THICKER THAN WATER
An' you tawks of 'Ome an' th' sins of 'Ome,
But I syes 'ere, over my grog,
As there ain't no smell like a Lun'non smell,
An' th' stink of a Lun'non fog!
THICKER THAN WATER
GEORGIE was sadly disappointed in America, and he made no bones about it. When he had first been told that he was going to New York for three whole months, they—that is, Georgie and his family—were living down near Weymouth. So day after day he used to stand on the Channel cliffs and look out at the great ships passing back and forth and wonder just which ones were going to America,—America the wonderful, the unknown,—and just how long it would take them, and if it was really true that the world was round, and that though they kept on and on and on for ever they could never come to where the sun went down over the edge of Everything.
Georgie did not understand exactly why his father was going to America, but he knew well enough that it had something to do with the killing of seals away up near the North Pole, and to find out why it was wrong for some people to kill them and not for others. He also knew that his father was a Great Man, and did much toward keeping the Empire intact.
So Georgie could not contain himself when his father had promised to let him stay with his Uncle Charley in New York while the Great Man himself mysteriously went on to Washington, to find out things about the seals. Georgie's father had even gone further than this, and bought him an air-gun, to shoot Wild Indians. Georgie could not hear America mentioned without dreaming of Wild Indians. He had seen Buffalo Bill at the Olympia in London, of course, and there he had first vaguely learned what a wonderful place America really was. The thought of having an air-gun and going to a land where there were all the Wild Indians one wanted to shoot seemed very delightful to Georgie, and even the Captain on the steamer told him just how to capture Indians and where the best place for buffaloes was. The Captain's stories sometimes frightened Georgie a bit, but then he practised with his air-gun every day, on porpoises, and the Captain acknowledged that Indians were n't a bit harder to shoot than porpoises, only you can never tell, of course, just when you do hit a porpoise.
So when Georgie and his air-gun landed in New York and he found that city a place with houses in it very much like London, and was taken to his Uncle Charley's home and found it very much like their own house in Portland Place, though not quite so gloomy-looking, he was disappointed beyond words. Here his father left him and hurried away to Washington. Now he had been three weeks in America and had not seen one Wild Indian!
In fact, instead of being the hunter, Georgie had been the hunted. When he had loaded up his air-gun and made his appearance on the street, a number of very dirty boys made fun of his Eton jacket and his white collar and his little dicer, and called him "monkey," and threw things at him, and forced him to beat a hasty retreat homeward.
The injustice of this stirred up Georgie's blood, and he fought with one of his assailants, whereupon the rest, in defiance of all principles of warfare hitherto recognised by Georgie, attacked him vigorously from behind, and sent him home with ruined clothes and a good deal of blood on his white collar.
There Georgie found it best to remain. He could not make his Uncle Charley see why an English-born boy should tog himself out like American children simply because he was spending a few months in America, though Georgie pointed out to his absent-minded old uncle that his English knickerbockers were so dreadfully baggy at the knees that street urchins naturally yelled "English Bloke" after him and offered to do battle with him on every occasion.
So there was nothing for it but to stay at home. He at least had the court, or, as Thomson called it, the back yard. This back yard was not large, but Georgie made the most of it. A high board fence, over which a few withered morning-glories climbed, shut it in from the rest of the world, and added to its air of desolation. Occasionally, but not often, a cat appeared, and this was always shot at and always missed by the owner of the air-gun.
So Georgie lived a life of absolute and unbroken loneliness, knowing he could find no companionship on the streets, and realising that he was among aliens. He could not help remembering those long golden summer days at Weymouth, where he used to watch the Channel ships going back and forth in the blue distance, and climb the cliffs for eggs, and dig all day in the sand, and have plenty of really very nice little boys to play with.
The world, however, suddenly changed for Georgie. It all happened one warm afternoon, after a day when his solitude had grown unbearable and he had planned to run away to sea. The only trouble was that he did not know where the sea was, and his Uncle Charley had not altogether enlightened him on the subject. It was just like such a country not to have any sea!
