“How calm and silent all this is! Very different, my boy, from the hideous strife of politics. It ought to be a lesson to you! Here in this quiet place, away from the roar of cities and on the very edge of the peaceful sea, there is opportunity for thought! You will not find here men galling their tempers and shortening their lives by bitter thoughts and violent deeds. Believe me, here in rural England is to be found the true inwardness of British opinion!”
I said nothing; I knew the game. Then the heavy, placid step drew closer. Irving went on:
“Here comes the Voice of England. Just listen to it and learn!” Then in a cheery, friendly voice he said to the invisible policeman:
“Tell me, officer, what is your opinion as to this trouble in Ireland?” The answer came at once, stern and full of pent-up feeling, and in an accent there was no possibility of mistaking:
“Ah, begob, it’s all the fault iv the dirty Gover’mint!” His brogue might have been cut with a hatchet. From his later conversation—for of course after that little utterance Irving led him on—one might have thought that the actor was an ardent and remorseless rebel. I came to the conclusion that Home Rule was of little moment to that guardian of the law; he was an out and out Fenian.
For many a day afterwards I managed to bring in the “Voice of England” whenever Irving began to chaff about Home Rule.
XXXVIII
RIVAL TOWNS
In the course of our tour in the Far West of America in 1893–4 we had an experience which Irving now and again told with great enjoyment to his friends. From San Francisco we went to Tacoma and Seattle, two towns on Puget Sound between which is a mighty rivalry. In Seattle we were walking along the main street when we saw a crowd outside the window of a drug store and went over to see the cause. The whole window-space was cleared and covered with sheets of white paper. In the centre, raised on a little platform, was an immense Tropical American horned beetle quite three inches from feelers to tail. Behind it was propped a huge card on which was printed in ink with a brush in large letters:
“ORDINARY BED-BUG CAPTURED IN TACOMA.”