Peeps at People

"Yes," said I, "I did."

"Well, it was all arranged beforehand, miss, so that you would be impressed by his love for and careful attention to details. That's all," said he. "We other fellers at the Lyceum has some pride, miss, and we wants you to understand that S'rennery isn't the only genius on the programme, by good long odds. It's not knowin' that that made her Majesty the Queen make her mistake."

"I didn't know, Mr. Henderson, that her Majesty had made a mistake," said I, coldly.

"Well, she did, miss. She knighted S'rennery as a individual, when she'd ought to have knighted the whole bloomin'

theaytre. There's others than him as does it!" he observed, proudly. "King Somebody knighted a piece of steak. Why couldn't the Queen knight the theaytre?"

Which struck me as an idea of some force, although I am a great admirer of a man who, like Sir Henry, can dominate an institution of such manifest excellence.

IAN MACLAREN

So pleased was I with my experience at the Lyceum Theatre that, fearing to offset the effects upon my nerves of Sir Henry Irving's wonderful cordiality, I made no more visits to the homes of celebrities for two weeks, unless a short call on Li Hung-Chang can be considered such. Mr. Chang was so dispirited over the loss of his yellow jacket and the partition of the Chinese Empire that I could not get a word out of him except that he was not feeling "welly well," and that is hardly sufficient to base an interview on for a practically inexperienced lady journalist like myself.

I therefore returned to English fields again for my next interview, and having heard that the Rev. Ian Maclaren was engaged on a translation into English of his Scottish stories, I took train to Liverpool, first having wired the famous object of my visit of my intention. He replied instantly by telegraph that he was too busy to receive me, but I started along just the same. There is nothing in the world that so upsets me as having one of my plans go awry, and I certainly do not intend to have my equanimity disturbed for the insufficient reason that somebody else is busy. So I wired back to Liverpool as follows:

"Very sorry, but did not receive your telegram until too late to change my plans. My trunks were all packed and my Scotch lassie costume finished. Expect me on the eleven sixty-seven. Will not stay more than a week.

"(Signed)

"Anne Warrington Witherup."

Dr. Maclaren being a courteous man, and I being a lady, I felt confident that this would fetch him; and it apparently did, for two hours later I received this message:

"Witherup, London:

"Am not here. Have gone to Edinburgh. Do not know when I shall return.

"(Signed)

"Maclaren."

To this I immediately replied:

"Maclaren, Liverpool:

"All right. Will meet you at Edinburgh, as requested.

"(Signed)

"Witherup."

The reader will observe that it takes a smart British author to escape from an American lady journalist once she has set her heart on interviewing him. But I did not go to Edinburgh. I am young, and have not celebrated my thirtieth birthday more than five times, but I am not a gudgeon; so I refused to be caught by the Edinburgh subterfuge, and stuck to my original proposition of going to Liverpool on the eleven sixty-seven; and, what is more, I wore my Highland costume, and all the way down studied a Scotch glossary, until I knew the difference between such words as dour and hoots as well as if I had been born and bred at Loch Macglasgie.

As I had expected, Dr. Maclaren was there, anxiously awaiting developments, and as I stepped out of my carriage he jumped from behind a huge trunk by which he thought he was concealed, and fled through the Northwestern Hotel out into the street, and thence off in the direction of the Alexandra Docks. I followed in hot pursuit, and, by the aid of a handy hansom, was not long in overtaking the unwilling author. It may be said by some that I was rather too persistent, and, knowing that the good Doctor did not wish to be interviewed, should have relinquished my quest. It was just that quality in Dr. Maclaren's make-up that made me persist. There are so few successful authors who may be said to possess the virtue of modesty in the presence of an interviewer that I determined to catch one who was indeed the only one of that rare class I had ever met.

"Dr. Maclaren?" I cried, as I leaped out of the hansom, and landed, fortunately, on my feet – a lady journalist is a good deal of a feline in certain respects – directly in his path.

"The same," he replied, pantingly. "And you are Miss Witherup?"

"The very same," I retorted, coldly.

"I am perfectly delighted to see you," he said, removing his hat and mopping his brow, which the unwonted exercise he was taking had caused to drip profusely. "Perfectly charmed, Miss Witherup."