Without the least word of warning a big, beautifully painted rubber ball came bounding over the high board fence of Georgie's back yard. George chased after it, and picked it up, and eyed it curiously. It was that sort of rubber ball you see only in England, and Georgie wondered how in the world it ever got to America. He squeezed it and bounced it once or twice to make sure that it was real.
At that moment a head appeared above the top of the fence. Georgie looked at the head, and the head looked at Georgie. He thought it was the curliest head he had ever seen, all covered with soft leonine yellow hair that was very much tousled. She was a very little girl, and Georgie saw, too, that she was a rather nice little girl.
After a moment of silent gazing down at him, she stood up on the top of the fence.
"Little boy," she cried imperiously, "little boy, throw my ball back, please!"
Georgie, overlooking for once in his life the indignity of being so addressed, dropped the ball from his hand in astonishment.
In that calling voice there was a soft modulation, a full-vowelled intonation, that smote like a memory on his childish heart-strings and carried him back across the Atlantic.
"Oh, I say, you're a little English girl, are n't you?" He looked up at the head above the fence with mingled joy and astonishment. "You look dref'ly like a lion with so much hair!"
"And—and you're a little English boy, are n't you? Oh, is n't—But I'm not a little girl, though! I'm almost thirteen." Here the lady of thirteen stood up on the very top of the fence to show the full dignity of her height.
"'Course," said Georgie, the diplomat's son, "you is dref'ly big, now I can see your legs!"
Here, he knew, was a friend that must be hung on to. "My name is George Henry Purcell; what's yours, little gi—I mean, please, m'am?" said Georgie, catching himself in time.
"I'm Mary Edif Stanley, and we live on Banbury Road, the real Banbury Road, you know. That's in Oxford, and I've got a tricycle home."
"Then you know my Uncle Harry at Maudlin! Why, I go up to Oxford often and often. And I've seen the Bump races, and Uncle Harry and me went up Maudlin Tower, and the Provost of Balliol gave me some lemon squash, and Uncle Harry showed me the holes Cromwell's cannons made in New College. You know 'em, don't you?"
"Why, yes," said Mary Edith, jumping down on Georgie's side of the fence. "And is n't the Provost a funny fat old man?"
"Yes, and you remember how he grunts? And are n't the barges awf'ly jolly? And the Proggins! Is n't his velvet sleeves like a woman's? And I s'pose you've seen my Uncle Harry rowing in the Eight? He's '3,' you know."
Mary Edith s'posed she had, and asked if he was the one with the awf'ly hairy legs.
Then they fell into a general conversation, and he explained that he was usually called Georgie, and Mary Edith sang, "Oh, Georgie, Georgie, Puddin'y Pie!" and then the two found their bedrooms were right next to each other, where the windows were only about six feet apart, and Mary Edith told all about coming over on the "Teutonic," and Georgie boasted how he and his father, the Great Man, had had dinner on the "Terrible" and he hadn't been a bit afraid of the guns. Then they sat down on the grass together and glorified England, and sang the charms of Oxford, and dilated on the beauties of London and Weymouth, and belittled America, and railed at New York until they found they'd forgotten nearly all the really nice things they wanted to say, and simply sat and looked at each other.
Then all of a sudden a piece of mud hit Mary Edith on the ear.
"That's Freckles," said Mary Edith, quietly. And the next moment a very freckled face appeared slowly above the top of the board fence. It was followed by a very lanky boy, who, after throwing another piece of mud at Mary Edith, turned a handspring over the top of the paling and nearly fell over Georgie in landing.
"This is Freckles, Georgie," said Mary Edith, casually. "He lives in our house with us. He's not English, you know; he's only an American boy."
"Well, I guess yes!" said Freckles with spirit, "and us Americans licked the English. We licked the stuffin' out of them twice, and we can do it again!"
