Lalage's Lovers

by George A. Birmingham

Mont ‘Estoril is a watering place near the mouth of the Tagus. In spite of the fact that some misguided people advertise its attractions and call it the Riviera of Portugal, it is a pleasant spot to live in when Lisbon is very hot. There are several excellent hotels there and I have found it a good plan to migrate from the capital and settle down in Mont ‘Estoril for June, July and August. I have to go into Lisbon every day, but this is no great hardship, for there is a convenient train service. I usually catch what the Portuguese call a train of “great velocity” and arrive at the Caes da Sodre railway station a few minutes after eleven o’clock. From that I go, partly on foot, partly in a tram, to the embassy and spend my time there in the usual way.

One morning—I have kept a note of the date; it was the ninth of August—I saw a large crowd of people, plainly tourists, standing together on the footpath, waiting for a tram. The sight was common enough. Every ten days or so an enterprising steamboat company lands a bevy of these worthy people in Lisbon. This crowd was a little larger than usual. It was kept together by three guides who were in charge of the party and who galloped, barking furiously, along the outskirts of the herd whenever a wild or frightened tourist made any attempt to break away. On the opposite side of the road were two young girls. One of them, very prettily dressed in bright blue, was adjusting a hand camera with the intention of photographing the tourists and attendant watchdog guides. She did not succeed, because one of the guides recognized her as a member of his flock and crossed the road to where she stood. I know the man slightly. He is a cosmopolitan, a linguist of great skill, who speaks good English, with Portuguese suavity of manner, in times of calm, but bad English, with French excitability of gesture, when he is annoyed. He reasoned, most politely I’m sure, with the two girls. He wanted them to cross the road and take their places among the other tourists. The girl in blue handed the camera to her companion, took the cosmopolitan guide by the shoulders, pushed him across the road and posed him in a picturesque attitude on the outskirts of the crowd. Then she went back to take her picture. The guide, of course, followed her, and I could see by the vehemence of his shrugs and gesticulations that his temper had given way. I guessed that his English must have been almost unintelligible. The scene interested me and I stood still to see how it would end. The girl in the blue dress changed her intention and tried to photograph the excited interpreter while he gesticulated. I sympathized with her wish. His attitudes were all well worth preserving. If she had been armed with phonograph as well as a camera she might have secured a really valuable record. The man, to my knowledge, speaks eight languages, all equally badly, and when he mixes them he is well worth listening to. In order to get him into focus the girl in the blue dress kept backing away from him, holding the camera level and gazing into the view finder. The man, gesticulating more wildly than ever, followed her. She moved more and more rapidly away from him until at last she was proceeding backward along the street at a rapid trot. In the end she bumped against me. I staggered and clutched at my hat. She turned, and, without appearing in the least put out, began to apologize. Then her face lit with a sudden smile of recognition.

“Oh,” she said, “it’s you?”

I recognized the voice and then the face. I also retained my presence of mind.

“Begging a person’s pardon,” I said, “when we tread on their toes is a polite and reasonable thing to do.”

Lalage may have recognized the quotation, although I do not think I had it quite right. She certainly smiled agreeably. But she had no time to waste on exchanging reminiscences.

“Just make that idiot stand where he is for a moment,” she said, “till I get him photographed. I wouldn’t miss him for pounds. He’s quite unique.”

The interpreter protested volubly in Portuguese mixed with Spanish and French. He was, so he told me, placed in charge of the tourists by the steamboat company which had brought them to Lisbon. If one of them got lost he would have to answer for it, answer for it with his head, and the senora, the two exceedingly headstrong senoras, would get lost unless they could be penned in with the rest of his flock.

I glanced at Lalage several times while the interpreter harangued us, and noticed that she had grown into an extremely pretty girl. She, it seemed, was also taking stock of me.

“You’ve improved,” she said. “Your moustache has broadened out. If that monkey on a stick won’t be photographed I wish you’d hunt him away out of this. I don’t know any Portuguese swears or I’d do it myself.”