The Club Smoking Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 7, 12 August 1908, Page 4

The Club Smoking Room

By

HAVANA

THE room was crowded with members of the club and officers of the visiting Fleet, who had been entertained at luncheon. The journalist was making surreptitious notes on the back of an envelope, another member was sketching the faces of some of our visitors in a small notebook. A prominent amateur yachtsman seemed to be storing up nautical expressions for use afterwards amongst his fel-low-sailors. © © © “You have given us a grand reception,” remarked one of our visitors. “This is a fine little town you have got, but T guess you don’t hustle much. Your people seem to move pretty slow. You know I think this sort of thing is a bit demoralising. Our men are not used to being feted in this way. It will take us a long time to get over it and settle down when we get back again. It is awfully good of you to make such a fuses over us.” At this point the speaker - caught sight of the man with the sketch-book, and observed that he was a bit out of date. “In America he would have had a pocket kodak disguised as a scarf-pin. Touch the pin and the picture is taken.” © © © The conversation now became so general that it was difficult to note individual remarks. One visitor was discoursing of sky-scrapers, and wondering why we didn’t adopt the Yankee method of tall buildings. Two storey shops in the business centre of the city puzzled him exceedingly. lie was suggesting ways in which the club premises might be improved by adding another dozen storeys to the structure. A little coterie in a corner seemed chiefly interested in discussing American drinks and the proper way to build a cocktail, while the portrait of our late Queen in the entrance hall furnished one of our visitors with a text on winch to base a homily on the manifold advantages of a Republic. “Not but what she was a good old girl,” he observed, “but in our country all men are free and equal. Sir, we bow the knee to no king or emperor. The boy doing chores on the farm to-day may be President to-morrow. Look at the great ALe. lie spent his boyhood splitting rails for fences. We value manhood, not rank or birth.” © © © He was orating to the cynic, who listened with a polite smile. “I presume,” he broke in, “that your contempt for rank is one of the main reasons why your richly-dowered daughters always marry for l<sve and scorn the coronet of older lands. It is almost idyllic to read of the charmingly romantic marriages made by American girls, and to note the utter unworthiness of the American mamma. The simplicity of life bred by democracies is a great argument against the effete system of monarchies and titled aristocracies. When 1 was in New York I noted with admiration the thoroughly democratic nature of your social functions. No elaborate dinners and costly wines—just a plain chop and biscuit. The way in which you welcome the negro as a man and a brother shows that you practise the gospel of liberty, equality, and fraternity in a way that puts to •hams our own people with their reverence for monarchy and landed gentry.”

The first speaker regarded the cynic with a puzzled gaze, but could only note a look of intense anti pious seriousness on his face. He changed the subject, however, and brought back the conversation to life in the islands. “Jolly nice places, some of these Pacific isles,” he remarked. “The natives have an easy life. Everything they want grows on the trees—cocoanuts, breadfruit, bananas —their clothing costs nothing, and any sort of a shelter does duty for a house. Ever seen a native climb a cocoanut tree? Wonderful sight. Skin up them like monkeys. Have some sort of thing that they fix on the tree to help them, I believe.” © © © “My dear sir,” eame from another corner, “don't you make any mistake. The Japs are done for since their scrap with Russia. They only won on paper. The people are pretty near bankrupt. Talk of taxes. Everything is taxed in Japan; and you mark my words, the people will begin to kick very soon. The Chinkies are boycotting their goods, Russia is only lying low, waiting for another go at them, and European nations are none too friendly. The Anglo-Japanese alliance is not worth the paper it is written on. Look at us. We could smash the Japs in one act. You people will have to look to Uncle Sam to help you, not to any dark-skinned niggers.” © © © One or two younger men were apparently deeply engrossed in a discussion on the eternal feminine. “The American girl,” said one speaker, “is a queen, and behaves like one. You have to worship her and pay court to her. Hubby spends all his time making dollars in Wallstreet, while his fair partner is ever devising new schemes of extravagance. But the American girl is always chic and high-spirited. English girls are doway and mawkish by comparison. You always find the English young ladies difficult to get on with. If you have any fun with them mamma chips in and asks you your intentions. Our girls are more independent, and have less of the bread and butter miss about them.” © © © “Ever been in Spain?” asked another speaker. “The Spanish girls are very beautiful, but a trifle too high-spirited and. independent for my liking. They get most awfully jealous if they see you looking at anyone else, and knife you as soon as look at you. The Spaniards aren’t bad people in themselves, but they are horribly behind the times. Their officers reminded me of the old Armada chaps, being courtly and all that sort of thing, but rotten bad sailors. I believe they were always sea-sick in bad weather. But they were brave fellows, and took their licking lilce gentlemen.” © © © “Oh, yes!” came from a speaker in another group. "We expect to have a pretty good time. A bit tough on the Admiral, you know, as he has to attend a lot of beastly dull functions and listen to all sorts of pompous addresses apd dry speeches. And. of course, it is a fearful responsibility—men deserting, and all that sort of thing. But the rest of us are enjoying it all right. Very

pretty harbour you have got, and a jolly little country, I should think, take it on the whole. Not much doing, I suppose. Nothing to come up to New York or Chicago.” © © © Any initial shyness seemed now to have worn off under the combined genial influences of our visitors’ hearty breeziness and the assiduity of the club steward in ministering to our wants in the way of refreshment. © © © “Jolly good chaps,” confided one of our members to another. “Not a bit stuck up, and whips of good stories. Pity they aren’t going to stay longer. They would liven up the old place a bit. Here’s wishing them luck!”