Volume I Part 37 (1/2)
I hastened to the caf; not one of those brilliantly decorated and lighted establishments where foreigners of all nations foregather, but a dim-looking, musty, sanded-floored, smoke-dried den, filled with a company to suit. There was that mysterious half-light, and that low whispering sound which seemed to form a fit atmosphere for spies and eavesdroppers, of which I need scarcely tell you government officials are composed.
By the guidance of the waiter, I reached the table where the Herr von Schureke was seated at his dominos. He was a beetle-browed, scowling, ill-conditioned-looking gent of about fifty, who had a trick of coughing a hard dry cough between every word he uttered.
”Ah,” said he, after. I explained the object of my visit, ”you want your pa.s.sport. You wish to leave Baden, and you come here, to give your orders to the Polizey Beamten as if you were the Grand-Duke!”
I deprecated this intention in my politest German; but he went on.
”Es geht nicht”--literally, ”It 's no go ”--”my worthy friend. We are not the officials of England. We are Badenere. We are the functionaries of an independent sovereign. You can't bully us here with your line-of-battle s.h.i.+ps, your frigates, and bomb-boats.”
”No. Gott bewahr!” echoed the company; ”that will do elsewhere,--but Baden is free!”
The enthusiasm, the sentiment evoked brought all the guests from the several tables to swarm around us.
I a.s.sured the meeting that Cobden and Co. were not more pacifically minded than I was; that as to anything like threat, menace, or insolence towards the Grand-Duchy, it never came within thousands of miles of my thoughts; that I came to make the civilest of requests, in the very humblest of manner; and if by ill-luck the distinguished functionary I had the honor to address should not deem either the time opportune, or the place suitable--
”You'll make it an affair for your House of Commons,” broke he in.
”Or your 'Ti-mes' newspaper!” cried another, converting the t.i.tle of the Thunderer into a strange dissyllable.
”Or your Secretary of State will tell us that you are a 'Civis Romanue,'” wheezed out a small man, that I heard was Archivist of something, somewhere.
”Britannia rule de waves, but do not rule de Grand-Duchy,” muttered a fourth, in English, to show that he was thoroughly imbued, not alone with our language, but the spirit of our Const.i.tution.
”Really, gentlemen,” said I, ”I am quite at a loss for any reason for this audible outburst of nationality. I dis-claim the very remotest idea of offending Baden, or anything belonging to it. I entertain no intention of converting my case into a question of international dispute. I simply wait my pa.s.sport, and free permission to leave the Grand-Duchy and all belonging to it.”
This declaration was unanimously p.r.o.nounced insolent, offensive, and insulting; and a vast number of unpleasant remarks poured down upon England and Englishmen, which, I need not tell you, are not worth repet.i.tion. The end of all was that I lost temper too,--the wonder is how I kept it so long,--and ventured to hint that people of my country had sometimes the practice of righting themselves, when wronged, instead of tormenting their Government or pestering the ”Times” newspaper; and that if they had any curiosity as to the _how_, I should be most happy to favor any one with the information that would follow me into the street.
There was a perfect Babel of angry vociferation as I said this; the meaning of which I might guess, though the words were unintelligible; and as I issued forth into the street, expressions of angry indignation and insult were actually showered upon me. I reached Lichtenthal late at night; the governor was in bed, and I hastened to ”report myself”
to him. This done, I sat down to give you this full narration of our doings; and only regret that I must conclude without telling you anything of our future plans, of which I know actually nothing. I should have spared you the uninteresting scene with the authorities, if you had not asked me, in your last, ”Whether the respect felt towards England by every foreign nation did not invest the travelling Englishman with many privileges and immunities unknown to others?” I have heard that such was once the case. I believe, indeed, there was a time that any absurdity or excess of John Bull would have been set down as mere eccentricity,--a dash of that folly ascribable to our insular tastes and habits; but this is all changed now! Partly from our own conduct, in part from real and sometimes merely imputed acts of our rulers, and partly from the tone of our Press, which no foreigner can ever be brought to understand aright, we have got to be thought a set of spendthrift, wealthy, reckless misers, lavish and economical by tarns, socially proud and exclusive, but politically red republican and levelling,--tyrants in our families, and democrats in the world; in fact, a sort of living ma.s.s of contradictory qualities, not rendered more endurable by coa.r.s.e tastes and rude manners! This, at least, Morris told me, and he is a shrewd observer, like many of those sleepy-eyed, quiet ”coves” one meets with.
