So Rothenberger, looking about for a vessel by means of which to purify himself (and push his business), lit on a girl with money, living, as he said, “oot by Hampstead way;” went through the process known as courting, in a mixture of German and of English, eked out with Plaat-Deutsch, and finally induced the lady to fix the day on which to make him pure. Science and business jointly having so taken up his time that he had learnt but little English, he was at some loss, and left arrangements to the family of his intended wife.
Not knowing English customs, he had written asking in what costume he should appear on the great day, and received a letter telling him to make his appearance at the church duly dressed in a tall hat, light trousers, and a new frock coat. Frock coat he read as “frac,” and ordered wedding garments such as he thought suitable, with the addition of a brand-new evening coat. The wedding breakfast having been ordered at the Hotel Metropole, he there transferred himself, proposing to pass the night before his final entry into moral life quietly and decently, as befits one about to change his state. But as he said, “God or some other thing was of another mind,” for when I was arriving at the place, mein head feel heavy, and I was out of sorts, and when I ring the bell, a housemaid answer it wit a hot-water jug, and came into the room. Himmel, what for a girl, black hair like horse’s tail, great glear plue eyes, and tall and fat, it was a miracle. I fall in love wit her almost at once, but I say nothings, only wink little at her with my eye. All the night long I could not schleep, thinking part of the housemaid, part of mein wife, and part if perhaps I was not going to do a very silly ding. When it was morning I have quite forgot the church, but still remember what the clergyman was like. So I go to the porter (he was a landsman of my own), and ask him to get me a cab, and then explain, I was to be married oot by Hampstead way, that morning at eleven and half o’clock. The porter say what church shall I tell the schelm to drive to, but mein Got I have forgot. So I say, go to Hampstead, and I will go to all the churches and ask if a German is to be married, till I find the right one out. The cabman think that I was mad, and I get into the cab dressed in clear trousers, white waistcoat, and plue necktie, mit little spot; shiny new boots that hurt me very much; with yellow gloves three-quarter-eight in size, and with my new “frac” coat, so that I think myself, eh, Rothenberger, was that really you? The cabman wink mit de porter, and we start away. We drive and drive, first to one church and then another, and I always ask, is it in this church that a German is to be marry at half twelve o’clock? Dey grin at me, and every one say no. De dime approach, and I was sweating in the cab, not knowing what they say if at half twelve o’clock I not turn up to time. At last looking out from the window I see the clergyman walking along the street mit a big hymnbook in his hand. I cry to him, Ach Himmel, it is I, Karl Rothenberger, that you must marry at half twelve o’clock. He stop, and shomp into the cab, and then we drive to church.
All was so glad to see me, for I hear one say, I thought the German must have change his mind. I ran into the church, and my wife say, What for a costume is it that you have? Frock coat and clear grey pants, dat is not wedding dress; so I say I know dat, but why you write to me, mind and buy a new “frac coat”?
They mumble out their stuff, and when the clergyman ask me if I want this woman for mein wife, I say, all right, and all the people laugh like everythings. Then when he say, I, Karl, do promise and etcetera, I say, dat is so, and de people laugh again. At last it all was done, and we drive off to the hotel to have the breakfast, and mein wife look beautiful in her new travelling dress. At the hotel the company was met, and I go up to mein apartment to change the dam frac coat, to wash mein hands, and put a little brillantine on my moustache, whilst mein wife mit the bridesmaids go to another room, and all the company was waiting down below.
I want hot water, so I rang the bell, and the stout pretta chambermaid she bring it in a jug. How the thing pass I never knew till now, but I wink at her, and she laugh, and then—she put down the jug, just for a moment,—for the company, mein wife, her father, and the bridesmaids, all was waiting down below. So I come down and make mein speech, talk to the bridesmaids, and we eat like anythings, and then we drive away to pass our honeymoon, and somehow I feel mein head much lighter than before. Marriage is good for man, it sober him, it bring him business, and it bring him children, and . . . I am happy mit my wife . . . The housemaid, oh yes, ach Got, I hear that some one take from the place to live mit him, and it is not a wonder, for she was so tall, so stout, have such black hair, and such great eyes, it was a pity that she spend her life answering the bell, and bringing up hot water in a jug.
LA CLEMENZA DE TITO
The hotel paper had a somewhat misguiding “Comfort” as its telegraphic address. Upon the walls were reproductions of sporting prints by Leech, depicting scions of the British aristocracy taking their pleasures not so very sadly after all, and easily demonstrating their superiority to several smock-frocked rustics by galloping close past them, and shouting “Tally-ho,” holding their left ear between their thumb and finger to emphasize the note. Apollinaris and whisky splits, Fritz Rupprecht’s “Special,” with other advertisements of a like nature, filled up the blanks between the oleographs. Iron and Commerce, with the Cook’s Excursionist and Engineering, lay untouched upon the tables, serving to show that if some books be not real books at all, there are newspapers which are, as it were, but dummies, holding no police news, football specials, murders, assaults on women, divorce cases, and other items which the educated public naturally expects within their sheets. Slipshod and futile, but attentive German waiters, went about bringing hot whisky, whisky and soda, whisky and lemonade, and whisky neat to the belated customers. Upon the tables glasses had made great rings, commercial travellers had left their pigskin satchels in a heap, and, by the fire, a group of travellers sat silently drinking after the Scottish fashion, and spitting in the grate. Twelve o’clock, half-past twelve, then one by one they dropped away murmuring good-night, and setting down their glasses with an air of having worked manfully for a good night’s repose.
