Peeps at People

"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."

I was silent. I knew precisely what he had suffered, and could not blame him.

"I suppose," I said, sympathetically, "that this means that you will never return."

"Oh no," said he. "I expect to go back some day, but not until public interest in my personal appearance has died out. Some time somebody will discover some new kind of a freak to interest you people, and when that happens I will venture back for a day or two, but until then I think I will stay over here, where an illustrious personage can have a fit in the street, if he wants to, without attracting any notice whatsoever. There are so many great people over here, like myself and Lord Salisbury and Emperor William, that fame doesn't distinguish a man at all, and it is possible to be happy though illustrious, and to enjoy a certain degree of privacy."

Just then the English coast hove in sight, and Mr. Kipling went below to pack up his mullagatawny, while I drew close to the rail and reflected upon certain peculiarities of my own people.

They certainly do love a circus!