Egypt -- Description and travel -- Humor; London (England) -- Description and travel -- Humor; Voyages and travels -- Humor
Can you see Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby in Gallivancia? Can you understand
what must have been the attitude of these gold-braid pewees toward an
old-fashioned apple pie couple from the tall timber?
Mind you, I am not poking fun at the Willoughbys. In the opinion of
every real American a man of the Willoughby type is worth a ten-acre
lot full of these two-by-four titles. The Willoughbys were good
people--the kind of people one likes to meet in Michigan. But when the
ladies of the foreign colony came to call on "Ma" and said "Dyuh me!"
and looked at her through their lorgnettes, she was like a staid old
Plymouth Rock hen who suddenly finds herself among the birds of
paradise. She told Mr. Willoughby that it was the queerest lot of
"women folks" she had ever seen, and although she didn't like to talk
about people until she knew her ground, some of them did not seem any
more respectable than the law allowed. Poor Mrs. Willoughby! She did
not know it was good form for a woman to smoke and drink, but bad form
for her to be interested in her husband. She tried to apply a Michigan
training to Gallivancia conditions, and the two didn't seem to jibe.
[Illustration: "_D'yuh me!_"]
If Mrs. Willoughby amused the women, Mr. Willoughby more than amused
the men. He upset them and left them gasping.
The Acting Consul had used a small office adjoining his own place of
business on the water front. Mr. Willoughby called on the former
consul and found him to be a dignified Britisher of the gloomy and
reticent sort, with a moustache shaped like a horseshoe. The dethroned
official was courteous, but not cordial. He was saying good-by to some
easy money, and the situation was not one calculated to promote good
cheer. Mr. Willoughby's action in coming down and pulling the
Consulate from underneath him seemed to him almost unfriendly.
However, he formally turned over to Mr. Willoughby a table, four
chairs, several account books, and a letter press, all being the
property of the United States of America.
Mr. Willoughby had rented a house on the hill overlooking the town and
decided to plant the Consulate in the front room of his residence.
Inasmuch as the Consul had a business caller about once a month, there
was no need of maintaining two establishments. Already he had taken
into his employ and his warmest personal friendship a native named
Franciotto. This name seemed formal and hard to remember, so Mr.
Willoughby rechristened him "Jim." He liked this native in spite of
his colour because he was the only man in Gallivancia who seemed to be
pervaded by the simple spirit of democracy. Mr. Willoughby said that
the others put on too many "dam-lugs"--whatever that may mean.
If U.S. Consul Willoughby's social standing in Gallivancia was at all
subject to doubt that doubt vanished on the day when he and "Jim" came
down to move the office effects to the house on the hill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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