“Come, come!” he said, all in a flurry and a sweat. “They’ll take your picture if you stay.”
“Who?” said I. “And why should they take my picture?”
“The reporters,” he answered, dragging at me. “You don’t understand about American newspapers.” I let him drag me away, and then he explained. “They know you are coming to the wedding,” he said, “and they’ll photograph you and interview you and print everything about you--insulting, impudent things. There’s no such thing as privacy in this horrible country. Didn’t I tell you they haven’t the faintest notion what a gentleman is, or what is due a gentleman?”
Barney,--I’m sure I told you about him in the letter I wrote you on the way over,--Barney was sitting near us. He burst in with, “I think your friend is unduly alarmed, Earl.” (He always calls me Earl. He says he’ll be blanked if he’ll call any man lord.) “_You_ haven’t committed a crime, or done what you’d be ashamed to see in print. No _honest_ man objects to having his face published, or anything else about him that’s true.” And he glared at Longview, who sniffed and walked away. Barney sent a jeering laugh after him, and said, “The scrawny little chipmunk!”
“A kind of squirrel,” said he, “only littler, and even easier to scare.”
We went to the rail, and there was George, with his crowd pushing and jostling him. As soon as the gangway was let down he rushed aboard, the crowd with the cameras on his heels. At the top he turned like Marius, or whoever it was, at the bridge. And he shouted to the officers, in a funny, shrill voice, “Drive those ruffians back!” But the officers were smiling at him, and only pretended to restrain the reporters and photographers. On they came, reaching us about as soon as George did. They poured round and between us, and began to ask me questions. I must admit they were polite, in the Yankee way, and friendly, and good-natured.
I said to one of ’em: “I say, my good fellow, can’t you give me time to get my breath?”
“No, I can’t, Lord Frothingham,” he said, laughing. “What would you do if you were I, and your paper were going to press in ten minutes and you were five minutes from a telephone?”
I got on famously with them. I didn’t in the least mind. They must have liked me, as you’ll read. But Georgie! _How_ they have been dishing him!