“Why don’t you ask somebody?”
“W’ere’s Barbers’ ’All?” He addressed a mail carrier, who paused to think, and then said, “Well, it’s along there,” pointing back from where we had come.
We turned about but had no better luck. The driver stopped at least ten people, each in uniform or livery of some kind or other, “W’ere’s Barbers’ ’All?” and all we heard was the echo, “Barbers’ ’All?” He drew up beside a bobby; even he did not know.
Finally, we saw smart-looking cars going in a certain direction. We said that must be it, and, sure enough, there on the corner was the sign. For our own peace of mind we were not last. H.G. was close behind us, frothing with fury because he too had been driving around Robin Hood’s barn.
Much of the building was locked up, but what we saw was beautifully preserved. Evidently the Guild of the Barbers had prospered in the days when their members did bleeding and leeching, and attended to other annoyances of humanity, such as pulling teeth.
The dining room, once the operating theater, was now the fairest setting for a dinner that one could have—the service presented by Queen Anne, crystal goblets, a silver rose-carved finger bowl, the vast Royal Grace Cup given by Henry VIII, like a chalice with a six-inch stem, everything used only on rare occasions. The table was like an E with the middle left out, and in the center sat Harry Guy in his high-backed chair above the rest of us. I was on his right and next me was a man whose name had performed almost a miracle for birth control in England—Baron Thomas Horder, then physician to the Prince of Wales.
Sidney Walton, the member without whom this banquet could not have taken place, opened the affair as ancient custom prescribed by declaiming, “Pray, silence for the King!” After the toast to His Majesty, one was drunk to the President of the United States, and then my health was proposed; the loving cup, containing about a quart of red wine, began to make the rounds. During the toast, three people had to be standing—the one holding the cup, the one who just had it on the left, and the one on the right who was to receive it. The waiter came to wipe the lip hygienically when each had swallowed his sip; this was the sole modern touch.
London offered me many courtesies. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia was now in full swing. Rumors were abroad that British ships were avoiding the Suez Canal; therefore, I booked on a Dutch line. When I mentioned this to Sir John Megaw, former director of the Indian Medical Service, he practically stopped breathing and bristled in every hair of his head. “What! a P. and O. boat not go through the Canal for fear of Italy?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“My dear Mrs. Sanger, you can go through the Suez Canal on a British boat if the British Navy has to escort you through!”