Peeps at People

"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."