The Affable Stranger

by Peter McArthur

It has been my experience that a mere observer—"a looker-on here in Vienna"—seldom arrives at the truth about anything. He sees only the outside of things. It is when one is actually doing things that he learns about them. With this in mind I deferred taking the present trip for many months. Not wishing to come as a holiday onlooker I waited until actual business made it necessary for me to come. This business would make it necessary for me to have dealings with men in various cities, and in order to transact it I would be obliged to keep step with that part of the business world in which I found it necessary to move. I would find the chance comments of business conversation more enlightening than any formal interviews, for they would rise spontaneously from the soul of things. With all this carefully thought out I started on my trip.

When I left the farm my plans were vague and leisurely. I had business to transact, but it was not urgent. It could wait on my convenience and on the convenience of others. It was little more than a good excuse for meeting business men in their offices so that I could glimpse what they were thinking about when off their guard.

When I reached Toronto I found that it would be necessary for me to make my plans more definite and to speed up to a regular schedule. There seemed to be more in the business than I thought and it would be well to make the most of it. So I reformed my plans and prepared to step lively wherever necessary.

In Boston I was startled to find that further changes in my plans were advisable. The business looked better than ever, but if I was to transact it and keep step with the march of things I must exert myself and move fully three times as fast as had been planned before leaving Toronto. This would wipe out the holiday aspect of my trip, but it would give me a more intimate view of the business life of the American people. I decided to rise to the occasion.

Then I went to New York and what happened to me and my plans may be indicated by my first experience in the city. Knowing that an old friend was located at a certain address on lower Broadway I decided to call on him before doing anything else. I found a real sky-scraper at the address sought. Looking up his address in the office directory I found that his room number was 3224. Being accustomed to office buildings and hotels where the rooms are numbered with the first figure indicating the floor on which the room is located, I expected to find my friend on the third floor. Stepping in the elevator I asked for room 3224, and was promptly whirled to the thirty-second floor. My guess at the location had been multiplied by ten. And I soon found that this kind of multiplication touched everything. If Boston made me move three times as fast as Toronto, New York would make me move ten times as fast and far as Boston. Right there my plans went glimmering. Like Huck Finn, "I lost all holts." I was willing to forego a holiday, but I did not propose to invite apoplexy. Since then I have been doing business in a catch-as-catch-can way—and getting information and impressions in the same way. And what I am getting I shall pass on just as I get it—without plan or too much order. The impossibility of keeping step with New York without a long previous training has compelled me to give up the attempt and has restored me to the holiday humor I was in when leaving the farm. So now we can step lightly again.

One day many years ago I happened to be with the late "Billy" Garrison, whose memory still lingers in New York newspaper life. A bewildered individual approached and asked Garrison:

"Are you a Scotchman?"

"No," said the wit, "but if you wait a minute I think I can find you one."

That swift absurdity epitomizes New York. If you want a man of any nationality or from any place, you can find him in a minute or two if you care to search. In trying to get in touch with the United States, or even the whole world, it is not necessary to leave Manhattan Island. But I was not searching. I was waiting for mine own to come to me. In this care-free and receptive mood I met men from many States of the Union and from many walks of life. Some I met as old friends, some in the way of business, and some by the simple expedient of borrowing a match in a smoking-car or hotel lobby. As none suspected any motive beyond what appeared on the surface, they talked copiously if not always entertainingly. And I soon discovered the astounding fact that if my patriotic sentiments were to be outraged I must pave the way for the insult myself. The war and international relations never cropped up. Of course the Americans lack the irritant of the adverse exchange which touches Canadian business life at many points every day and arouses wrath. As a matter of fact, the exchange gives their dealings with Canada and Great Britain an added zest and tends to make them take a placid view of the international situation. That in itself is enough to increase the irritation of a Canadian, but I could hardly make it a cause of argument, for exchange is a subject that I do not feel that I understand except in moments of exalted financial meditation such as seldom come to me. While I might feel sore about having my Canadian money discounted, the Americans were not sore at all. Indeed, they went farther and were unfailing in their sympathy. That hurt a little, but I could hardly treat it as an insult.