The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 17, 1904, Page 15

THE S. AN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. | ing Americans who while in England visiting the k istake ; walk up the £ Mr es of the two ¢ Jer Jerome has had a hard life. When one considers what he has passed through it is difficult to realize how there Femains within him enough na- tive humor to have turned out such a work as “Three Men in a Boat” and r tales ‘of laughter. The musings 1dle Thoughts of an Ildle Fellow” 3 as Jerome-like only where y touch us with a tinge of pathos, when they graze the high spots. The light butterfly humor seems & strange nt to have sprung from the seed of p and want. Not that Jerome has passed through the “log cabin-te the Presidency™ lane; but he has ‘had his troubles,” none the lese. His school has been hard—for a humorist. There s m meat” between the lines in On the Stage and Off” than there i ugwritten tells a s n pr T 0w land is heir ] Jerome- is 41 years old. has been a clerk, a scho: tor, a néwspaper tor-mana crowd intc of bitterfic n, =2 little TR @ think he tries he tal 1 est when for publication. It seems as if un- consciously he realizes that his brains are his bank and he hates to give away his capital. He faces the inter- viewer as he might face a necessary operation. He is considerate, will an- swer questions in an affable manner, but he won’t volunteer much. His manner i Sglemn; he never gets away from the serfous side of the question. “America. Would like to know more of you personglly, Mr. Jerome; some- thing more 0f youf,garly career. It has been quite varied, has it not?” * ‘Bach man in his time plays many and I think I have played my fou were bern—" in thé coal district of Walsall. father was an Independent minis- d property in coal mines; age, through the flood- the mines, I was thrown more own resources.” Pretty rough.” We were just hav- et little chat. A few puffs at a most vil- Fes o E 88 01 My And ly education?” “The nts of my education were chtained at a philological school.” A pause. More puffs at that vful cigar. Jerome seemed to. be thinking he never could have got long in" the world if it had not been that philological schoal. “When about eight vears old I went to a-middle class school in London.” se.) “I was particularly fond of for (Pa mathemat “Of mathematics?” “Y-c-s, mathemati ‘And your literary tastes?” “I think Coleridge was my favorite author then; and tales of travel al- ways interested me. “When about 15 it was necessary for me to get some employment, and an old friend in' the Northwestern Railway found me a situation as a clerk.” Jerome was almost funereal in his solemnity by this time:. “It was at Euston station. I kept this posi- tion three years, and then could not stand it any longer. The routine was simply killing.” Another pause; the JEROMEF. oz HOM “I made up villaino@is cigar agaim. my mind to get out of rallroading.” “To, let. off ‘stéam?” ' No attention paid to interruption. “I wanted to go-on the stage.” We sat fully a minute before ' the author spoke again. Then he resumed his narrative, as authars say. “After some maneuvering T got an engagement. I was then about 18, and I began the life of a traveling actor in the English provinces.” “An actor?” DRILLING A MODERN ARMY--5Y JE “M'yes; In the provinces.’ Very few people know what that means. In the course of my adventures I came in'cons tact with the kind of manager who ab- sconds, and leaves his troupe without funds and I had a great many other experiences which were more interest- ing to read about than to participate in. “I kept on acting for about two years. Then I began to write a little. My first effort was a story called ‘The Prince’s Quest.” It was published in a THE FavoRTE NOOIS \M . ris ~S T ooy - Roman Catholic paper. nothing. Jetome spoke in a low, mumbling manrer. « His eyel!dS nearly met. A short-sighted man might have thought he was‘asleep. “What did you do after that?” “I began writing-letters to newspa- pers such as the Times on various topics of the day. I remember the Times referred editorially to one of my letters.” I was .immensely proud of that.” “Trouble in the Balkans?" “No. I had written a satirical letter on the Nude in Art in which I sug- gested that the Almighty had displayed great indelicacy | form. The lette at some length. “It them occurred to me to write about my stage experiences. An old actor criticized the work for me.” “An actor?” It amounted to - He did not volunteer the name. “The work appeared weekly in & paper. I cannot say I made much out of that book. our next attempt?” dle Thoughts of an Idle Fel- .’ This was a success. In the mean- time I had been doing a good deal of journalistic work in London. I report- ed inquests, fires—everything.” “On ‘spec?” " “Yes. The items were manifolded and sent around to the various news- papers. Those that used them paid me three cents a line. It was ‘hard lines’ very often. My weekly stipend did not run into anything colossal. However, I managed to get along somehow.” A glint in his eyve told the listener that despite his present comfortable sur- roundings, Jerome remembered in de- tail just how ‘he “managed to get along.” “One day,” he sald, “I walked into the Sunday Times office and asked if they wanted a dramatic critie. I had had a good deal of experience on the stage. 