"Freckles, you know that's a lie," calmly reproved Mary Edith.
"Not on your life." Freckles wagged his head knowingly. "I guess you never heard of Washington. He did n't do a thing to your old King George, did he?"
"Did he, Georgie?" asked Mary Edith, with a sudden qualm of fear. Georgie, long ago and in certain indirect ways, had heard something about this same Washington, and his face fell. He nodded.
"Then we just let him do it," protested Mary Edith. Freckles smiled a very superior smile. "You did, eh! Just ask Aunt Mary."
So the little cloud, no bigger than the face of patriotic Freckles, overcast the sky of a perfect day. A wordless sense of unhappiness fell upon Mary Edith and Georgie, and when they arranged for a meeting the next day they did it without the knowledge of Freckles.
But many were the happy afternoons, following that first meeting, the two aliens spent together, and when night came it was even nicer, for they would lock their bedroom doors and give the mystic signal, and then lean out of their windows and talk to each other of Home and how funny it was to call trams street cars, and 'buses stages, and say blocks for squares. They also marvelled together at the queer little American pennies, and asked each other why it was poor Freckles always said kent instead of cawnt. They also decided that a country where one could n't buy brandy-balls was a dreadfully poor place to live, and that stone walls were much nicer than old board fences, especially board fences with so many nails in them. Mary Edith reluctantly confessed that ice cream soda was n't bad, and when the same young lady came into possession of a box of chocolate creams and these were transferred from one window to the other on the end of a parasol brought up from the back hall for the purpose, Georgie half allowed that American chocolates after all were n't so very much worse than bull's-eyes and brandy-balls.
So the homesick English boy forgot his loneliness and the two aliens got along very well together, and the disappointment about the Indians was forgotten. Georgie saved the life of Mary Edith's doll when it had a most terrible sawdust hemorrhage, and Mary Edith learned how to load the air-gun, and the days slipped away, and that little back yard would have been a second Eden were it not for the presence of Freckles. Freckles was older and bigger than the two aliens, and they knew he could say things better than they could, and he was always telling how the United States licked England in the Revolution, and licked her again in the War of 1812, and could lick her now if she was n't afraid to fight!
All this filled Georgie with a sense of inexpressible resentment, and brought on many a wordy battle between Mary Edith and Freckles. Georgie knew that Mary Edith did n't know so much about it as Freckles did, or as he did himself, for he remembered that Washington had beaten King George, and Perry had met the enemy and made them his. The consciousness of that old-time defeat of his countrymen lay on Georgie as a sort of personal disgrace. Still, he felt there must have been some good reason why England had let Washington win. There must have been something behind Perry's victory on Lake Erie!
"Why," said Freckles, "you two kids seem to think England's the only thing that ever happened! Aunt Mary says that when it is n't raining in London you can't see your hand for fogs."
"Fogs are great fun, truf'ly, Freckles," gravely declared Mary Edith.
"And rain is rather nice—in England," said Georgie.
"And it's awf 'ly cold and blowy here in the winter," claimed Mary Edith.
"And you can't buy brandy-balls here," added Georgie.
"And, Georgie, is n't it terrible! They don't know what a tuck shop means over here!"
"Oh, you kids make me tired," said Freckles. "But I know one thing. If I was going travelling, I would n't go to a country that had licked mine so often."
Georgie was silent. It was always several hours too late when he thought of the right answer.
"Freckles, you're telling your lies again." That was the way Mary Edith wriggled out of answering such questions.
"All right, if you think they're lies, go and ask Aunt Mary. We licked you in the Revolution,—licked you just horrid,—and we did the same in 1812. There was Perry's battle on Lake Erie, and there was the 'Hornet,' and the 'Kearsarge,' and the 'Chesapeake,' and the 'Argus,' and the—the—Oh, shoot, why, there were so many times we did it I can't remember them all. But if you don't believe me, just go and ask Aunt Mary."
