But though friends may talk in low voices, a man without a friend will hardly fall into conversation at the Turkish bath. It is said that our countrymen are unapt to speak to each other without introduction, and this inaptitude is certainly not decreased by the fact that two men meet each other with nothing on but a towel a piece. Finding yourself next to a man in such a garb you hardly know where to begin. And then there lies upon you the weight of that necessity of maintaining a certain dignity of deportment which has undoubtedly grown upon you since you succeeded in freeing yourself from your socks and trousers. For ourselves we have to admit that the difficulty is much increased by the fact that we are short-sighted, and are obligated, by the sudorific processes and by the shampooing and washing that are to come, to leave our spectacles behind us. The delicious wonder of the place is no doubt increased to us, but our incapability of discerning aught of those around us in that low gloomy light is complete. Jones from Friday Street, or even Walker from the Treasury, is the same to us as one of those Asiatic slaves who administer to our comfort, and flit about the place with admirable decorum and self-respect. On this occasion we had barely seated ourselves, when another bather, with slow, majestic step, came to the other chair; and, with a manner admirably adapted to the place, stretching out his naked legs, and throwing back his naked shoulders, seated himself beside us. We are much given to speculations on the characters and probable circumstances of those with whom we are brought in contact. Our editorial duties require that it should be so. How should we cater for the public did we not observe the public in all its moods? We thought that we could see at once that this was no ordinary man, and we may as well aver here, at the beginning of our story, that subsequent circumstances proved our first conceptions to be correct. The absolute features of the gentleman we did not, indeed, see plainly. The gloom of the place and our own deficiency of sight forbade it. But we could discern the thorough man of the world, the traveller who had seen many climes, the cosmopolitan to whom East and West were alike, in every motion that he made. We confess that we were anxious for conversation, and that we struggled within ourselves for an apt subject, thinking how we might begin. But the apt subject did not occur to us, and we should have passed that half-hour of repose in silence had not our companion been more ready than ourselves. “Sir,” said he, turning round in his seat with a peculiar and captivating grace, “I shall not, I hope, offend or transgress any rule of politeness by speaking to a stranger.” There was ease and dignity in his manner, and at the same time some slight touch of humour which was very charming. I thought that I detected just a hint of an Irish accent in his tone; but if so the dear brogue of his country, which is always delightful to me, had been so nearly banished by intercourse with other tongues as to leave the matter still a suspicion,—a suspicion, or rather a hope.
“By no means,” we answered, turning round on our left shoulder, but missing the grace with which he had made his movement.
“There is nothing,” said he, “to my mind so absurd as that two men should be seated together for an hour without venturing to open their mouths because they do not know each other. And what matter does it make whether a man has his breeches on or is without them?”
My hope had now become an assurance. As he named the article of clothing which peculiarly denotes a man he gave a picturesque emphasis to the word which was certainly Hibernian. Who does not know the dear sound? And, as a chance companion for a few idle minutes, is there any one so likely to prove himself agreeable as a well-informed, travelled Irishman?
“And yet,” said we, “men do depend much on their outward paraphernalia.”
“Indeed and they do,” said our friend. “And why? Because they can trust their tailors when they can’t trust themselves. Give me the man who can make a speech without any of the accessories of the pulpit, who can preach what sermon there is in him without a pulpit.” His words were energetic, but his voice was just suited to the place. Had he spoken aloud, so that others might have heard him, we should have left our chair, and have retreated to one of the inner and hotter rooms at the moment. His words were perfectly audible, but he spoke in a fitting whisper. “It is a part of my creed,” he continued, “that we should never lose even a quarter of an hour. What a strange mass of human beings one finds in this city of London!”
“A mighty maze, but not without a plan,” we replied.
“Bedad,—and it’s hard enough to find the plan,” said he. It struck me that after that he rose into a somewhat higher flight of speech, as though he had remembered and was desirous of dropping his country. It is the customary and perhaps the only fault of an Irishman. “Whether it be there or not, we can expatiate free, as the poet says. How unintelligible is London! New York or Constantinople one can understand,—or even Paris. One knows what the world is doing in these cities, and what men desire.”
“What men desire is nearly the same in all cities,” we remarked,—and not without truth as we think.
“Is it money you mane?” he said, again relapsing. “Yes; money, no doubt, is the grand desideratum,—the ‘to prepon,’ the ‘to kalon’ the ‘to pan!’” Plato and Pope were evidently at his fingers’ ends. We did not conclude from this slight evidence that he was thoroughly imbued with the works either of the poet or the philosopher; but we hold that for the ordinary purposes of conversation a superficial knowledge of many things goes further than an intimacy with one or two. “Money,” continued he, “is everything, no doubt;—rem—rem; rem, si possis recte, si non,——; you know the rest. I don’t complain of that. I like money myself. I know its value. I’ve had it, and,—I’m not ashamed to say it, Sir,—I’ve been without it.”