Had he been in our subway? was asked. No; he had been down in a station one time, but he had not ridden on one of the trains. I wish now that I had thought to cut into the rapid battledore and shuttlecock of the conversation to learn why he had not been. Was he scared of 'em?
What were the things which Mr. Chesterton particularly liked in the United States? Well, for one thing, he very much liked the "elevated." He thought it was grand up in the air that way.
And what had be especially disliked? Mr. Lee apparently had knowledge of a memorandum book kept by Mrs. Chesterton, known to their ultimate little circle as her "Book of Likes and Dislikes." She was, with some difficulty, prevailed upon to read from this—which she did very guardedly, clutching the book very firmly before her. Among the things put down in it as not liked were ice cream, ice water, "American boots" (by which was meant women's high-heeled shoes), and interviewers, reporters and camera men. Things especially liked included parlor-car seats. Mr. Chesterton: "I don't dislike it, now. I've got the evil habit of ice water."
"Lift," it was generally agreed, was a happier word than "elevator." Mrs. Chesterton thought that the scientific, technical, correct, or whatever you call them, words for things always took all the feeling of life out of them. "Aviator," for example, had no color at all. But how fine in the spirit of the thing was the popular term "flying-man," or "fly-man"!
The conversation had got momentarily divided into groups. Mr. Chesterton was heard saying to Mr. Woollcott, "The time I mean was when Yeats was young—when mysticism was jazz."
Just how he got started in on them I do not recall. He began with Belloc's most entertaining and highly vivacious ballad which has the refrain, "And Mrs. James will entertain the king"; a kind of a piece among friends, which unfortunately is not in any book. He recited with a kind of joyous unction, nodding his head forward and back from side to side, thus keeping time to the music of the verse, punctuating the close of each stanza with bubble of chuckles. On and on and on and on he went through goodness knows how many bits of rollicking literary fooling.
It was half past eleven. I saw Mr. Chesterton, when someone else was speaking, yawn slightly now and then. The four callers arose to go. Some one of us asked Mr. Chesterton if he expected to be back in America soon. Through a wreath of smiles he replied that he was not getting a return ticket on the boat.
The two of them were framed in their doorway as we got into the "foreigner's" car. Mrs. Chesterton called to us that she hoped to see us all in England, "singly or together." As the car dropped from their floor both were beaming a merry, friendly farewell.
Suddenly it struck me that they were very like a pair of children—they were so happy, so natural, so innocent of guile, and obviously so fond of one another.