While we ate we looked out on the sad lights of Homerton, and the shadowy arches and cringing houses. A queer place, whose flavour I have never rightly been able to catch. It is nondescript, but full of suggestion. Some day, probably, its message will burst upon me, and I expect it will be something quite obvious. The shadow of history hangs over it all. Six hundred years ago, in the velvet dusk of a summer night, Sir John Froissart galloped this way, by plaguey bad roads, and he beguiled the tedium of his journey by making an excellent new pastourelle. But you will hear no echo of this delicious song to-day: that lies buried for ever in the yellow mists of the MS. Room at the British Museum. Motor-'buses will snatch you from St. James's Palace, dash you through the City, and land you, within twenty minutes, breathless and bewildered, in the very spot where Sir John climbed from his steed. There is little now that is naughty and light-hearted. There is much that is sombrely wicked, and there are numbers of unsweetened ladies attached to the churches; and if it should chance to be one of your bad days, you may hear, as you stand musing upon the fringe of the Downs, in place of Sir John's insouciant numbers, "Mein liebe Schwann ..." and other trifles rendered by gramophone at an opposite villa. But if ever it had any charms, they are gone. We may read in our histories that about these parts kings and princes, soldiers and wits, counselled, carolled, and caroused: but you would never think it. Too soon, I fancy, the music and the wine were done, the last word said, and the guests sent their several ways into the night. For nothing remains—nothing of that atmosphere which grows around every spot where people have loved, and suffered, and hated, and died; only Jumbo and a nameless spirit remain.
It is one of the few places in town where the street-merchant survives in all his glory. Everywhere in London, of course, we have the coffee-stall, the cockle, whelk, and escallop stall, the oyster bar (8d. per doz.), the baked potato and chestnut man, and (an innovation of 1914) the man in the white dress with a portable tin, selling pommes frites in grease-proof bags at a penny a time. But in Homerton, in addition to these, you have the man with the white-metal stand, selling a saveloy and a dab of pease-pudding for a penny, or boiled pig's trotters, or many kinds of heavy, hot cakes.
After our orgy, we bought a sweet cake, and Georgie took me to what looked like a dirty little beerhouse that hid itself under one of the passages that lead to the perilous Marshes of Hackney. We slipped into a little bar with room for about four persons, and Georgie swung to the counter, peremptorily smashed a glass on it, and demanded: "Crumdy munt—two!" I was expecting a new drink, but the barman seemed to understand, for he brought us two tiny glasses of green liqueur, looked at Georgie, casually, then again, sharply, and said, in mild surprise, "God ... it's old Georgie!" and then went to attend the four-ale bar. When he came back we exchanged courtesies, and bought, for ourselves and for him, some of the sixpenny cigars of the house. We lingered over our drink in silence, and, for a time, nothing could be heard except the crackling of the saltpetre in the Sunday-Afternoon Splendidos. Then Georgie inquired what was doing at my end, and told me of what he was writing and of how he was amusing himself, and I told him equally interesting things.
It was half-past eight before Georgie and I were tired of Homerton; and he then demanded what we should do now. I said: Return; and it was carried. We went westwards, and called at Rule's for a chat with Harry, and then dropped in at The Alhambra, just in time to catch Phyllis Monkman at her Peruvian Pom-Pom dance in a costume that is surely one of the inspirations of modern ballet. We remained only long enough to pay homage to the young danseuse, and then drifted to those parts of the Square where, from evening until midnight, the beasts of pleasure pace their cells. I have often remarked to various people on the dearth of decent music in our lounges and cafés. I once discussed the matter with the chef d'orchestre of the Café de l'Europe, but he confessed his inability to reform matters. Why can't we have one place in London where one can get drinks, or coffee if desired, and listen to really good music? There is a mass of the best work that is suitable for quartet or quintet, or has been adapted for small orchestra; why is it never heard? Mr. Jacobs says that Londoners don't want it. I don't believe him. "If I play," he says, "anything of Mozart or Bach or Handel or Ravel or Chopin, they are impatient. They talk—ever so loud. And when it is finished, they rush up and say: 'Play "Hitchy Koo."' 'Play "The Girl in the Taxi."'" But I believe there is really a big public for a fully licensed café with a good band which shall have a definite programme of the best music every evening, and stick to that programme regardless of "special requests."
