Mrs. Toogood, if not a travelled woman, or a widely read or highly informed, was yet an educated one. She had been educated by the movies. That form of hyperculture which aims to instruct as well as to amuse and delights to draw together the nations of the earth had put this good lady wise on the subject of America.
Every Saturday afternoon it was the custom of a modern and progressive mother to take her twin sons, ætat nine years and two months, Horatio Nelson Toogood and Victor Emanuel Toogood by name—the Italian warehouseman had insisted on the Victor Emanuel in honour of his calling—to the Britannia Picture Palace in the Euston Road. In that centre of light they had learned that America was not quite what she gave herself out to be. God’s Own Country was a truly wicked place. The crook, the vamp, the dope-fiend, the cattle-rustler, the bootlegger, the forger, the slick duck, the run amok quick shooter, the holder-up of mails was as thick on the floor of those United States as the white and yellow crocus in a Thames meadow in the middle of February. And as London is to the virtuous island of Britain, so is New York to the infamous land of the free.
The English are a moral race. They honestly believe their morals are purer than any upon the wide earth. That is why the Pictures are not only educational, but popular. They exhibit Cousin Yank in the buff. And even if the sight embarrasses the pious cheek of Euston Road, N. W., it is pleasant sometimes to spare a blush for one’s rich relations.
In the dour eye that regarded Mame was sorrow. The girl looked harmless even if her speech was odd. But appearances are not things to bank on; at least in Mrs. Toogood’s experience.
“Any old box’ll do for me, so long as it’s clean and ain’t beyond my wad.”
“I have a small room on the top floor.” The landlady was guarded. It was next the servants and very difficult to let; the p.g.’s of Fotheringay House were persons of clearly defined social status.
Mame welcomed with enthusiasm the prospect of a small room on the top floor. The landlady repeated the once-over without enthusiasm. Should she? Or should she not? An outlandish girl, American to the bone, but this attic would be none the worse for a tenant, provided, of course, that she was really a paying one.
Elmer P. Dobree had told Mame more than once that “she was cute as a bag of monkeys.” The zoölogical resources of five continents could not have exceeded the flair with which Miss Durrance opened her vanity bag and produced an impressive roll of Bradburys.
“I’ll be happy to pay a fortnight in advance.” It was Mame’s best Broadway manner. “Here is the money. I am a very respectable girl.”
Reassured by the sight of the Bradburys rather than by the Broadway manner, which to the insular taste had a decidedly cosmopolitan flavour, the landlady went so far as to ask for a name and references.