Still I sat on gazing into the fire, and almost unaware that on the other side sat a companion of my vigil, till at last he said, “Do you know Yambo, sir?” and to my vague assent rejoined, “Yambo on the Arabian coast, just opposite Hodeida, where vessels in the pilgrim trade discharge their ‘niggers.’ It’s the port for Mecca, that is, the ‘Sambaks’ used to put in there, but now we do the traffic right from Mogador.” I looked with interest at the man, liking his Demosthenic style of opening remarks. Tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in navy blue, boots like small packing-cases, and a green necktie in which was stuck a cairngorm pin; he wore a silver watch-chain with a small steering-wheel attached to it; not quite a sailor, yet a look of the sea about his clothes; he had a face open and innocent, yet wrinkled round the eyes like a young elephant, and struck me as being, perhaps not foolish, certainly not wise, but with a tinge of worldly wisdom gathered in seaport towns, at music-halls, and other places where those who go down to the sea in ships gain their experience of life. “Yambo,” I said; “I thought that Jeddah was the port the pilgrims landed at.” “Well, so it is,” he said, “but I was thinking about Yambo, been there a many times, used to run arms for the tribes to fight the Turks, when I was fourth engineer in the old Pyramus. Yes, yes, I’ve been at sea most all my life, though my old dad keeps a slap-up hotel at Weston-super-Mare. No need to go to sea, no, but you know some folks would go to hell for pleasure, and I suppose I’m one. Dad, you know—now were you ever at Weston-super-Mare?—is fond of literature, does a bit himself, Chambers you know; mostly upon the conchology and the fossils of the South Devon coast; awfully fond of it, and so am I, nothing I like better than, after getting out of the engine-room, to lie on deck and read one of Bulwer’s books or Dickens’s, both of them stunning. No, I never write myself. Can’t make out what set me thinking about Yambo. What! you won’t? Well, waiter, waiter, Garçong, as we used to say at Suez, another whisky, slippy, you know. I’ve always been a temperate man, but like a nightcap before turning in. Perim ain’t so far off from Yambo; ah yes, now I remember what it was I had to say. You know them Galla girls? prime, ain’t they? But Perim, I remember being Shanghaied there, nothing to do, a beastly hole; sand, beastly, gets in your socks, gets in your hair, makes you feel dirty, no matter how you wash. Well, you know, there were about two hundred of us there, some kind of Government work was going on, and I was left there out of my ship, kind of loaned off, you see, to help the Johnnies at the condensing works. I’ve been at Suez, Yambo as I told you, Rangoon, down at Talcahuano on the Chilean coast, wrecked in Smythe’s Channel, and been about a bit, but Perim fairly takes the cake, not even a sheet of blotting-paper between it and hell. As I was saying, then, we were cooped up, and not a woman in the place; even the Government saw it at last, thought maybe worse would happen if they did nothing, and sent and got six of them Galla girls. Leastwise, if they didn’t send for them, they let a Levantine, Mirandy was his name, introduce them on the strict Q.T. Well, you know, the thing was like this, sir—you know them Galla girls, black as a boot and skins always as cool as ice, even in a khamsin; some people says they are better than white girls; but not in mine; but anyhow they’ve got no ‘Bookay d’Afreek’ about them, it always turns me sick. As I was saying, I thought I’d have a ‘pasear’ one evening, so I lemonaded up to the ‘Mansion,’ and began talking to one of them girls, sort of to pass the time. Serpent upon the rocks, eh? well, that old Solomon knew something about girls. Now here comes in the curious thing, it always strikes me just as if I’d read it in a book; Dickens now or Thackeray could have ’andled it, Bulwer would ’ave made it a little loosious. Just as the gal was taking off her things—oh, no offence, captain, I’m telling you the thing just as it happened—I saw she had a crucifix a-hanging round her neck. Papist? Oh no, not much; father, he sat under Rev. Hiles Hitchens, light of the Congregationalists. No, no, nothing to do with Rome, never could bear the influence of the confessor in a family. A little free myself, especially below latitude forty, but at ’ome and in the family I like things ship-shape. Well, as I said, round her black neck she had a silver crucifix, contrast of colour made the thing stand out double the size. Ses I, ‘What’s that?’ and she says, ‘Klistian girl, Johnny, me Klistian all the same you.’ That was a stopper over all, and I just reached for my hat, says, ‘Klistian are yer,’ and I gave her two of them Spanish dollars and a kiss, and quit the place. What did she say? Why, nothing, looked at me and laughed, and says, ‘You Klistian, Johnny, plenty much damn fool.’ No, I don’t know what she meant, I done my duty, and that’s all I am concerned about.
“Another half, just a split whisky and Apollinaris. Well, if you won’t, good-night;” and the door slammed, leaving me gazing at the fast-blackening fire.