Part 14 (1/2)

THE SECOND MAN

Well, what can you expect? A country where all the charwomen are men and all the garbage men are women!--

_For the moment the two have talked each other out, and so they lounge upon the rail in silence and gaze out over the valley. Anon the gumchewer spits. By now the sun has reached the skyline to the westward and the tops of the ice mountains are in gorgeous conflagration.

Scarlets war with golden oranges, and vermilions fade into palpitating pinks. Below, in the valley, the colours begin to fade slowly to a uniform seash.e.l.l grey. It is a scene of indescribable loveliness; the wild reds of hades splashed riotously upon the cold whites and pale blues of heaven. The night train for Venice, a long line of black coaches, is entering the town. Somewhere below, apparently in the barracks, a sunset gun is fired. After a silence of perhaps two or three minutes, the Americans gather fresh inspiration and resume their conversation._

THE FIRST MAN

I have seen worse scenery.

THE SECOND MAN

Very pretty.

THE FIRST MAN

Yes, sir; it's well worth the money.

THE SECOND MAN

But the Rockies beat it all hollow.

THE FIRST MAN

Oh, of course. They have nothing over here that we can't beat to a whisper. Just consider the Rhine, for instance. The Hudson makes it look like a country creek.

THE SECOND MAN

Yes, you're right. Take away the castles, and not even a German would give a hoot for it. It's not so much what a thing _is_ over here as what _reputation_ it's got. The whole thing is a matter of press-agenting.

THE FIRST MAN

I agree with you. There's the ”beautiful, blue Danube.” To me it looks like a sewer. If _it's_ blue, then _I'm_ green. A man would hesitate to drown himself in such a mud puddle.

THE SECOND MAN

But you hear the bands playing that waltz all your life, and so you spend your good money to come over here to see the river. And when you get back home you don't want to admit that you've been a sucker, so you start touting it from h.e.l.l to breakfast. And then some other fellow comes over and does the same, and so on and so on.

THE FIRST MAN

Yes, it's all a matter of boosting. Day in and day out you hear about Westminster Abbey. Every English book mentions it; it's in the newspapers almost as much as Jane Addams or Caruso. Well, one day you pack your grip, put on your hat and come over to have a look--and what do you find? A one-horse church full of statues! And every statue crying for sapolio! You expect to see something magnificent and enormous, something to knock your eye out and send you down for the count. What you do see is a second-rate graveyard under roof. And when you examine into it, you find that two-thirds of the graves haven't even got dead men in them! Whenever a prominent Englishman dies, they put up a statue to him in Westminster Abbey--_no matter where he happens to be buried_!