Would be of so little importance
that the local congressman would not ask an annual appropriation
of more than half a million dollars for the purposes of dredging,
deepening and diking it. But even as you cross it you learn that
it is the Tiber or the Arno, the Elbe or the Po; and, such is the
force of precept and example, you immediately get all excited and
worked up over it.
English rivers are beautiful enough in a restrained, well-managed,
landscape-gardened sort of way; but Americans do not enthuse over
an English river because of what it is in itself, but because it
happens to be the Thames or the Avon - because of the distinguished
characters in history whose names are associated with it.
Hades gets much of its reputation the same way.
I think of one experience I had while touring through what we had
learned to call the Dachshund District. Our route led us alongside
a most inconsequential-looking little river. Its contents seemed
a trifle too liquid for mud and a trifle too solid for water. On
the nearer bank was a small village populated by short people and
long dogs. Out in midstream, making poor headway against the
semi-gelid current, was a little flutter-tailed steamboat panting
and puffing violently and kicking up a lather of lacy spray with
its wheelbuckets in a manner to remind you of a very warm small
lady fanning herself with a very large gauze fan, and only getting
hotter at the job.
In America that stream would have been known as Mink Creek or
Cassidy's Run, or by some equally poetic title; but when I found
out it was the Danube - no less - I had a distinct thrill. On closer
examination I discovered it to be a counterfeit thrill; but
nevertheless, I had it.
What applies in the main to the scenery applies in the main to the
food. France has the reputation of breeding the best cooks in the
world - and maybe she does; but when you are calling in France you
find most of them out. They have emigrated to America, where a
French chef gets more money in one year for exercising his art
- and gets it easier - than he could get in ten years at home - and
is given better ingredients to cook with than he ever had at home.
The hotel in Paris at which we stopped served good enough meals,
all of them centering, of course, round the inevitable poulet roti;
but it took the staff an everlastingly long time to bring the food
to you. If you grew reckless and ordered anything that was not
on the bill it upset the entire establishment; and before they
calmed down and relayed it in to you it was time for the next meal.
Still, I must say we did not mind the waiting; near at hand a
fascinating spectacle was invariably on exhibition.
At the next table sat an Italian countess. Anyhow they told me
she was an Italian countess, and she wore jewelry enough for a
dozen countesses. Every time I beheld her, with a big emerald
earring gleaming at either side of her head, I thought of a Lenox
Avenue local in the New York Subway. However, it was not so much
her jewelry that proved such a fascinating sight as it was her
pleasing habit of fetching out a gold-mounted toothpick and exploring
the most remote and intricate dental recesses of herself in full
view of the entire dining room, meanwhile making a noise like
somebody sicking a dog on.
The Europeans have developed public toothpicking beyond anything
we know. They make an outdoor pastime and function of it, whereas
we pursue this sport more or less privately. Over there, a toothpick
is a family heirloom and is handed down from one generation to
another, and is operated in company ostentatiously. In its use
some Europeans are absolutely gifted. But then we beat the world
at open-air gum-chewing - so I reckon the honors are about even.
This particular hotel, in common with all other first-class hotels
in Paris, was forgetful about setting forth on its menu the prices
of its best dishes and its special dishes. I take it this arrangement
was devised for the benefit of currency-quilted Americans. A
Frenchman asks the waiter the price of an unpriced dish and then
orders something else; but the American, as a rule, is either too
proud or too foolish to inquire into these details. At home he
is beset by a hideous fear that some waiter will think he is of a
mercenary nature; and when he is abroad this trait in him is
accentuated. So, in his carefree American way, he orders a portion
of a dish of an unspecified value; whereupon the head waiter slips
out to the office and ascertains by private inquiry how large a
letter of credit the American is carrying with him, and comes back
and charges him all the traffic will bear.
As for the keeper of a fashionable cafe on a boulevard or in the
Rue de la Paix - well, alongside of him the most rapacious restaurant
proprietor on Broadway is a kindly, Christian soul who is in
business for his health - and not feeling very healthy at that.
When you dine at one of the swagger boulevard places the head
waiter always comes, just before you have finished, and places a
display of fresh fruit before you, with a winning smile and a bow
and a gesture, which, taken together, would seem to indicate that
he is extending the compliments of the season and that the fruit
will be on the house; but never did one of the intriguing scoundrels
deceive me.