1 was appointed critic and wrote dramatic matter for that and other papers.” “And ‘Three Men in a Boat.'" “That story first appeared in Home Chimes. It had a big success.” Grasping 2 breathing space to change the subject, Mr. Jerome began to talk about his horses and all ef- forts to get him to talk more about himself met with fallure. Jerome is anything but an egotist. Jerome shuts himself up in & study every morning and dictates to a short- hand stenographer. You might think that this manner of working would in- sure a large volume of matter from his pen, but he assured me his output daily was very small ROME K. JEROME. —ee—— m that be per- you—never ax to 5 even for a shaken you off. but, against me personally is is the plan of cam- paign it has determined upon and car- ried out with a success that is as- nishing even to mj I find it ut- erly possible to escape from the Zelgian army. I choose the quietest nd most unlikely streets. I choose all —early in the morning, in the aft- late in the evening. There are nts of wild exultation when I gine I have given it the slip. 1 an’t see it anywhere, I can't hear it. Now,” I say to myself, “now, for five minutes’ quiet and peace.” I have been doing it an injustice. It has been work- ing round me, that is all. Approaching the next corner I hear the tattoo of its drum. Before I have gone another quarter of a mile it is in full pursuit of-me. I jump on a train. I travel for miles. Then, thinking I have shaken it off, I alight end proceed upon my walk. Five minutes later, another de- tachment is upon my heels. I creep home, the Belgian army pursuing me with its exullant tattoo. I creep up into my room and close the door; the victorious Belgian army marches back oon to barracks. It is too good for me. I confess it. My insular pride has van- ished. gLy If it would only follow me with a band! I like a band. I can loat egainst a post, listening to a band with any one. I slould not mind it so much if it came after me with a band. But the Belgian army apparently “o'sn’t run a band. It bas nothinx but this drum. It is not even a real not what I call a drum. It's a boy's drum-—the sort of thing I used to play with myself, at one time, until people took it away from me and threatened that if they heard it once again that day they would break it over my own head. It's cow- ardly going about the street playing drum of this sort where there is nobody to stop you. The man would not dare to do it if his mother was about. He does not even play it. He walks along tapping it with a littie dru little a stick. There's no tune, there’s no sense in it. He doesn’t even keep time. I used to think at first, hear- ing it in the distance, that it was some young gamin who ought to be at school, or making himself useful tak- ing the baby out in the perambulator; and I used to draw back into door- ways, determined, as he came by, to pull his ear for him. To my aston- ishment—for the first week—I found it was the Belgian army, getting itself accustomed, I suppose, to the horrors of war. It Is making of me a “peace at any price” man. They tell me that these armies are necessary to pre- serve the peace of Europe. For my- self, I should be willing to run the risk of an occasional row. Can't some one tell them that they are out of date—with their bits of feathers and their odds and ends of ironmongery —grown men that have to be sent out for a walk accompanied by a tin whistle and a drum out of a toy shop! I always think of them In connection with the White Knight out of “All-» in Wonderland.” I take it that for practical purposes—to fight for your country or to fight for somebody else’s country, which is' generally speaking, mare popular—the thing nec- essary Is that a certain proportion of your people should be able to shoot straight with a gun. How standing in a line and twning your toes out is go- ing to assist ;ou under modern condi- tions of warfare is one of the many things my intellect is incapable of grasping. In. medieval .days, .when men fought hand to hand, there must have been advantage in combined and rrecise movement. When armies were mere iron machines the simple én- deavor of each being to push the other off the earth, then the striking simultaneously with a thousand arms was part of the game. Now, when we shaot from behind cover, with smoke- less powder, brain, not brute force, in- dividual sense, not combined solidity, is surely the result to be aimed at. Cannot somebody, as I have suggested, explain to the military man that the proper place for the drill sergeant nowadays is under a glass case in some museum of antiquities? . e . 