I eyed him narrowly. "One wouldn't have thought so," I said, with a suspicious emphasis, "from the way you were running away from me."

"Running away, my dear Miss Witherup?" he gasped, with an admirable affectation of innocence. "Why, not at all."

"Then why, Dr. Maclaren," I asked, "were you running towards the docks within ten seconds of the arrival of my train?"

To the gentleman's credit be it said that he never hesitated for a moment.

"Why?" he cried, in the manner of one cut to the heart by an unjust suspicion. "Why? Because, madam, when you got out of that railway carriage I did not see you, and fearing that I had mistaken your message, and that instead of coming from London by rail you were coming from America by steamer, I hastened off down towards the docks in the hope of welcoming you to England, and helping you through the custom-house. You wrong me, madam, by thinking otherwise."

The gentleman's tact was so overwhelmingly fine that I forgave him his fiction, which was not quite convincing, and took him by the hand.

"And now," said I, "may I see you at home?"

A gloomy cloud settled over the Doctor's fine features.

"That is my embarrassment," he said, with a deep sigh. "I haven't any."

"What?" I cried.

"I have been evicted," he said, sadly.

"You? For non-payment of rent?" I asked, astonished.

"Not at all," said the Doctor, taking a five-pound note from his pocket and throwing it into the street. "I have more money than I know what to do with. For heresy. My house belongs to a man who does not like the doctrines of my books, and he put us out last Monday. That is why – "

"I understand," I said, pressing his hand sympathetically. "I am so sorry! But cheer up, Doctor," I added. "I have been sent here by an American newspaper that never does anything by halves. I have been told to interview you at home. It must be done. My paper spares no expense. Therefore, when I find you without a home to be interviewed in, I am authorized to provide you with one. Come, let us go and purchase a furnished house somewhere."

He looked at me, astonished.

"Well," he gasped out at length, "I've seen something of American enterprise, but this beats everything."

"I suppose we can get a furnished house for $10,000?" I said.

"You can rent all Liverpool for that," he said. "Suppose, instead of going to that expense, we run over to the Golf Links? I'm very much at home there, though I don't play much of a game."

"Its atmosphere is very Scottish," said I.

"It is indeed," he replied. "Indeed, it's too Scotch for me. I can hold my own with the great bulk of Scotch dialect with ease, but when it comes to golf terms I'm a duffer from Dumfries. There are words like 'foozle' and 'tee-off' and 'schlaff' and 'baffy-iron' and 'Glenlivet.' I've had 'em explained to me many a time and oft, but they go out of one ear just as fast as they go in at the other. That's one reason why I've never written a golf story. The game ought to appeal strongly to me for two reasons – the self-restraint it imposes upon one's vocabulary of profane terms, and the large body of clerical persons who have found it adapted to their requirements. But the idiom of it floors me; and after several ineffectual efforts to master the mysteries of its glossary, I gave it up. I can drive like a professional, and my putting is a dream, but I can't converse intelligently about it, and as I have discovered that half the pleasure of the game lies in talking of it afterwards, I have given it up."

By this time we had reached the railway station again, and a great light as of an inspiration lit up the Doctor's features.

"Splendid idea!" he cried. "Let us go into the waiting-room of the station, Miss Witherup. You can interview me there. I have just remembered that when I was lecturing in America the greater part of my time was passed waiting in railway stations for trains that varied in lateness between two and eight hours, and I got to feel quite at home in them. I doubt not that in a few moments I shall feel at home in this one – and then, you know, you need not bother about your train back to London, for it leaves from this very spot in twenty minutes."

He looked at me anxiously, but he need not have. When I discovered that he could not master the art of golfing sufficiently to be able to talk about it at least, he suddenly lost all interest to me. I have known so many persons who were actually only half baked who could talk intelligently about golf, whether they played well or not – the tea-table golfers, we call them at my home near Weehawken – that it seemed to be nothing short of sheer imbecility for a person to confess to an absolute inability to brag about "driving like a professional" and "putting like a dream."

"Very well, Doctor," said I. "This will do me quite as well. I'm tired, and willing to go back, anyhow. Don't bother to wait for my departure."

