Barfleur in many respects, I wish to repeat here, is one of the most delightful persons in the world. He is a sort of modern Beau Brummel with literary, artistic and gormandizing leanings. He loves order and refinement, of course,—things in their proper ways and places—as he loves life. I suspect him at times of being somewhat of a martinet in home and office matters; but I am by no means sure that I am not doing him a grave injustice. A more even, complaisant, well-mannered and stoical soul, who manages to get his way in some fashion or other, if it takes him years to do it, I never met. He surely has the patience of fate and, I think, the true charity of a great heart. Now before I could be properly presented in London and elsewhere I needed a long list of things. So this morning I had much shopping to attend to.
Since the matter of English and American money had been troubling me from the moment I reached that stage on my voyage where I began to pay for things out of my own pocket to the ship’s servants, I began complaining of my difficulties now. I couldn’t figure out the tips to my own satisfaction and this irritated me. I remember urging Barfleur to make the whole matter clear to me, which he did later. He gave me a typewritten statement as to the relative value of the various pieces and what tips I should pay and how and when at hotels and country houses, and this I followed religiously. Here it is:
| In leaving the hotel to-morrow, give the following tips: | |
| Maid | 3/- |
| Valet | 3/- |
| Gold Braid | 1/- |
| Porter (who looks after telephone) | 1/- |
| Outside Man (Doorman) | 1/- |
If you reckon at a hotel to give 9d. a day to the maid and the valet, with a minimum of 1/-, you will be doing handsomely. On a visit, on the supposition that they have only maids, give the two maids whom you are likely to come across 2/6 each, when you come away on Monday. (I am speaking of weekends.) Longer periods should be figured at 9d. a day. If, on the other hand, it is a large establishment—butler and footman—you would have to give the butler 10/- and the footman 5/- for a week-end; for longer periods more.
I cannot imagine anything more interesting than being introduced as I was by Barfleur to the social character of London. He was so intelligent and so very nice about it all. “Now, first,” he said, “we will get your glasses mended; and then you want a traveling bag; and then some ties and socks, and so on. I have an appointment with you at your tailor’s at eleven o’clock, where you are to be measured for your waistcoats, and at eleven-thirty at your furrier’s, where you are to be measured for your fur coat,” and so on and so forth. “Well, come along. We’ll be off.”
I have to smile when I think of it, for I, of all people, am the least given to this matter of proper dressing and self-presentation, and Barfleur, within reasonable limits, represents the other extreme. To him, as I have said, these things are exceedingly important. The delicate manner in which he indicated and urged me into getting the things which would be all right, without openly insisting on them, was most pleasing. “In England, you know,” he would hint, “it isn’t quite good form to wear a heavy striped tie with a frock coat—never a straight black; and we never tie them in that fashion—always a simple knot.” My socks had to be striped for morning wear and my collars winged, else I was in very bad form indeed. I fell into the habit of asking, “What now?”
London streets and shops as I first saw them interested me greatly. I saw at once more uniforms than one would ordinarily see in New York, and more high hats and, presumably,—I could not tell for the overcoats—cutaway coats. The uniforms were of mail-men, porters, messenger-boys and soldiers; and all being different from what I had been accustomed to, they interested me—the mail-men particularly, with a service helmet cut square off at the top; and the little messenger boys, with their tambourine caps cocked joyously over one ear, amused me; the policeman’s helmet strap under his chin was new and diverting.
In the stores the clerks first attracted my attention, but I may say the stores and shops themselves, after New York, seemed small and old. New York is so new; the space given to the more important shops is so considerable. In London it struck me that the space was not much and that the woodwork and walls were dingy. One can tell by the feel of a place whether it is exceptional and profitable, and all of these were that; but they were dingy. The English clerk, too, had an air of civility, I had almost said servility, which was different. They looked to me like individuals born to a condition and a point of view; and I think they are. In America any clerk may subsequently be anything he chooses (ability guaranteed), but I’m not so sure that this is true in England. Anyhow, the American clerk always looks his possibilities—his problematic future; the English clerk looks as if he were to be one indefinitely.
We were through with this round by one o’clock, and Barfleur explained that we would go to a certain very well-known hotel grill.
The hotel, after its fashion—the grill—was a distinct blow. I had fancied that I was going to see something on the order of the luxurious new hotel in New York—certainly as resplendent, let us say, as our hotels of the lower first class. Not so. It could be compared, and I think fairly so, only to our hotels of the second or third class. There was the same air of age here that there was about our old but very excellent hotels in New York. The woodwork was plain, the decorations simple.