On Nothing and Kindred Subjects | Page 7

of achieving the full respect of the
whole house, even of that proud woman who sits behind glass in front
of an enormous ledger; and the first way is this:--
As you come into the place go straight for the smoking-room, and
begin talking of the local sport: and do not talk humbly and tentatively
as so many do, but in a loud authoritative tone. You shall insist and lay
down the law and fly into a passion if you are contradicted. There is
here an objection which will arise in the mind of every niggler and
boggler who has in the past very properly been covered with ridicule
and become the butt of the waiters and stable-yard, which is, that if one
is ignorant of the local sport, there is an end to the business. The
objection is ridiculous. Do you suppose that the people whom you hear
talking around you are more learned than yourself in the matter? And if
they are do you suppose that they are acquainted with your ignorance?
Remember that most of them have read far less than you, and that you
can draw upon an experience of travel of which they can know nothing;
do but make the plunge, practising first in the villages of the Midlands,
I will warrant you that in a very little while bold assertion of this kind
will carry you through any tap-room or bar-parlour in Britain.
I remember once in the holy and secluded village of Washington under
the Downs, there came in upon us as we sat in the inn there a man
whom I recognised though he did not know me--for a
journalist--incapable of understanding the driving of a cow, let alone
horses: a prophet, a socialist, a man who knew the trend of things and
so forth: a man who had never been outside a town except upon a

motor bicycle, upon which snorting beast indeed had he come to this
inn. But if he was less than us in so many things he was greater than us
in this art of gaining respect in Inns and Hotels. For he sat down, and
when they had barely had time to say good day to him he gave us in
minutest detail a great run after a fox, a run that never took place. We
were fifteen men in the room; none of us were anything like rich
enough to hunt, and the lie went through them like an express. This
fellow "found" (whatever that may mean) at Gumber Corner, ran right
through the combe (which, by the way, is one of those bits of land
which have been stolen bodily from the English people), cut down the
Sutton Road, across the railway at Coates (and there he showed the
cloven hoof, for your liar always takes his hounds across the railway),
then all over Egdean, and killed in a field near Wisborough. All this he
told, and there was not even a man there to ask him whether all those
little dogs and horses swam the Rother or jumped it. He was treated
like a god; they tried to make him stop but he would not. He was off to
Worthing, where I have no doubt he told some further lies upon the
growing of tomatoes under glass, which is the main sport of that district.
Similarly, I have no doubt, such a man would talk about boats at King's
Lynn, murder with violence at Croydon, duck shooting at Ely, and
racing anywhere.
Then also if you are in any doubt as to what they want of you, you can
always change the scene. Thus fishing is dangerous for even the poor
can fish, and the chances are you do not know the names of the animals,
and you may be putting salt-water fish into the stream of Lambourne,
or talking of salmon upon the Upper Thames. But what is to prevent
you putting on a look of distance and marvel, and conjuring up the
North Atlantic for them? Hold them with the cold and the fog of the
Newfoundland seas, and terrify their simple minds with whales.
A second way to attain respect, if you are by nature a silent man, and
one which I think is always successful, is to write before you go to bed
and leave upon the table a great number of envelopes which you should
address to members of the Cabinet, and Jewish money-lenders, dukes,
and in general any of the great. It is but slight labour, and for the
contents you cannot do better than put into each envelope one of those
advertisements which you will find lying about. Then next morning
you should gather them up and ask where the post is: but you need not

post them,