Hard to Know

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3162, 11 May 1931, Page 7

Hard to Know

COMEDY OF ERRORS. The big, blonde waitress came strolling across from the counter. The customer said: — "Poached eggs on toast." "Adam an' Eve on a raft," sang out the waitress, and Edward Wingfield, sitting at the next table, shuddered. With a twitch of the jaws the waitress transferred her chewing-gum from right to left cheek. Her duster casually flicked Wingfield's table, leaving a blended smear of sauce, butter and waffle crumbs. "What's for you?" "I —oh, er—scrambled eggs on toast, please." "Same again," shouted the waitress, "shipwrecked." Whereupon Wingfield shuddered a second time, and told himself that if he stopped in Seattle much longer he'd be driven to end everything by jumping into Puget Sound. A year ago, when he applied for a transfer from the London offices of the International Metal Company, he had looked forward with the eagerness of

a lonely man to a change of environ- \ ment. Americans were full of pep and sparkle, different from his own reticent countrymen. He'd soon make plenty of friends. "What a fool I was!" he thought now, wearily, grimacing at the eggy chaos that had been slapped in front of him.

The flat, sky-scraping masses got on his nerves, metallic voices and weird slang irritated him. He hated the way they dressed here, and ate, and lived. But worst of all was his loneliness. Even' among the men at the office he had failed to find an acceptable acquaintance. "Can't expect it," he muttered to the egg, "considering the clothes they wear."

Yes, he loathed the lot, particularly Blake, the chief cashier. Blake was almost English in his manner and speech. But he had such a surly, standoffish air, he was more unbearble than the others. They, at least, laughed at you. Blake merely ignored your existence.

Wingfield sighed. He sat there in the noisy cafe, and felt that in this big city of the West he was worse off than Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe, at any rate, did not have to run the gauntlet of grinning, horn-rimmed spectacles if he chose to set off on his solitary rambles with a walking-stick. "Surely there must be somebody 1 can tolerate?" His mute plea was plaintive. "A kindred spirit, that's what I want, a reasonable, quiet sort of man, fond of music and walking, with good taste and intelligent conversation." The smell of a bowl of clam chowder, and the noise of the consumer's appreciation, drove him out of the cafe With twenty minutes to spare before he was due back at the office, he sauntered along, sat on a public seat, and glanced resentfully through a copy of the "Seattle Times." It was the Personal column that gave him the idea. Quite a number of people were advertising for congenial companions. "Why shouldn't I? It's an absurd, Yankee sort of thing to do. But when in Rome " He took out a pencil and planned a notice on a margin of the paper.

Wanted —by man of thirty—a companion living in the Seattle district i!ond ot music and walking, tor mutual exchange of conversation and friendship. Apply between 6 and 10 p.m. to Apartment B, 2036, West Columbia-street.

"Ridiculous," he said, reddening. His pencil struck out the word "walking" and wrote "hiking." These barbarians didn't understand English. It needed a definite screwing up of moral courage to take the advertisement to the newspaper office and hand it across to the clerk. Next evening Wingfield left the of flee at five as usual, washed and changed in his two-roomed apartment, and sat watching the clock uneasily. The hands had just pointed to six when his private bell rang. He gulped, fingered his tie, creased his mouth into a stiff smile, and opened the door. The next second he nearly groaned aloud. His visitor was a little, blackhaired, black-eyed, greasy-skinned Italian of the hokey-pokey vendor class.

"You de guy what put in de paper about you wanta friend?" His grin was expansive. Wingfield, too staggered to answer, saw his visitor pluck at the straps of a long black case. "You likea-da music. I play de trombone fine. An' gee! I am de great big noise at hiking. I hike twenty-

dirty, forty mile. We soon love eacji odder, presto! Say, nip a toothful, _jnista." The Italian whisked out a half-eaten polony and offered it. Wingfield never quite knew how he managed to conclude that interview. But he had just got rid of the Italian, and was standing in the doorway, mopping his forehead with a shaky hand, when a huge, bony, pug-faced tough, with a wide hat and a scarf around his neck, loomed up. There was no chance of escape. A tremendous hand gripped his. A voice reminiscent of a sawmill seared his ear-drums. "Put it ther. I'm the goods, andon't chew ferget it. But what's ther big idea? Shoot." "I—l " "Hold on, buddy." The tough had brushed Wingfield back into'his room, helped himself to a cigarette from a box on the table, and sprawled down into the most comfortable chair. "Nar," he said, "shoot. Me ears ur wide." „ "T think you must have misundor-

stood my advertisement," began Wingfleld, desperately. "What I wanted —" "Yew've got. Here it is." The tough paused, to spit with marvellous accuracy across the room and through the open window. "Fonda muslck, am I? Sirree, if there's a mutt in this township sez he plays the bugle botter'n me, I reckon I'll plug him fur a lying dago. Yep, I'll tell the world."

