I found the cabby and a policeman with their heads together, but the latter, after looking me over sharply and particularly scrutinizing the bundle under my arm, turned away and left the cabby to wax mutinous by himself.And not a step would he budge till I paid him the seven shillings and sixpence owing him.Whereupon he was willing to drive me to the ends of the earth, apologizing profusely for his insistence, and explaining that one ran across queer customers in London Town.
But he drove me only to Highbury Vale, in North London, where my luggage was waiting for me.Here, next day, I took off my shoes (not without regret for their lightness and comfort), and my soft, gray travelling suit, and, in fact, all my clothing; and proceeded to array myself in the clothes of the other and unimaginable men, who must have been indeed unfortunate to have had to part with such rags for the pitiable sums obtainable from a dealer.
Inside my stoker's singlet, in the armpit, I sewed a gold sovereign (an emergency sum certainly of modest proportions); and inside my stoker's singlet I put myself.And then I sat down and moralized upon the fair years and fat, which had made my skin soft and brought the nerves close to the surface; for the singlet was rough and raspy as a hair shirt, and I am confident that the most rigorous of ascetics suffer no more than did I in the ensuing twenty-four hours.
The remainder of my costume was fairly easy to put on, though the brogans, or brogues, were quite a problem.As stiff and hard as if made of wood, it was only after a prolonged pounding of the uppers with my fists that I was able to get my feet into them at all.Then, with a few shillings, a knife, a handkerchief, and some brown papers and flake tobacco stowed away in my pockets, I thumped down the stairs and said good-by to my foreboding friends.As I passed out the door, the 'help,' a comely middle-aged woman, could not conquer a grin that twisted her lips and separated them till the throat, out of involuntary sympathy, made the uncouth animal noises we are wont to designate as 'laughter.'
No sooner was I out on the streets than I was impressed by the difference in status effected by my clothes.All servility vanished from demeanor of the common people with whom I came in contact.
Presto! in the twinkling of an eye, so to say, I had become one of them.My frayed and out-at-elbows jacket was the badge and advertisement of my class, which was their class.It made me of like kind, and in place of the fawning and too-respectful attention I had hitherto received, I now shared with them a comradeship.The man in corduroy and dirty neckerchief no longer addressed me as 'sir' or 'governor.' It was 'mate,' now- and a fine and hearty word, with a tingle to it, and a warmth and gladness, which the other term does not possess.Governor! It smacks of mastery, and power, and high authority- the tribute of the man who is under to the man on top, delivered in the hope that he will let up a bit and ease his weight.
Which is another way of saying that it is an appeal for alms.
This brings me to a delight I experienced in my rags and tatters which is denied the average American abroad.The European traveller from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers who clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocketbook in a way that puts compound interest to the blush.
In my rags and tatters I escaped the pestilence of tipping, and encountered men on a basis of equality.Nay, before the day was out I turned the tables, and said, most gratefully, 'Thank you, sir,' to a gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my eager palm.
Other changes I discovered were wrought in my condition by my new garb.In crossing crowded thoroughfares I found I had to be, if anything, more lively in avoiding vehicles, and it was strikingly impressed upon me that my life had cheapened in direct ratio with my clothes.When before, I inquired the way of a policeman, I was usually asked, 'Buss or 'ansom, sir?' But now the query became, 'Walk or ride?' Also, at the railway stations it was the rule to be asked, 'First or second, sir?' Now I was asked nothing, a third-class ticket being shoved out to me as a matter of course.
But there was compensation for it all.For the first time I met the English lower classes face to face, and knew them for what they were.When loungers and workmen, on street corners and in public houses, talked with me, they talked as one man to another, and they talked as natural men should talk, without the least idea of getting anything out of me for what they talked or the way they talked.
And when at last I made into the East End, I was gratified to find that the fear of the crowd no longer haunted me.I had become a part of it.The vast and malodorous sea had welled up and over me, or I had slipped gently into it, and there was nothing fearsome about it-with the one exception of the stoker's singlet.
