George Fraser - Mr American

Mr Franklin travelled down to London on the Monday afternoon; noting that the railway company hedged its bets by giving the journey time as “from four to five and a half hours” he armed himself with every paper and periodical that the head porter could find and walked the short distance to Lime Street with his luggage borne behind him on the hotel barrow. Here he resisted the offer of a five-guinea book of rail tickets for 1000 miles-worth of first-class travel, buying only a single, and found himself an empty carriage, rather dusty and redolent of stale cigar smoke and Victorian grandeur.

For the first few miles there was nothing to see except the smoke-grimed roofs of Liverpool under heavy rain; Mr Franklin wondered why so much downpour didn’t have the effect of cleaning the city, and concluded that the rain was probably as dirty as the buildings. He turned at last to his newspapers, and settled himself comfortably to discover what England, the great mother of Empire, was concerning herself with that week-end; it seemed to him essential, if he was to accustom himself to his new surroundings.

The news was mixed and, to him, confusing. Mr Cody had crashed his aeroplane at Doncaster on Saturday and had emerged from the wreckage congratulating himself on his amazing good luck; further evidence of the flying mania was contained in a report of a race at Clapton Ladies Swimming Club, in which the fair competitors had taken the water equipped with model flying machines. There were columns about the Budget which had been introduced months before, but was still exciting heated debate, although it was all Greek to Mr Franklin – he noted a prominent advertisement on a facing page strongly recommending him to write to an insurance company for advice on how to provide against Mr Lloyd George’s new death duties. Jack Johnson, the highly unpopular black boxing champion, who had recently delighted the sporting public by his failure to defeat a rising young British heavyweight named Victor McLaglen, had somewhat restored his laurels by knocking out the formidable Stanley Ketchell in nine rounds; a French scientist, M. Flammarion, was proposing to harness the internal heat of the earth as a source of energy, Mr Bernard Shaw had made a witty speech on photography as an art form, and a Plymouth Rock hen had had its broken leg set at the London Hospital.

On the lighter side, questions had been asked in the House of Commons about the forcible feeding of suffragettes; the German army were reported to be buying flying torpedoes from Sweden, and El Roghi, a pretender to the Moroccan throne, had been exhibited in an iron cage at Fez and subsequently executed. Spain was at war with the Riffians.

Having brought himself abreast of current events, Mr Franklin studied the advertising pages. Here he was invited to subscribe to Cuban Telephones, Val d’Or Rubber, and Brazilian Railways; his custom was also solicited for Mexican Hair Renewer, Poudre d’Amour, Dr Deimel’s celebrated porous undergarments, and the new chocolate “massolettes” costing a penny-farthing each and containing “ten million beneficent microbes” guaranteed to kill all pernicious germs and ensure perfect health if taken twice daily.

For his intellectual nourishment he was offered H. G. Wells” latest novel, Anna Veronica, E. Phillips Oppenheim’s Mr Marx’s Secret and a sensational new work entitled All At Sea: a novel of Life and Love on a Liner, by none other than Lily Langtry, whose outstanding attractions, displayed in an accompanying photograph, suggested to Mr Franklin that she was liable to outsell Mr Wells and Mr Oppenheim on appearance alone, whatever her prose was like. Her most serious competitor was obviously the Countess of Cardigan, whose Recollections promised a feast of scandal and included (according to the reviewer) “at least two stories which should not have been printed”.

Mr Franklin betrayed his sad literary taste by laying the reviews aside unfinished, and taking up a recent back number of The Strand which the porter had particularly recommended, since it contained a new story by Conan Doyle which he judged would be to Mr Franklin’s taste. And it might have been, for it was a spirited piece about a young prize-fighter hired by a vengeful beauty to beat up her brute of a husband, the Lord of Falconbridge, but the train had now left the grubby environs of Liverpool, and Mr Franklin was more interested in his first view of the English countryside. A glance at Baedeker informed him that he was passing through that fertile country famous for Cheshire cheese, and that the Welsh hills might be seen to the right, and like any dutiful tourist he sat looking out on the green fields and neat hedgerows, thinking how small and tidy and well-ordered they looked, like a little model toyland that a giant might have laid out for his children to play with.

Whether he enjoyed the prospect it would have been difficult for an onlooker to say, for he sat impassively surveying it, with his eyes far away, the dark face reflected in the carriage window, and did not even stir for the best part of an hour, when the spires of Lichfield came into view. The birthplace of Dr Johnson, the scene (at the George Hotel) of the “Beaux’ Stratagem”, according to Baedeker, but any philosophic reflections which this information might have inspired were interrupted by the arrival in his carriage, when the train had halted, of a beautifully-dressed old gentleman with a glossy top hat, an impressive white moustache spreading over his claret-enriched cheeks, and a copy of The Times in his hand.

He greeted Mr Franklin with a resounding “Good afternoon to you”, spread an enormous white handkerchief on the opposite corner seat, and carefully lowered himself on to it, remarking:

“The condition of modern trains is absolutely damnable. Dust an inch thick, haven’t been cleaned since the Jubilee by the look of them, might as well travel in a coal-cart. I should have gone on the Midland, but there isn’t a dam’ thing to choose between ’em, I dare say. Why the devil can’t they have de luxe trains, like the Continentals, eh? No wonder traffic’s falling off – but it’s all of a piece, of course. Everything’s running down, as I expect you’ve noticed.”

Gathering that a reply was called for, Mr Franklin considered his informant steadily and confessed that he was not in a position to make comparisons, since he was new to the country.

“Indeed?” said the old gentleman, and gave him back an equally steady stare. “An American. I see.” He considered this. “Well, filthy as they are, I suppose our trains could be worse. No doubt the French railways aren’t a whit better, if one comes right down to it, which I for one have no intention of ever doing. I’ve no experience of your American system, of course, but I believe it’s quite extensive.”

Mr Franklin, watching the platforms slide by as the train pulled out, said he believed it was, and the old gentleman shook out his Times and remarked that he didn’t suppose railways would last much longer anyway, what with these damned motor cars, to say nothing of aeroplanes; one thing was certain, that the combination of infernal machines would certainly mean the end of decent horsemanship, and did Mr Franklin ride? Mr Franklin admitted that he did.

“Hunt?” inquired the old gentleman, hopefully.

“Occasionally.”

“Where, would you tell me?”

“Colorado, mostly.”

The old gentleman looked doubtful. “Didn’t know they had hounds there.” He frowned. “What d’you hunt?”

“Bear,” said Mr Franklin, and after a look of surprise the old gentleman laughed heartily and said, of course, he meant game, big game. Well, that was another matter; he had done something in the bear line himself, in India, and enjoyed it, in moderation, not like these damned Germans, who according to the shooting correspondent of The Field were going off to Spitzbergen and Greenland and slaughtering every bear in sight, which was just about what you would expect.