VADE MECUMS.
I have invented a new sort of patience. It is called Vade Mecums. The rules are quite simple and all the plant you need for it is a "Vade Mecum" traveller's handbook and a complete ignorance of all languages but your own. Get one of these fascinating little classics, a passport and a single to Boulogne, and you can begin at once.
The game consists in firing off (in the local lingo) every single phrase that occurs in the book. The only other rule in the game is that the occasion for making each remark must be reasonably apposite. You need not keep to the order in the book and no points are awarded for pronunciation, provided that the party addressed shows by word or deed that he (or she) has understood you. By way of illustration I will give some account of my first experiments in this enthralling pastime.
As it happened I was able to start at once—too soon, in fact, to be altogether comfortable. We had scarcely put out from Folkestone before I got my chance. The sea was distinctly rough, but I just had time to open my Vade Mecum at page 228 (sub-heading, "On embarking and what happens at sea"), and to read to a passing French steward the first sentence that caught my eye. It was as follows: "The wind is very violent; the sea is very rough; the waves are very high; the rolling of the vessel makes my head ache; I am very much inclined to be sick."
After that I made no more progress till we reached Boulogne; but from the steward's subsequent actions I judged that he had understood; so I was one up.
My Vade Mecum, like most of its kind, was unfortunately compiled many years ago and had never been brought up to date. This, of course, saved me the expense of having to hire aeroplanes or even motor-cars, but it landed me in quite a number of difficulties at the opposite extreme, as you will see.
For instance, in order to polish off the heading, "Of what may happen on the road," I was compelled to obtain a carriage. Judge then my joy when, on reaching a carriage builder's, I discovered a whole section tucked away in a corner of the book dealing exclusively with that very topic. I can think of no other conceivable circumstances under which I could have said, "The wheels are in a miserable state; the body is too heavy; the springs are too light; the shafts are too short; the pole is too thin; the shape is altogether old-fashioned, and the seats are both high and uncomfortable."
Yet now I said it all—in two halves, it is true, and in two different shops; but still I said it all. The first half cost me three front teeth, which fell out while the outraged carrossier was ejecting me; the second cost me a large sum of money, because somehow or other I found I had bought the vehicle in question. This I fancy must have been occasioned by my turning over two pages at once, so that I suppose I really said, "Mr. X., you are an honest man; I will give you ten thousand francs, but on condition that you furnish splinter-bars and traces also for that price."
Still one must pay for one's pleasures, and once en route I made short work of the "What-may-happen-on-the-road" section. The sentence from which I anticipated most trouble was this: "Postilion, stop. A spoke of one of the wheels is broken; some of the harness is undone; a spring is also broken and one of the horses' shoes is come off." I got out all this (without having to tell a lie too) and was just looking feverishly through the book to find phrases to describe the ricketty state of every other part of the vehicle when the off hind-wheel came in half, the front axle snapped and the carriage rolled over on its side stone dead. When I came to myself I found that I was comfortably seated in a ditch, my driver beside me and my Vade Mecum still open in my hand; so I had the gratification of being able to continue the conversation where I had left off. "We should do well," I read, "to get out."
I will not detain you long over the difficulties that I had with the "Society" section. But I feel I ought to mention the business of the Countess, if only to put intending players on their guard. There is a puzzling phrase which occurs in answer to the observation, "Pray come nearer the fire; I am sure you must be cold." The proper answer is, "No, I thank you. I am very well placed here beside the Countess." It took me a month to find a Countess, two to meet her in the drawing-room of a mutual friend, and four to recover from the hole which the irascible little Count made in me when we met next morning on the field of honour.
So I pass sadly and with tears of chagrin to my ultimate defeat. I met my Waterloo, my friends, in the section labelled "The Tailor." Requests within reason I can comply with, for the fun of the thing. Eatables and drinks, suites of rooms and carriages, when ordered on the lavish scale of my Vade Mecum, are not exactly cheap now-a-days. But it's about the limit when one's Mecum expects one to squander the savings of a lifetime in ordering several suits of clothes at once. And yet there it was as large as life, the accursed sentence that made me shut the book with a snap and come home:—"These coats fit me well, though the cut is not fashionable. I shall require also three pairs of trousers, three nankeen pantaloons and four waistcoats."
If anyone feels inclined to try my patience—and theirs—I should like to mention that I have a nice annotated Mecum and a good second-hand carriage for disposal at a very moderate figure.