"But " "Yew want a hiker. Say, I'd hike the feet off a way-back patrolman, an' then run some." Once more the tough spat. Wingfield groped for courage.

"It's very kind of you to answer the advertisement. But, you see, I " "Aw, cut it out. I'll do, buddy. Spike Gavin's a tip-topper at conversayshun. Wanta hear a joke! Lis'n. A drummer was standing outside a drugstore on a side-walk down-town. Up comes a Chink. The Chink sez " Mr. Gavin broke off. performed his gift ol compact ejection, and resumed 'The Chink sez " . "I —I'm afraid you won't do," burst out Wingfield in a stammering rush. "I'm looking for somebody who likes —flowers and literature, and " Fearing to be more- explicit, his voice tailed away. Mr. Gavin's eyes opened wide. He jumped up, sneering. One hand on his hip, the other held up with forefinger and thumb in a delicate gesture, he swayed himself across the room, and said, mincingly: "Yeah, he loves flowahs, sweetie. Bring him a bouquet f"om the dook's garden. 'An' how is his pretty Highness this evening?" sez yew. What yew want, yew Cissie, is a pair of stays an' some candy." Mr. Gavin spat as if on behalf of all the true He-men in the New World, and strode out.

Wingfield dropped down into a chair. "I might have known it," he murmured faintly. He reached for his hat, determined to escape any further ordeals by going out and stopping out. But as he opened the door of his apartment and stepped out, he was confronted by a heavy blonde. "Say, you the boy who wants a companion?" "No," he answered, with sudden inspiration; "that's my friend, and he's out."

The blonde sighed, and still stood here.

"Reckon I'd better call again." She extracted a lump of chewing-gum with her thumb, parked it skittishly on the knob of his stick and smiled at him. "Is he like you?" "Not a bit," said Wingfield, edging away.

"Is he like Miguel Moreno?" She clasped her capable hands together and stared dreamily at a mental vision of her favorite film hero. "Jimmy! If a boy like that loved me, I'd go bats prutty snuppy, just from love. I'd feed him on spring chick'n, waffles an' syrup, sweet potatoes " "In any case," interrupted Wingfield, who had the grace to feel sorry for her, "my friend wants a man. He's not interested in love."

"That 'ud come," said the blonde, confidently, "Didn't you see that talkie. 'No Divorce' Oh, say, kid, that shows you how loves comes, sometimes vurry slow. You tell your friend to see it. No man can do without a sweetie, no more'n he can be smart without a diamond pin." She smiled in a friendly, advisory fashion at his pinless tie, and nodded. "Reckon I'll call again." Wingfield reached the street. One of those drizzling, misty rains was depressing the city. He wandered for awhile, and, feeling he could stand no more, resolved to brave the possibility of further callers and return to his apartment. He could get rid of them by saying he was already suited. Back in his chair, he lit a pipe. He was telling himself that the world was a rotten place. He'd hated London. There he "had been solitary, but the people were of his own kind. Here —well, you might call it a Zoo. "I'll grow like that surly beggar, Blake/ With a shrug he started reading. Half an hour passed. Somebody rang. Wingfield took no notice. The ring was repeated, this time with a kind of hesitant persistence. He opened the door, and a voice outside In the shadow began:— "I saw an advertisement in the 'Seattle Times' regarding a " The voice stopped on a gasp. The startled sound was echoed by Wingfield. "You, Blake!" "You!" There was silence. Then Wingfield said: —

"I don't mean to be rude, Blake, but when I think of you, the stand-offish, the aloof, answering an advertisement like "

"Confound it, man!" said Blake, "what about yourself When I think of a stiff, reserved oyster of a fellow like you— —" "Stiff! Reserved!" "Of course. If I hadn't been fed-up with loneliness, I'd never have answered that advert. certainly I wouldn't if I'd known who'd put it in London's rotten enough, but the U.S.A. is worse, though I've been ten years on this side."

Apruptly Wingfield laughed. "Hear, hear! People are devilish hard to get to know. Do come In."