Not that he reads individuals like Tiverton! No: George is unequalled in ready dissection of a man's motives, and will detect a dodge before another begins to suspect it. I wish he were back; I feel frequently so helpless without his counsel and advice. The turf is, surely, a wonderful school for sharpening a man's faculties, and it gives you the habit of connecting words with motives, and asking yourself, ”What does So-and-so mean by that?” ”What is he up to now?” that at last you decipher character, let its lines be written in the very faintest ink!
Our post leaves at daybreak, so that I shall just have time for this.
When I write next, I 'll answer--that is, if I can--all your questions about myself, what I mean to do, and when to begin it.
Not, indeed, that they are themes I like to touch upon, for somehow all the quiet pursuits of life look wonderfully slow and tiresome affairs in comparison with the panoramic effects of travel. The perpetual change of scene, actors, and incidents supplies in itself that amount of excitement which, under other circ.u.mstances, calls for so much exertion and effort. There is another thing, also, which has always given me great discouragement. It is that the humbler walks of life require not only an amount of labor, but of actual ability, that are never called for in higher positions. Think of the work a fellow does as a doctor or a lawyer; and think of the brains, too, he has to bring to these careers, and then picture to yourself a man in a Government situation, some snug colonial governors.h.i.+p, or something at home,--say, he's Secretary-at-War, or has something in the household. He writes his name at the foot of an occasional report or a despatch, and he puts on his blue ribbon, or his grand cross, as it may be, on birthdays. There's the whole of it! As Tiverton says, ”One needs more blood and bone nowadays for the hack stakes than the Derby;” he means, of course, in allusion to real life, and not to the turf! Don't fancy that I take it in ill part any remarks you make upon my idleness, nor its probable consequences.
We are old friends, Bob; but even were we not, I accept them as sin-cere evidence of true interest and regard, though I may not profit by them as I ought. The Dodds are an impracticable race, and in nothing more so than by fully appreciating all their faults, and yet never making an effort for their eradication.
Some people are civil enough to say how very Irish this is; but I think it is only so in half, inasmuch as our perceptions are sharp enough to show us even in ourselves those blemishes which your blear-eyed Saxon would never have discovered anywhere. Do you agree with me? Whether or not, my dear Bob, continue to esteem and believe me ever your affectionate friend,
James Dodd.
Though I am totally innocent as to our future, it is better not to write till you hear again from me, for of course we shall leave this at once; but where for? that's the question.
LETTER x.x.xIII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO MR. PURCELL, OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF
My dear Tom,--I am not in a humor for letter-writing, nor, indeed, for anything else that I know of. I am sick, sore, and sorry,--sick of the world, sore in my feet, and sorry of heart that I ever consented to come out upon this touring expedition, every step and mile of which is marked by its own misery and misfortune. I got back--I won't say home, for it would be an abuse of the word--on Wednesday last I travelled all the way on foot, with something less than one-and-fourpence English for my daily expenses, and arrived to find my wife entertaining, at a picnic, all Baden and its vicinity, with pheasants and champagne enough to feast the London Corporation, and an amount of cost and outlay that would have made Dodsborough brilliant during a whole a.s.sizes.
I broke up the meeting, perhaps less ceremoniously than a Cabinet Council is dissolved at Osborne House, where the Ministers, after luncheon, embark--as the ”Court Journal” tells--on board the ”Fairy,” to meet the express train for London: valuable facts, that we never weary of reading! I routed them without even reading the Riot Act, and saw myself ”master of the situation;” and a very pretty situation it was.
Now, Tom, when the best of two evils at a man's choice is to expose his family as vulgar pretenders and adventurers,--to show them up to the fine world of their fas.h.i.+onable acquaintances as a humbug and a sham,--let me tell you that the other side of the medal cannot have been very attractive. This was precisely the case here. ”It is not pleasant,”