I realize that this joke, as
it stands, is weak and imperfect. If there were only another
French seaport called Toubagge I could round it out and improve
it structurally.
If the English private soldier is the trimmest, the Austrian officer
is the most beautiful to look on. An Austrian officer is gaudier
than the door-opener of a London cafe or the porter of a Paris
hotel. He achieves effects in gaudiness which even time Italian
officer cannot equal.
The Italian officer is addicted to cock feathers and horsetails
on his helmet, to bits of yellow and blue let into his clothes,
to tufts of red and green hung on him in unexpected and unaccountable
spots. Either the design of bottled Italian chianti is modeled
after the Italian officer or the Italian officer is modeled after
the bottle of chianti - which, though, I am not prepared to say
without further study of the subject.
But the Austrian officer is the walking sunset effect of creation.
For color schemes I know of nothing in Nature to equal him except
the Grand Canon of the Colorado. Circus parades are unknown in
Austria - they are not missed either; after an Austrian officer a
street parade would seem a colorless and commonplace thing. In
his uniform he runs to striking contrasts - canary yellow, with
light blue facings; silvers and grays; bright greens with scarlet
slashings - and so on.
His collar is the very highest of all high collars and the heaviest
with embroidery; his cloak is the longest and the widest; his boots
the most varnished; his sword-belt the broadest and the shiniest;
and the medals on his bosom are the most numerous and the most
glittering. Alf Ringling and John Philip Sousa would take one
look at him - and then, mutually filled with an envious despair,
they would go apart and hold a grand lodge of sorrow together.
Also, he constantly wears his spurs and his sword; he wears them
even when he is in a cafe in the evening listening to the orchestra,
drinking beer and allowing an admiring civilian to pay the check
- and that apparently is every evening.
There was one Austrian colonel who came one night into a cafe in
Vienna where we were and sat down at the table next to us; and he
put our eyes right out and made all the lights dim and flickery.
His epaulets were two hairbrushes of augmented size, gold-mounted;
his Plimsoll marks were outlined in bullion, and along his garboard
strake ran lines of gold braid; but strangest of all to observe
was the locality where he wore what appeared to be his service
stripes. Instead of being on his sleeves they were at the extreme
southern exposure of his coattails; I presume an Austrian officer
acquires merit by sitting down.
This particular officer's saber kept jingling, and so did his
spurs, and so did his bracelet. I almost forgot the bracelet.
It was an ornate affair of gold links fastened on his left wrist
with a big gold locket, and it kept slipping down over his hand
and rattling against his cuff. The chain bracelet locked on the
left wrist is very common among Austrian officers; it adds just
the final needed touch. I did not see any of them carrying
lorgnettes or shower bouquets, but I think, in summer they wear
veils.
One opportunity is afforded the European who is neither a soldier
nor a hotel cashier to dress himself up in comic-opera clothes
- and that is when he a-hunting goes. An American going hunting
puts on his oldest and most serviceable clothes - a European his
giddiest, gayest, gladdest regalia. We were so favored by gracious
circumstances as to behold several Englishmen suitably attired for
the chase, and we noted that the conventional morning costume of
an English gentleman expecting to call informally on a pheasant
or something during the course of the forenoon consisted, in the
main, of a perfect dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over plaits and
pockets, with large leather buttons like oak-galls adhering thickly
to it, with a belt high up under the arms and a saucy tail sticking
out behind; knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high leggings
of buff or white, and a special hat - a truly adorable confection
by the world's leading he-milliner.
If you dared to wear such an outfit afield in America the very
dickeybirds would fall into fits as you passed - the chipmunks would
lean out of the trees and just naturally laugh you to death! But
in a land where the woodlands are well-kept groves, and the
undergrowth, instead of being weedy and briery, is sweet-scented
fern and gorse and bracken, I suppose it is all eminently correct.
Thus appareled the Englishman goes to Scotland to shoot the grouse,
the gillie, the heather cock, the niblick, the haggis and other
Scotch game. Thus appareled he ranges the preserves of his own
fat, fair shires in ardent pursuit of the English rabbit, which
pretty nearly corresponds to the guinea pig, but is not so ferocious;
and the English hare, which is first cousin to our molly cottontail;
and the English pheasant - but particularly the pheasant.
There was great excitement while we were in England concerning the
pheasants. Either the pheasants were preying on the mangel-wurzels
or the mangel-wurzels were preying on the pheasants. At any rate
it had something to do with the Land Bill - practically everything
that happens in England has something to do with the Land Bill - and
Lloyd George was in a free state of perspiration over it; and the
papers were full of it and altogether there was a great pother
over it.
We saw pheasants by the score.
