Ma Jolie blonde.
Monsieur, Madame and the Pea-Green Parrot
CHAPTER I.
I am an Englishman by birth. Having however lived for fourteen years
out in America or rather in Canada, I am only half an Englishman.
All the love for the dear old land which I am now revisiting is
still there, deep in my heart, but from so long a residence in
another country certain differences arise of character, habit and
thought, not to be easily shaken off. I was in the Civil Service in
Canada and did very well until I meddled with literature.
Discovering that I had a faculty for verse and story-telling, I was
ambitious and at the same time foolish enough to work so hard at my
new pursuit that I was compelled to "cut" the service, in other
words to resign. Some other Englishman got my post and I found myself,
rather unexpectedly, it is true, free to write to my heart's content.
I got off a number of things, poems, sketches, etc., but my great
work turned out to be a comedy. I slaved at this all day and amused
myself by rehearsing it in my lodgings all night. I incurred the
odium of the landlady by coaxing the maid of all work to learn a
part and act it with me. Finally I resolved to take a great step. I
would go down to New York and get my comedy produced. That was
exactly five years ago and though the comedy was _not_ produced, I
am still sanguine that it yet may be, and perhaps not in New York
after all, but in a much more important creative centre.
I was at the time of my visit to New York perfectly unacquainted
with the ways of a metropolis, and it was fortunate for me that I
possessed one friend there who if not exactly a friend _at court_ as
we say, was in truth a much more useful person to me, as, having
once been young and inexperienced himself, he knew the ropes well
and handled them thoroughly to his own satisfaction and with an eye
to my comfort and safety.
In the matter of cheap dives, for instance, he was invaluable.
Left to myself I either drifted to the most expensive place, for
a meal short perhaps of Delmonicos, or else to a shabby and
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