 Tomkinson Edward C.— "Hello, is that TOMKINSON EDWARD C.?"
GERRARD 22001 TOMKINSON EDWARD C.—"SPEAKING."
Hop 1900 Tomkinson Edward C.— The Whlsl Slvrsmths?"
GERRARD, ETC.—"DON'T SPLUTTER LIKE THAT. WHO ARE YOU?"
Hop, etc.—"I'm Tomkinson Edward C. too. Little Edward C. of Hop. The Tbcnst. I only wanted to have a talk with you, big brother."
Or sometimes it takes the shape of a novel, starting something like this:—
Kensington 100110 Williams Miss, Tpst., a beautiful but penniless girl, in love with—
Regent 8000 Air Ministry, Ext. 1009, a young aviator who has won the Mlty. Crss. (2 Brs). Their path is crossed by—
City 66666 (12 lines), BLENKINSOP JEHORAM AND CO., Fnncrs. Blenkinsop wishes to marry Miss Williams, on account of a large legacy which he has reason to believe will come to her from
Mayfair 5000 Dashwood-Jones H. See Jones H. Dashwood, and so on.
Sometimes, again, as I plunge still deeper into the fascinating volume, a poem seems to fashion itself and leap from the burning page. Listen.
She hears not Park appealing
Nor Gerrard's wail of woe,
Her heart is on to Ealing
89200;
For there her true love (smartest
Of lcl plmbrs) speaks;
For him our switch-board artist
Puts powder on her cheeks.
For him, the brave, the witty,
When evening's shadows drop
She flies from Rank and City
To tread some Western hop.
For him her spirit ranges
Through realms of blissful thrall,
And that is why Exchange is
Not getting Lndn Wll.
Little her mthr——
I'm sorry, reader; I really and truly am. There's my trunk call ... "Hello. No, I can't hear ..."
We must finish it some other time, and you must try READING THE BOOK for yourself srsly please.
"Hello! Hello! Hel-lo!"...
EVOE.