"Oh, indeed!" he cried, his face suffusing with pleasure. "I shall be delighted to stay. Nothing would so charm me as to see you safely off."

I suppose it was well meant, but I couldn't compliment him on his "putting."

"Are you coming to America again?" I asked.

"I hope to some day," he replied. "But not to read or to lecture. I am coming to see something of your country. I wish to write some recollections of it, and just now my recollections are confused. I know of course that New York City is the heart of the orange district of Florida, and that Albany is the capital of Saratoga. I am aware that Niagara Falls is at the junction of the Hudson and the Missouri, and that the Great Lakes are in the Adirondacks, and are well stocked with shad, trout, and terrapin, but of your people I know nothing, save that they gather in large audiences and pay large sums for the pleasure of seeing how an author endures reading his own stuff. I know that you all dine publicly always, and that your men live at clubs while the ladies are off bicycling and voting, but what becomes of the babies I don't know, and I don't wish to be told. I leave them to the consideration of my friend Caine. When I write my book, Scooting through Schoharis; or, Long Pulls on a Pullman, I wish it to be the result of personal observation and not of hearsay."

"A very good idea," said I. "And will this be published over your own name?"

"No, madam," he replied. "That is where we British authors who write about America make a mistake. We ruin ourselves if we tell the truth. My book will ostensibly be the work of 'Sandy Scootmon.'"

"Good name," said I. "And a good rhyme as well."

"To what?" he asked.

"Hoot mon!" said I, with a certain dryness of manner.

Just then the train-bell rang, and the London Express was ready.

"Here, Doctor," said I, handing him the usual check as I rose to depart. "Here is a draft on London for $5000. Our thanks to go with it for your courtesy."

He looked annoyed.

"I told you I didn't wish any money," said he, with some asperity. "I have more American fifty-cent dollars now than I can get rid of. They annoy me."

And he tore the check up. We then parted, and the train drew out of the station. Opposite me in the carriage was a young woman who I thought might be interested in knowing with whom I had been talking.

"Do you know who that was?" I asked.

"Very well indeed," she replied.

"Ian Maclaren," I said.

"Not a bit of it," said she. "That's one of our head detectives. We know him well in Liverpool. Dr. Maclaren employs him to stave off American interviewers."

I stared at the woman, aghast.

"I don't believe it," I said. "If he'd been a detective, he wouldn't have torn up my check."

"Quite so," retorted the young woman, and there the conversation stopped.

I wonder if she was right? If I thought she was, I'd devote the rest of my life to seeing Ian Maclaren at home; but I can't help feeling that she was wrong. The man was so entirely courteous, after I finally cornered him, that I don't see how it could have been any one else than the one I sought; for, however much one may object to this popular author's dialect, England has sent us nothing finer in the way of a courteous gentleman than he.

RUDYARD KIPLING

An endeavor to find Rudyard Kipling at home is very much like trying to discover the North Pole. Most people have an idea that there is a North Pole somewhere, but up to the hour of going to press few have managed to locate it definitely. The same is true of Mr. Kipling's home. He has one, no doubt, somewhere, but exactly where that favored spot is, is as yet undetermined. My first effort to find him was at his residence in Vermont, but upon my arrival I learned that he had fled from the Green Mountain State in order to escape from the autograph-hunters who were continually lurking about his estate. Next I sought him at his lodgings in London, but the fog was so thick that if so be he was within I could not find him. Then taking a P. & O. steamer, I went out to Calcutta, and thence to Simla. In neither place was he to be found, and I sailed to Egypt, hired a camel, and upon this ship of the desert cruised down the easterly coast of Africa to the Transvaal, where I was informed that, while he had been there recently, Mr. Kipling had returned to London. I immediately turned about, and upon my faithful and wobbly steed took a short-cut catacornerwise across to Algiers, where I was fortunate enough to intercept the steamer upon which the object of my quest was sailing back to Britain.

He was travelling incog. as Mr. Peters, but I recognized him in a moment, not only by his vocabulary, but by his close resemblance to a wood-cut I had once seen in the advertisement of a famous dermatologist, which I had been told was a better portrait of Kipling than of Dr. Skinberry himself, whose skill in making people look unlike themselves was celebrated by the publication of the wood-cut in question.

