But the London police are sometimes chary in the exercise of their functions. What really started the woman on her way was his next brief remark, accompanied by the hands, as before, though with a more decided shade of propulsion.
"Scoot!" She went, without words.
These were the only American observations I heard from Raymond during that fortnight.
I wish he had been as successful on the night of our arrival in London when we encountered, in the court behind the big gilded grille of the Grand Metropole, the porter of that grandiose establishment. We had come together from Harwich and did not reach this hotel until half an hour before midnight. We had had our things put on the pavement and had dismissed the cab, and the porter, with an airy, tentative insolence, now reported the place full.
"I don't know who ordered your luggage down, sir; I didn't," he said with a smile that was an experiment in disrespect.
Raymond looked as if he were for immediately adjusting himself to this—though I could hardly imagine his ever having done the like in Paris or in Florence. He was quite willing to confess himself in the wrong: yes, he ought to have remembered that the "season" was beginning; he ought to have known that this particular season, though young, had set in with uncommon vigor; he ought to have known that all the hotels, even the largest, were likely to be crowded and have sent on a wire. The porter, emboldened by the departure of the cab, and by my companion's contrite silence, began to embroider the theme.
Now a single week in England had taught me that no two men in that country—the home of political but not of social democracy—are likely to talk long on even terms. One man must almost necessarily take the upper hand and leave to the other the lower, and the relation must be reached early. I resolved on the upper—cab or no cab. I glared—as well and as coldly as I could. The fellow was only a year or so older than I.
"You are too chatty," I said. "Fewer words and more action. If you are full, call somebody to take us and our baggage to some hotel near by that is not full."
The fellow sobered down and gave us his first look resembling respect.
"Very good, sir. I will, sir. Thank you, sir,"—though he had nothing to thank me for, and though he well knew there was to be nothing.