“The judge is a great man, but give thy presents
to the clerk,” as the proverb saith.
And what more remains to tell? I cannot write
connectedly, because I am in love with all those girls
aforesaid, and some others who do not appear in the
invoice. The typewriter is an institution of
which the comic papers make much capital, but she
is vastly convenient. She and a companion rent
a room in a business quarter, and, aided by a typewriting
machine, copy MSS. at the rate of six annas a page.
Only a woman can operate a typewriting machine, because
she has served apprenticeship to the sewing machine.
She can earn as much as one hundred dollars a month,
and professes to regard this form of bread-winning
as her natural destiny. But, oh! how she hates
it in her heart of hearts! When I had got over
the surprise of doing business with and trying to
give orders to a young woman of coldly, clerkly aspect
intrenched behind gold-rimmed spectacles, I made inquiries
concerning the pleasures of this independence.
They liked it—indeed they did. ’Twas
the natural fate of almost all girls—the
recognized custom in America—and I was a
barbarian not to see it in that light.
“Well, and after?” said I. “What
happens?”
“We work for our bread.”
“And then what do you expect?”
“Then we shall work for our bread.”
“Till you die?”
“Ye-es—unless—”
“Unless what? This is your business, you
know. A man works until he dies.”
“So shall we”—this without
enthusiasm—“I suppose.”
Said the partner in the firm, audaciously:—“Sometimes
we marry our employees—at least, that’s
what the newspapers say.”
The hand banged on half a dozen of the keys of the
machine at once. “Yet I don’t care.
I hate it—I hate it—I hate it—and
you needn’t look so!”
The senior partner was regarding the rebel with grave-eyed
reproach.
“I thought you did,” said I. “I
don’t suppose American girls are much different
from English ones in instinct.”
“Isn’t it Theophile Gautier who says that
the only difference between country and country lie
in the slang and the uniform of the police?”
Now, in the name of all the gods at once, what is
one to say to a young lady (who in England would be
a person) who earns her own bread, and very naturally
hates the employ, and slings out-of-the-way quotations
at your head? That one falls in love with her
goes without saying, but that is not enough.
A mission should be established.
III
American Salmon
The race is neither to the swift nor the battle to
the strong; but time and chance cometh to all.
I have lived!
The American Continent may now sink under the sea,
for I have taken the best that it yields, and the
best was neither dollars, love, nor real estate.
Copyrights
American Notes from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
