Chapter 21 - Page 2

Desert ranges.

'No, no! By rail and River. And after _that_ we're going to grow cotton
between the Blue and the White Nile and knock spots out of the States.'

'Ha-ow's that?'

'This way.' The speaker spread his first and second fingers fanwise
under the big, interested beak. 'That's the Blue Nile. And that's the
White. There's a difference of so many feet between 'em, an' in that
fork here, 'tween my fingers, we shall--'

'_I_ see. Irrigate on the strength of the little difference in the
levels. How many acres?'

Again Los Angeles was told. He expanded like a frog in a shower. 'An' I
thought,' he murmured, 'Egypt was all mummies and the Bible! _I_ used to
know something about cotton. Now we'll talk.'

All that day the two paced the deck with the absorbed insolente of
lovers; and, lover-like, each would steal away and tell me what a
splendid soul was his companion.

That was one type; but there were others--professional men who did not
make or sell things--and these the hand of an all-exacting Democracy
seemed to have run into one mould. They 'were not reticent, but no
matter whence they hailed, their talk was as standardised as the
fittings of a Pullman.

I hinted something of this to a woman aboard who was learned in their
sermons of either language.

'I think,' she began, 'that the staleness you complain of--'

'I never said "staleness,"' I protested.

'But you thought it. The staleness you noticed is due to our men being
so largely educated by old women--old maids. Practically till he goes to
College, and not always then, a boy can't get away from them.'

'Then what happens?'

'The natural result. A man's instinct is to teach a boy to think for
himself. If a woman can't make a boy think _as_ she thinks, she sits
down and cries. A man hasn't any standards. He makes 'em. A woman's the
most standardised being in the world. She has to be. _Now_ d'you see?'

'Not yet.'

'Well, our trouble in America is that we're being school-marmed to
death. You can see it in any paper you pick up. What were those men
talking about just now?'

'Food adulteration, police-reform, and beautifying waste-lots in towns,'
I replied promptly.

She threw up her hands. 'I knew it!' she cried. 'Our great National
Policy of co-educational housekeeping! Ham-frills and pillow-shams. Did
you ever know a man get a woman's respect by parading around creation
with a dish-clout pinned to his coat-tails?'

'But if his woman ord----told him to do it?' I suggested.

'Then she'd despise him the more for doing it. _You_ needn't laugh.
'You're coming to the same sort of thing in England.'

I returned to the little gathering.