"I intend to ask Aunt Mary," said Mary Edith, tearfully, "but I'll tell you right now, Freckles, I know you're telling the most hor'ble stories!"
"Yes, Freckles," said Georgie quite as dolefully, "and I'm going to ask my Uncle Charley."
This Georgie, with much fear and stammering, actually did.
"What—what's this the youngster is trying to get at?" said Georgie's Uncle Charley, looking up over his paper when the questions were timidly put to him. "American Revolution? Bah, all rot, boy, all rot! The American Revolution was won right in England—sympathy of the great middle classes of the home country! But, dear me, child, you can't understand those things! What's that? War of 1812? No, sir," thundered Georgie's Uncle Charley, in his good British wrath, "no, sir, it was not won by America. England had her hands tied, sir, her hands tied fighting Napoleon, and she had nothing but a few scrub regulars to send out. But they did what they were sent for, and along with the Canadian militia they kept it mighty hot for the American forces for three years, sir. As for the ultimate outcome of those campaigns, sir, I have only to refer you to the actual text of the treaty of Ghent and Professor Goldwin Smith's—but, dear me, you are only a child! I quite forgot for the moment—quite forgot! So off to bed with you now!"
Georgie went scampering up the stairs with a sudden new lightness in his heart. The Empire had been upheld. The stain had been washed off the escutcheon.
He waited impatiently until everything had grown quiet and then gave the accustomed signal,—six knocks on the wall with his shoe,—and leaned out the window to tell Mary Edith.
"It was a lie," whispered Georgie, "and Uncle Charley says that the Revolution was won in England, by what he called the middle classes in between, you know."
"There!" said Mary Edith, with conviction. "I always knew that Freckles was telling stories. Oh, I say, Georgie, are n't you glad?"
Georgie made the sound that usually accompanies the mastication of a chocolate cream. Mary Edith understood.
"Georgie, there's just one thing to do. We must go right straight and tell Freckles."
"Yes, we'll have to go right straight and tell Freckles," echoed Georgie, triumphantly.
"Then you go down to the side door and I'll let you in." Mary Edith was a woman of action. "Are you afraid, Georgie?" she asked, as she noticed him hesitate.
"Oh, no," said Georgie, stoutly.
He closed the window and slipped down through the big hall and out through the back door in his white Madras pajamas. At the side door of the other house Mary Edith met him in her nightgown. They took hold of each other's hand, for it was very dark inside and everyone was asleep.
They went noiselessly from room to room in their bare feet, silently climbed the wide stairway, and then went up still another stairway.
They slipped through the door of Freckles' room and carefully closed themselves in. Mary Edith punched the sleeping Freckles smartly on the ribs. Freckles did not stir.
"You do it, Georgie; you can do it the hardest." Georgie thumped the figure curled up in the bed with all the strength of his arm, remembering past insults to flag and country.
"Wha' 's the matter now?" said Freckles, sleepily.
"It's a lie, Freckles, a hor'ble lie. You did n't really beat us," said Mary Edith.
"The Revolution was won in England by the middle classes in between, and you knew it all the time!"
"And you did n't lick us in the war of 1812, either," cried Georgie. "England had her hands and feet tied, for she was fighting with Napoleon, and that's just the same as if Mary Edith tried to lick Uncle Charley and you at the same time, and she could just send out a few men, just the tiniest few men you can think of."
"And we did n't do a thing to them, did we?" yawned Freckles, settling his head more comfortably down in the pillow.
"But you did n't really beat," said Georgie, with a swelling sense of new-born pride.
"'Course you did n't," declared Mary Edith.
Freckles turned over and yawned sleepily once more. "Oh, you kids must be crazy. Go way and le' me 'lone."
••••••
"Georgie," whispered Mary Edith in the big dark hall, as they held each other's hands and felt with their bare toes for the first step of the stairway, "are n't you awfly glad you're English?"
For the second time that night Georgie made a sound as if he were eating a chocolate cream. The Empire had been upheld!