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"I was going out to Chamonix myself a week later. But before I started I got a post-card from Hollond, the only word from him. He had printed my name and address, and on the other side had scribbled six words 'I know at last God's mercy. H.G.H' The handwriting was like a sick man of ninety. I knew that things must be pretty bad with my friend. "I got to Chamonix in time for his funeral.
But he would have gone with Carl aeroplaning to the South Pole upon five minutes' notice four minutes to devote to the motor, and one minute to write, with purple indelible pencil, a post-card to his aunt in Fall River. He was precise about only two things motor-timing and calling himself a "mechanician," not a "mechanic."
Accordingly he wrote a post-card to John Carvel to say that he was coming, and on the following day he left England. But he likes to travel comfortably, and especially he is very fond of finding out old acquaintances when he is abroad, and of having an hour's chat with scientific men like himself. He therefore did not arrive until a week after John had news of his intended journey.
Una Golden had expected to thrill to her first sight of the New York sky-line, crossing on the ferry in mid-afternoon, but it was so much like all the post-card views of it, so stolidly devoid of any surprises, that she merely remarked, "Oh yes, there it is, that's where I'll be," and turned to tuck her mother into a ferry seat and count the suit-cases and assure her that there was no danger of pickpockets.
I need not say that I studied it intently. According to the post-card, Harbor Castle stood on a rocky point with water on both sides. It was an enormous, wide-spreading structure, as large as a fort. It exuded prosperity, opulence, extravagance, great wealth. I felt suddenly a filial impulse to visit the home of my would-be forefathers. "Is this place near here?" I asked.
I saw some small boys in steeple-crowned soft hats and short jackets, with their little legs wound round with the favorite bandaging of brigands; and some mothers suitable for Madonnas, perhaps, with babes at the breast; there was a patriarchal old man or two, ready no doubt to pose for the prophets, or, at a pinch, for yet more celestial persons; but for the rest the Steps were rather given up to flower-girls, fruit-peddlers, and beggars pure and simple, on levels distinctly below those infested by the post-card peddlers.
Anything that one gentleman would not write to another?" I admitted that on the whole it was a civil letter. "Now look at his answer," said Godfrey. Conroy's answer was on a post-card. It consisted of six words only. "Do not be a damned fool." "Well," I said, "that's sound advice even if it's not very politely expressed."
"Toujours les totos," they cried merrily when I explained the prescription. A spirit of good-fellowship pervaded the compartment, till even the suspicious civilian unbent, and handed round post-card photographs of his two sons who were somewhere en Champagne.
High university graduates, experts in special pursuits, deeply cultured individuals who have never before had any field in which to exhibit the fruits of their culture, as well as persons whose spelling and writing would pass muster nowhere else, or casual visitors from the world of business, or young men and women fresh from school, or even children writing in round text, all these classes may be represented in a single week's work; and the papers sent in will vary in elaborateness from a scrawl on a post-card to a magazine article or treatise.
Clementine Morse brought a large post-card album which she had filled with views of New York City. "I know you will be homesick before you're out of sight of land," she said; "but if you're not you ought to be, and I hope these pictures will make you so.
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