Later, as I was finishing, the Comte de Limur arrived. He is a young Frenchman who is studying the moving picture work, for France. He looked at the bust, and then at Charlie, and then slyly at me: “I see, it is Pan ...” and added with a chuckle: “one can never deceive a woman!”
As I needed to work until quite late, it was fortunate that Charlie had changed his mind about Catalina. He heard yesterday that the fishing season closed there on November 1st.
On receipt of this news he flashed a new idea: summoning by shouts “To-om!” his secretary, he asked: “Can you get some tents? Can you get some tinned foods? Can you find a location suitable for camping—can we start on Sunday morning?”
The reply was in the affirmative, unhesitatingly. “Shall we take a chef, or do our own cooking?” Charlie looked at me, I informed him that I couldn’t boil an egg. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. We’ll take a chef—” he said. And so my return to New York planned for Wednesday is again delayed.
Sunday, November 6, 1921.
We had planned to start in the morning at half past ten, but it was nearer half past twelve when we found ourselves en route, and Charlie had changed his mind. He said: “They found two locations for camp, one in the mountains, and one in the woods, but I have decided I want to go to the sea shore—we will go and look for a place ...”
“Then is no camp ready for us?” I asked in dismay. (Knowing something of the business of camping.) “Our tents are following us in a van,” he said and they surely followed.—What a “follow the leader game” for anything as cumbersome as a van! And a Ford followed us as well, containing the chef!
We stopped by the wayside for an ice-cream cone, and we lunched in a little town, where the proprietor addressed Charlie as “brother”—Charlie said it was quite habitual among the real Americans of that class. I said I thought it was very attractive as that one hardly needed a revolution to bring about comradeship, in a country where the waiter calls you “brother.” Charlie was rather scornful about the sentimentalism of my revolutionary ideals.
When we left the cafe, children had assembled in the streets and shouted “Goodbye Charlie” as we drove away. It was only his fondness for children that made him wave to them. Otherwise (I have observed) he has no desire to be recognized or lionized.
Who has ever seen an American country road on a Sunday, and not deplored the prosperity of the nation, especially within radius of Los Angeles? The road is like a smooth winding ribbon on which they race, they pursue, they overtake, the atmosphere is gas and dust, the surface is thick and oily. Any road that is a road at all is humming with the throb of machines. The only road that has no traffic in America is what is called a “dirt-road.” It isn’t “dirt” at all as we understand the word dirt in England. It is just Mother Earth, but these roads lead to nowhere, they end in a field on a farmhouse, as we discovered, and lost much time exploring and re-tracing. The macadam roads led down to the sea shore in places where crowds had gathered together to camp or picnic. That is peculiar about Americans, they love being together. I questioned Charlie: “Surely there must be lovely peaceful places unmarred by civilization?” and he said: “No—if there is a lovely place that is accessible, everyone will have found it....”