1 lived once near the Hyde Park Barracks and saw much of the drill sergeant’s method. Generally speak- ing, he is a fat man with a walk of an egotistical pigeon. His voice is one of the most extraordinary things in nature. If you can distinguish it from the bark of a dog you are clever. They tell me that the privates after a little practice can—which gives one a higher opinion. of their intelligence than otherwise one might form. But myself, I doubt even this statément. I was the owner of a fine retriever dog about the time of which I am speaking, and sometimes he and I would amuse ourselves by watching Mr, Sergeant exercising his squad. One morning he had been shouting out the usual “Whough, Whough, ‘Whough!” for about ten minutes, and all had hitherto gone well, Suddenly and evidently to his intense astonish- ment the squad turned their backs upon him and commenced to walk toward the Serpentine, “Halt!” yelled the sergeant the instant his.amazed indignation permitted him to speak. The squad halted. “Who the thunder, and the blazes and other things, told you to do that?” The squad looked bewildered, but sald nothing and were brought back to as they were be- fore. A minute later precisely the same thing occurred again. I really thought the sergeant would burst. I was preparing to hasten to the bar- racks for medical ald.” But, the paroxysm passed. Calling upon' "the combined for¢es of. heaven and ' hell to sustain him in his trouble, he - re- quested his squad, as man to man, to inform him of the reason why to all appearance they were dispensing with his services and drilling themselves. At {his moment Columbus . barked again and the explanation came to him. *“Please go away, sir,” he re- quested me. “How-can I exercise my men with that damdog of yours in- terfering every five minutes,” It was not only on that occasion. It hap- pened at other times. The dog seemed to understand and take a pleasure in it. Sometimes meeting a soldier walking with his sweetheart, Columbus, hidden behind my legs, would bark suddenly. Immediately the man would let go the girl and pro- ceed involuntarily to perform military tricks. The War Office authorities ac- cused me of having trained the dog. I had not trained him. That was his natural voice. I'suggested to the War Office authorities that instead of quarreling with my dog for talking his own language they.should train their sergeants to use English. They would not see it. Unpleasantness was in the air, and, living where I did at the time, I thought it better to part with Columbus. I could see what the War Office was driving at, and I did not desire that responsibility for the in- efficiency of the British army should be laid at my door. . . . . Some twenty years &8g0 we were in London, passing through a riotous period, and call was made to law abid- ing citizens to enroll themselves as spe- cial constables. I was young and the hope of trouble appealed to me mere than it does now. In company with five or six hundred of more or less re- spectable citizens, I found myself one Sunday morning in the drillyard of the Albany Barracks. It was the opin- ion of the authorities that we could guard our homes and protect our wives and .children’ better if, first of all, we learned:to roll our “eyes right or left” at the given word of command, and to walk with our thumbs stuck out. Ac- cordingly a drill sergeant was appoint- ed to instruct us on these points. He came out of the canteen wiping his mouth and flicking his leg according to rule with the regulation cane. But as he approached us his expression changed. We were stout, pompous looking gentlemen, the majority of us, in frock coats and silk hats. The ser- geant was a man with a sense of the fitness of things. The idea of shout- ing and swearing at us fell from him, and that gone there seemed no happy medium left to him. The stiffness de- parted from his back. He met us with a deferential attitude and spoke to us in the language of social intercourse. “Good morning, gentlemen,” said the sergeant. .“Good morning,” we replied, and there was a pause. The sergeant fidgeted upon his feet. We ‘waited. “Well, now, gentlemen,” said the ser- geant with ‘a pleasant smffe, “what do you say to falling in?" We agreed to fall tn. He showed us how to do it. He cast a critical eye along the back of the rear line. “A little farther for- ‘ward, number three, if you don't mind, sir,” he suggested. Number three, who was a stout gentleman, stepped for- ward. - The sergeant cast his critical eye along the front of the first line. “A_ little farther back, if you don't mind, sir,” he suggesteq, addressing the third gentleman from the end. “Can’t,” explained the third gentleman; “much as I can do to keep where I am.” The sergeant cast his critical eye between the lines. “Ah,” said thé sergeant, “a little full chested some of us. We will make the distance ancther foot, if you ‘please, gentlemen.’” In pieasant man- ner- like to this the drill proceeded. “Now, then, gentlemen, shall we try a little walk? Quick mareh! Thank you, gentlemen. Sorry to trouble you, but it may be necessary to run—for- ward, I mean, of course. So if you really do not mind we will now do the double quick. Halt! And If next time you can keep a little more in line, it has a more imposing appearance, if you understand me. The breathing comes with practice.” CETEA It the thing must be done at all, why should it not be done in this way? ENERALLY SPEA b ME_ IS A FA ri?}i'{?b w:l't-t THE WALK OF ~N EcoTisTicay PIGEON %