Europe Revised — 23 - Ch. XI: Dressed to Kill, pt. 1

Dressed to Kill With us it is the dress of the women that gives life and color to the shifting show of street life.

In Europe it is the soldier, and in England the private soldier particularly.

The German private soldier is too stiff, and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian private soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work--what with his dinky cap tilted over one eye, and his red tunic that fits him without blemish or wrinkle, and his snappy little swagger stick flirting the air.

As a picture of a first-class fighting man I know of but one to match him, and that is a khaki-clad, service-hatted Yankee regular--long may he wave!

There may be something finer in the way of a military spectacle than the change of horse-guards at Whitehall or the march of the foot-guards across the green in St. James' Park on a fine, bright morning--but I do not know what it is.

One day, passing Buckingham Palace, I came on a footguard on duty in one of the little sentry boxes just outside the walls.

He did not look as though he were alive.

He looked as though he had been stuffed and mounted by a most expert taxidermist.

From under his bearskin shako and from over his brazen chin-strap his face stared out unwinking and solemn and barren of thought.

I said to myself: "It is taking a long chance, but I shall ascertain whether this party has any human emotions."

So I halted directly in front of him and began staring fixedly at his midriff as though I saw a button unfastened there or a buckle disarranged.

For a space of minutes I kept my gaze on him without cessation.

Finally the situation grew painful; but it was not that British grenadier who grew embarrassed and fidgety--it was the other party to the transaction.

His gaze never shifted, his eyes never wavered--but I came away feeling all wriggly.

In no outward regard whatsoever do the soldiers on the Continent compare with the soldiers of the British archipelago.

When he is not on actual duty the German private is always going somewhere in a great hurry with something belonging to his superior officer--usually a riding horse or a specially heavy valise.

On duty and off he wears that woodenness of expression--or, rather, that wooden lack of expression--which is found nowhere in such flower of perfection as on the faces of German soldiers and German toys.

The Germans prove they have a sense of humor by requiring their soldiers to march on parade with the goose step; and the French prove they have none at all by incasing the defenseless legs of their soldiers in those foolish red-flannel pants that are manufactured in such profusion up at the Pantheon.

In the event of another war between the two nations I anticipate a frightful mortality among pants--especially if the French forces should be retreating.

The German soldier is not a particularly good marksman as marksmen go, but he would have to be the worst shot in the world to miss a pair of French pants that were going away from him at the time.

Still, when all is said and done, there is something essentially Frenchy about those red pants.

There is something in their length that instinctively suggests Toulon, something in their breadth that makes you think of Toulouse.

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 Canyon 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.

We saw them first from the windows of our railroad carriage--big, beautiful birds nearly as large as barnyard fowls and as tame, feeding in the bare cabbage patches, regardless of the train chugging by not thirty yards away; and later we saw them again at still closer range as we strolled along the haw-and-holly-lined roads of the wonderful southern counties.

They would scuttle on ahead of us, weaving in and out of the hedgerows; and finally, when we insisted on it and flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, they would get up, with a great drumming of wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing tailfeathers on the part of the cock birds, and go booming away to what passes in Sussex and Kent for dense cover--meaning by that thickets such as you may find in the upper end of Central Park.

They say King George is one of the best pheasant-shots in England.

He also collects postage stamps when not engaged in his regular regal duties, such as laying cornerstones for new workhouses and receiving presentation addresses from charity children.

I have never shot pheasants; but, having seen them in their free state as above described, and having in my youth collected postage stamps intermittently, I should say, speaking offhand, that of the two pursuits postage-stamp collecting is infinitely the more exciting and dangerous.

Through the closed season the keepers mind the pheasants, protecting them from poachers and feeding them on selected grain; but a day comes in October when the hunters go forth and take their stands at spaced intervals along a cleared aisle flanking the woods; then the beaters dive into the woods from the opposite side, and when the tame and trusting creatures come clustering about their feet expecting provender the beaters scare them up, by waving their umbrellas at them, I think, and the pheasants go rocketing into the air--rocketing is the correct sporting term--go rocketing into the air like a flock of Sunday supplements; and the gallant gunner downs them in great multitudes, always taking due care to avoid mussing his clothes.

For after all the main question is not "What did he kill?"

but "How does he look?"

At that, I hold no brief for the pheasant--except when served with breadcrumb dressing and currant jelly he is no friend of mine.

It ill becomes Americans, with our own record behind us, to chide other people for the senseless murder of wild things; and besides, speaking personally, I have a reasonably open mind on the subject of wild-game shooting.

Myself, I shot a wild duck once.

He was not flying at the time.

He was, as the stockword goes, setting.

I had no self-reproaches afterward however.

As between that duck and myself I regarded it as an even break--as fair for one as for the other--because at the moment I myself was, as we say, setting too.

But if, in the interests of true sportsmanship, they must have those annual massacres I certainly should admire to see what execution a picked half dozen of American quail hunters, used to snap-shooting in the cane jungles and brier patches of Georgia and Arkansas, could accomplish among English pheasants, until such time as their consciences mastered them and they desisted from slaughter!