“You like it?”
“Oh, yes, from a money point I do. I make perhaps fifty per cent. more than I did in Scotland but I may say, too, it costs me almost fifty per cent. more to live.” He said this with a sigh. I could see Scotch thrift sticking out all over him. An interesting little man he proved, very intelligent, very cautious, very saving. You could see early religious training and keen desire to get up in the world in his every gesture.
We fell into a most interesting conversation, to me, for knowing so little of England I was anxious to know more. Despite the littleness of my companion and his clerkly manner I found him entertaining. He wanted to know what I thought of England and I told him—as much as I could judge by a few days’ stay. He told me something of London life—its streets, sections and so on and asked a great many questions about America. He had the ability to listen intelligently which is a fine sign. He wanted to know particularly what traveling salesmen receive in America and how far their money goes. He was interested to know the difference between English and American railroads. By this time the meal had ended and we were toasting our toes before the fire. We were quite friendly.
“It’s some little distance back to my place and I think I’ll be going,” I said. “I don’t know whether I really know how to get there, but I’ll try. I understand there is no direct railroad connection between here and there. I may not be able to find my way at night as it is.”
“Well, I’ll walk with you a little way if you don’t mind,” he replied solicitously. “I have nothing else to do.”
The idea of companionship soothed me. Walking around alone and standing in the market place looking at the tramping men had given me the blues. I felt particularly lonely at moments, being away from America, for the difference in standards of taste and action, the difference in modes of thought and practice, and the difference in money and the sound of human voices was growing on me. When you have lived in one country all your life and found yourself comfortable in all its ways and notions and then suddenly find yourself out of it and trying to adjust yourself to things that are different in a hundred little ways, it is rather hard.
“That’s very nice of you. I’d like to have you,” and out we went, paying our bills and looking into a misty night. The moon was up but there was a fairly heavy fog and Marlowe looked sheeted and gray. Because I stated I had not been in any of the public houses and was interested to go, he volunteered to accompany me, though I could see that this was against his principles.
“I don’t drink myself,” he observed, “but I will go in with you if you want to. Here’s one.”
We entered and found a rather dimly lighted room,—gas with a mantle over it,—set with small tables and chairs, and a short bar in one corner. Mrs. Davidge’s bar had been short, too, only her room was dingier and small. A middle-sized Englishman, rather stout, came out of a rear door, opening from behind the bar, and asked us what we would have. My friend asked for root beer. I noticed the unescapable open fire and the array of pink and green and blue wine glasses. Also the machinery for extracting beer and ale from kegs, a most brassy and glowing sight. Our host sold cigars and there were boards about on the tables for some simple games.
This and a half-dozen other places into which we ventured gave me the true spirit of Marlowe’s common life. I recalled at once the vast difference between this and the average American small town saloon. In the latter (Heaven preserve us from it) the trade might be greater or it might not, but the room would be larger, the bar larger, the flies, dirt, odor, abominable. I hope I am not traducing a worthy class, but the American saloon keeper of small town proclivities has always had a kind of horror for me. The implements of his trade have always been so scummy and ill-kept. The American place would be apt to be gayer, rougher, noisier. I am thinking of places in towns of the same size. Our host was no more like an American barkeeper than a bee is like a hornet. He was a peaceful-looking man, homely, family marked, decidedly dull. Your American country barkeeper is another sort, more intelligent, perhaps, but less civil, less sensible and reliable looking. The two places were miles apart in quality and feeling. Here in Marlowe and elsewhere in England, wherever I had occasion to inspect them, the public houses of the small-town type were a great improvement over the American variety. They were clean and homelike and cheerful. The array of brass, the fire, the small tables for games, all pleased me. I took it to be a place more used as a country club or meeting-house than as in our case a grimy, orgiastic resort. If there were drunken men or women in any of the “pubs,” this night I did not see them. My Scotch friend assured me that he believed them, ordinarily, to be fairly respectable.