At the café where Georgie and I were lounging, the band was kept hard at work by these Requests. They were "La Bohème" selection, "That Midnight Choo-choo," "Tipperary," "Tales of Hoffman" Barcarolle, "All Aboard for Dixie," "In my Harem," and "The Ragtime Navvy." At the first bars of the Navvy we drifted out, and fell into the arms of The Tattoo Artist, who was taking an evening off.
The tattoo artist is a person of some consequence. He has a knowledge of London that makes most Londoners sick, and his acquaintance with queer and casual characters is illimitable. He was swollen with good food and drink, and as he extended a strong right arm to greet us, he positively shed a lustre of success and power. The state of business in all trades and professions may be heartbreakingly bad, but there is one profession in which there are no bad seasons—one that will survive and flourish until the world ceases to play the quaint comedy of love. All the world loves a lover, and none more so than the tattoo artist, or, to give him his professional name, Professor Sylvanus Ruffino, the world's champion, whose studio is in Commercial Road. When a young man of that district has been bitten by the serpent of love, what does he do? He goes to Sylvanus, and has the name of the lady, garnished with a heart or a floral cupid, engraved on his hands, arms, or chest. His "studio" is a tiny shop, with a gaudy chintz curtain for door, the window decorated with prints of the tattooed bodies of his clients. Elsewhere about the exterior are coloured designs of Chinese dragons, floral emblems, cupids, anchors, flags, and other devices with which your skin may be beautified at trifling cost—anything from sixpence to five shillings.
The professor works every evening from seven to ten o'clock, in his shirt-sleeves. In the corner of the studio is the operating-table, littered with small basins of liquid inks of various hues, and a sterilizing-vessel, which receives the electric needle after each client has been punctured. Winter, he tells me, contradicting the poet, is his best time. He finds that in Shadwell and the neighbourhood the young man's fancy turns more definitely to love in the dark evenings than in the spring. As soon as October sets in his studio is crowded with boys who desire the imprinting of beautiful names on their thick skins. He calculates that he must have tattooed the legend "Mizpah" some eight thousand times since he started in the business. Girls, too, sometimes visit him, and demonstrate their love for their boy in a chosen masculine way.
To-night he had snatched a few hours in the West, and was just returning home. It being then well past twelve, we sauntered a little way with him, and called at a coffee-stall for a cup of the leathery tea which is the speciality of the London coffee-stall. Most stalls have their "regulars," especially those that are so fortunate as to pitch near a Works of any kind. The stall we visited was on the outskirts of Soho, and near a large colour-printing house which was then working day and night. I wonder, by the way, why printers always drink tea and stout in preference to other beverages. I wonder, too, why policemen prefer hard-boiled eggs above all other food.
It is a curious crowd that gathers about the stalls. In the course of a night you may meet there every type of Londoner. You may meet policemen, chauffeurs, printers, toughs, the boy and girl who have been to a gallery and want to finish the night in proper style, and—the cadgers. At about the middle of the night there is a curious break in the company: the tone changes. Up to four o'clock it's the stay-up-all-nights; after that hour it's the get-up-earlys. One minute there would be a would-be viveur, in sleek dress clothes; then along comes a cadger; then along comes a warrior from the battlefield. Then, with drowsy clatter, up comes a gang of roadmen, scavengers, railway workers, and so on. A little later comes the cheerful one who has made a night of it, and, somehow, managed to elude the police. He takes a cup of strong tea, demonstrates the graceful dancing of Mr. Malcolm Scott, and smashes two cups in doing it. Then up comes the sport, with a cert. for the big race to-day. Then up comes six o'clock, and the keeper packs up, and shoves his stall to its yard.