He was leaning gracefully over the starboard galley as I walked up the gang-plank. I did not speak to him, however, until after the vessel had sailed. I am too old a hand at interviewing modest people to be precipitate, and knew that if I began to talk to Mr. Kipling about my mission before we started, he would in all probability sneak ashore and wait over a steamer to escape me. Once started, he was doomed, unless he should choose to jump overboard. So I waited, and finally, as Gibraltar gradually sank below the horizon, I tackled him.

"Mr. Kipling?" said I, as we met on the lanyard deck.

"Peters," said he, nervously, lighting a jinrikisha.

"All the same," I retorted, taking out my note-book, "I've come to interview you at home. Are you a good sailor?"

"I'm good at whatever I try," said he. "Therefore you can wager a spring bonnet against a Kohat that I am a good sailor."

"Excuse me for asking," said I. "It was necessary to ascertain. My instructions are to interview you at home. If you are a good sailor, then you are at home on the sea, so we may begin. What work are you engaged on now?"

"The hardest of my life," he replied. "I am now trying to avoid an American lady journalist. I know you are an American by the Cuban flag you are wearing in your button-hole. I know that you are a lady, because you wear a bonnet, which a gentleman would not do if he could. And I know you are a journalist, because you have confessed it. But for goodness' sake, madam, address me as Peters, and I will talk on forever. If it were known on this boat that I am Kipling, I should be compelled to write autographs for the balance of the voyage, and I have come away for a rest."

"Very well, Mr. Peters," said I. "I will respect your wishes. Why did you go to South Africa?"

"After color. I am writing a new book, and I needed color. There are more colored people in Africa than anywhere else. Wherefore – "

"I see," said I. "And did you get it?"

"Humph!" he sneered. "Did I get it? It is evident, madam, that you have not closely studied the career of Rudyard – er – Peters. Did he ever fail to get anything he wanted?"

"I don't know," I replied. "That's what I wanted to find out."

"Well, you may draw your own conclusions," he retorted, "when I speak that beautiful and expressive American word 'Nit.'"

I put the word down for future use. It is always well for an American to make use of her own language as far as is possible, and nowhere can one gain a better idea of what is distinctively American than from a study of English authors who use

Americanisms with an apology – paid for, no doubt, at space rates.

"Have you been at work on the ocean?" I inquired.

"No," said he. "Why should I work on the ocean? I can't improve the ocean."

"Excuse me," said I. "I didn't know that you were a purist."

"I'm not," said he. "I'm a Peters."

There was a pause, and I began to suspect that beneath his suave exterior Mr. Kipling concealed a certain capacity for being disagreeable.

"I didn't know," I said, "but that you had spent some of your time interviewing the boilers or the engines of the ship. A man who can make a locomotive over into an attractive conversationalist ought to be able to make a donkey-engine, for instance, on shipboard, seem less like a noisy jackass than it is."

"Good!" he cried, his face lighting up. "There's an idea there. Gad! I'll write a poem on the donkey-engine as a sort of companion to my McAndrews Hymn, and, what is more, I will acknowledge my debt to you for suggesting the idea."

"I'm much obliged, Mr. – er – Peters," said I, coldly, "but you needn't. You are welcome to the idea, but I prefer to make my own name for myself. If you put me in one of your books, I should become immortal; and while I wish to become immortal, I prefer to do it without outside assistance."

Peters, né Kipling, immediately melted.

"If you were a man," said he, "I'd slap you on the back and call the steward to ask you what you'd have."

"Thank you," said I. "Under the circumstances, I am glad I am not a man. I do not wish to be slapped on the back, even by a British author. But if you really wish to repay me for my suggestion, drop your unnatural modesty and let me interview you frankly. Tell me what you think – if you ever do think. You've been so meteoric that one naturally credits you with more heart and spontaneity than thought and care."

"Very well," said he. "Let the cross-examination begin."

"Do you ride a bicycle?" I asked.

"Not at sea," he replied.

"What is your favorite wheel?" I asked.

"The last that is sent me by the maker," he answered.

