Strike up the band; here comes a sucker! Somebody
resembling ready money has arrived. The lights flash on, the
can-canners take the floor, the garcons flit hither and yon, and
all is excitement.
Enter the opulent American gentleman. Half a dozen functionaries
greet him rapturously, bowing before his triumphant progress.
Others relieve him of his hat and his coat, so that he cannot
escape prematurely. A whole reception committee escorts him to a
place of honor facing the dancing arena. The natives of the quarter
stand in rows in the background, drinking beer or nothing at all;
but the distinguished stranger sits at a front table and is served
with champagne, and champagne only. It is inferior champagne; but
because it is labeled American Brut - what ever that may denote - and
because there is a poster on the bottle showing the American flag
in the correct colors, he pays several times its proper value for
it. From far corners and remote recesses coryphees and court
jesters swarm forth to fawn on him, bask in his presence, glory
in his smile - and sell him something. The whole thing is as
mercenary as passing the hat. Cigarette girls, flower girls and
bonbon girls, postcard venders and confetti dispensers surround
him impenetrably, taking him front, rear, by the right flank and
the left; and they shove their wares in his face and will not take
No for an answer; but they will take anything else.
Two years ago at a hunting camp in North Carolina, I thought I had
met the creature with the most acute sense of hearing of any living
thing. I refer to Pearl, the mare. Pearl was an elderly mare,
white in color and therefore known as Pearl. She was most gentle
and kind. She was a reliable family animal too - had a colt every
year - but in her affiliations she was a pronounced reactionary.
She went through life listening for somebody to say Whoa! Her ears
were permanently slanted backward on that very account. She
belonged to the Whoa Lodge, which has a large membership among
humans.
Riding behind Pearl you uttered the talismanic word in the thinnest
thread of a whisper and instantly she stopped. You could spell
Whoa! on your fingers, and she would stop. You could take a pencil
and a piece of paperout of your pocket and write down Whoa! - and
she would stop; but, compared with a sample assortment of these
cabaret satellites, Pearl would have seemed deaf as a post. Clear
across a hundred-foot dance-hall they catch the sound of a restless
dollar turning over in the fob pocket of an American tourist.
And they come a-running and get it. Under the circumstances it
requires self-hypnotism of a high order, and plenty of it, to make
an American think he is enjoying himself.
