This crowd was worth observing at close range. Mame did not let the opportunity slip. The proper study of mankind is man. According to the office calendar some wise guy had pulled that in the reign of Queen Anne. Mame had already developed considerable powers in that direction. She was getting quite expert at sizing folks up.
Socially speaking, she now divided her fellow creatures into two classes. Class A, on the level. Class B, four-flushers. Nothing had surprised her more in New York than the prevalence of Class B. They were everywhere. And, as far as she was concerned, they were highly dangerous people. One of their chief delights was to call the bluff of their competitors.
London also suffered from Class B. It was less dominant, however, than on the other side of the Atlantic. And for the most part, in London they were four-flushers with a difference. They saw bigger, they carried more sail; perhaps they were older hands at the game.
Even Lady Violet’s smart drawing room was not wholly free of Class B. As the place got fuller and fuller and the tea and cake began to circulate, the other sex made a bit of a show. Mame welcomed them as a pleasing diversion. She gave far less thought to men as a rule than she gave to women. Somehow she felt that she had so much less to fear from them.
London, she had heard, was rather famous for its men. They were said to wear their clothes better than any in the world. That might be so. But among those who blew in upon 16b Half Moon Street this afternoon were one or two whose clothes ought not to have been worn by anybody. Artistic johns, no doubt. One in particular, large, shambling, big-kneed, loud-voiced, had a regular Fifth of November appearance.
Mame was so struck by him that she asked her right-hand neighbour, a very knowledgeable girl who unmistakably belonged to Class A and who was full of natural elegance, who he was.
“Shelton France Mackelland, the Canadian poet,” the girl informed her.
“A Canuck, is he?” She wondered how he dared.
“Don’t you know his famous volume of poems, The Old Shack?”
Mame confessed that she did not.