"Do you use any tonic – hair, health, or otherwise – which you particularly recommend to authors?" I asked.

"I must refuse to answer that question until I have received the usual check," said Mr. – er – Peters.

"Do you still hold with the Spanish that Americans are pigs, and that New York is a trough?" I asked.

"There are exceptions, and when I last saw New York I was not a conscious witness of any particularly strong devotion to the pen," he answered, uneasily and evasively.

"Do you like the American climate?" I asked.

"Is there such a thing?" he asked, in return. "If there is, I didn't see it. You Americans are in the experimental stage of existence in weather as in government. I don't think you have as yet settled upon any settled climate. My experience has been that during any week in any season of the year you have a different climate for each day. I can say this, however, that your changes are such that the average is uncomfortable. It is hot one day and cold the next; baking the third; wintry the fourth; humid the fifth; dry the sixth; and on the seventh you begin with sunshine before breakfast, follow it up with rain before luncheon, and a sleigh ride after dinner."

It was evident that Mr. – er – Peters had not lost his powers of observation.

"Why have you left Vermont, Mr. Kipling?" I asked.

"Peters!" he remonstrated, in a beseeching whisper.

"Excuse me, Mr. Peters," said I. "Why have you left Vermont, Mr. Peters?"

"That is a delicate question, madam," he replied. "Are you not aware that my house is still in the market?"

"I am instructed," said I, drawing out my check-book, "to get an answer to any question I may choose to ask, at any cost. If you fear to reply because it may prevent a sale of your house, I will buy the house at your own price."

"Forty thousand dollars," said he. "It's worth twenty thousand, but in the hurry of my departure I left fifty thousand dollars' worth of notes stored away in the attic."

I drew and handed him the check.

"Now that your house is sold," said I, "why, Mr. Peters, did you leave Vermont?"

"For several reasons," he replied, putting the check in his pocket, and relighting his jinrikisha, which had gone out. "In the first place, it was some distance from town. I thought, when I built the house, that I could go to New York every morning and come back at night. My notion was correct, but I discovered afterwards that while I could go to New York by day and return by night, there was not more than five minutes between the trains I had to take to do it. Then there was a certain amount of human sympathy involved. The postman was fairly bent under the weight of the letters I received asking for autographs. He came twice a day, and each time the poor chap had to carry a ton of requests for autographs."

"Still, you needn't have replied to them," I said.

"Oh, I never tried to," he said. "It was the postman who aroused my sympathy."

"But you didn't give up trying to live in your own house that had cost you $20,000 for that?" I said.

"Well, no," he answered. "Frankly, I didn't. There were other drawbacks. You Americans are too fond of collecting things. For instance, I went to a reception one night in Boston, and I wore a new dress-suit, and, by Jove! when I got home and took my coat off I found that the tails had been cut off – I presume by souvenir-hunters! Every mail brought countless requests for locks of my hair; and every week, when my laundry came back, there were at least a dozen things of one kind or another missing, which I afterwards learned had been stolen off the line by collectors of literary relics. Then the kodak fiends, that continually lurked about behind bushes and up in the trees and under the piazzas, were a most infernal nuisance. I dare say there are 50,000 unauthorized photographs of myself in existence to-day. Even these I might have endured, not to mention visitors who daily came to my home to tell me how much they had enjoyed my books. Ten or a dozen of these people are gratifying, but when you come down to breakfast and find a line stretching all the way from your front door to the railway station, and excursion trains coming in loaded to the full with others every hour, it ceases to be pleasant and interferes seriously with one's work. However, I never murmured until one day I observed a gang of carpenters at work on the other side of the street, putting up a curious-looking structure which resembled nothing I had ever seen before. When I had made inquiries I learned that an enterprising circus-manager had secured a lease of the place for the summer, and was erecting a grand-stand for people who came to catch a glimpse of me to sit on.

"It was then that the thread of my patience snapped. I don't mind writing autographs for eight hours every day; I don't mind being kodaked if it makes others happy; and if any Boston relic-hunter finds comfort in possessing the tails of my dress-coat he is welcome to them; but I can't go being turned into a side-show for the delectation of a circus-loving people, so I got out."