“On earth men style him 'Richard,''
But the gods hail him 'Dick.'”
—An English Poet (adapted).
FRIEND in need.” say the English, “is a friend indeed. And who could be more in need of a friend than I at that moment? It was like the rolling up of London fog-banks and the smile of the sun peeping through at last. No longer was I quite alone in my exile. If you have ever wandered solitary through an unknown city, listened to a foreign tongue and to none other, eaten alien viands, fallen into strange misadventures, and all without a single friendly ear to confide your troubles to, you will sympathize with the joyous swelling of my heart as I faced my barrister at that luncheon.
And he, I assure you, was a very other person from the indifferent Englishman of the journey. The good heart was showing through, still obscured as it was by the self-contained manner and the remnants of that suspicion with which every Briton is taught to regard the insinuating European.
I have already given you a sketch of his exterior—the smooth, fair hair, the ruddy cheek, the clear eye, and, I should add, the compressed and resolute mouth; also, not least, the admirable fit of his garments. Now I can fill in the picture: Name, to begin with, Richard Shafthead; younger son of honest, conservative baronet; eldest brother provided with an income, I gather, Dick with injunctions to earn one. Hence attendance at courts of justice, a respectable gravity of apparel, and that compression of the lips. In speech, courteous upon a slight acquaintance, though without any excessive anxiety to please; on greater intimacy, very much to the point without regarding much the susceptibilities of his audience. Yet this bluntness was, tempered always by good-fellowship, and sometimes by a smile; and beneath it flowed, deep down, and scarcely ever bubbling into the light of day, a stream of sentiment that linked him with the poetry of his race. My friend Shafthead would have laughed outright had you told him this. Nevertheless this secret is the skeleton in the respectable English cupboard. Your John Bull is an edifice of sentiment jealously covered by a hoarding on which are displayed advertisements of pills and other practical commodities. It is his one fear lest any one should discover this preposterous and hideous erection is not the real building.
Dick's only comment on the above statement would probably be that I had mixed my metaphors or had exceeded at lunch. But he is shrewd enough to know in his heart that I have but spoken the truth, even though my metaphors were as heterogeneous as the ark of Noah. How else can you explain the astonishing contrast between those who write the songs of England and those whose industry enables them to recompense the singers?