Mr. Britling Sees It Through

Mr. Britling Sees It Through, by
H. G. Wells

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Title: Mr. Britling Sees It Through
Author: H. G. Wells
Release Date: November 16, 2004 [EBook #14060]
Language: English
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BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH ***

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MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH
BY H.G. WELLS

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY H.G. WELLS

CONTENTS
BOOK I
MATCHING'S EASY AT EASE
I MR. DIRECK VISITS MR. BRITLING II MR. BRITLING
CONTINUES HIS EXPOSITION III THE ENTERTAINMENT OF
MR. DIRECK REACHES A CLIMAX IV MR. BRITLING IN
SOLILOQUY V THE COMING OF THE DAY
BOOK II
MATCHING'S EASY AT WAR
I ONLOOKERS II TAKING
PART III MALIGNITY
IV IN THE WEB OF THE INEFFECTIVE
BOOK III
THE TESTAMENT OF MATCHING'S EASY
I MRS. TEDDY GOES FOR A WALK II MR. BRITLING WRITES
UNTIL SUNRISE

BOOK I
MATCHING'S EASY AT EASE
CHAPTER THE

FIRST
MR. DIRECK VISITS MR. BRITLING
Section 1
It was the sixth day of Mr. Direck's first visit to England, and he was at
his acutest perception of differences. He found England in every way
gratifying and satisfactory, and more of a contrast with things
American than he had ever dared to hope.
He had promised himself this visit for many years, but being of a sunny
rather than energetic temperament--though he firmly believed himself
to be a reservoir of clear-sighted American energy--he had allowed all
sorts of things, and more particularly the uncertainties of Miss Mamie
Nelson, to keep him back. But now there were no more uncertainties
about Miss Mamie Nelson, and Mr. Direck had come over to England
just to convince himself and everybody else that there were other
interests in life for him than Mamie....
And also, he wanted to see the old country from which his maternal
grandmother had sprung. Wasn't there even now in his bedroom in New
York a water-colour of Market Saffron church, where the dear old lady
had been confirmed? And generally he wanted to see Europe. As an
interesting side show to the excursion he hoped, in his capacity of the
rather underworked and rather over-salaried secretary of the
Massachusetts Society for the Study of Contemporary Thought, to
discuss certain agreeable possibilities with Mr. Britling, who lived at
Matching's Easy.
Mr. Direck was a type of man not uncommon in America. He was very
much after the fashion of that clean and pleasant-looking person one
sees in the advertisements in American magazines, that agreeable
person who smiles and says, "Good, it's the Fizgig Brand," or "Yes, it's
a Wilkins, and that's the Best," or "My shirt-front never rucks; it's a
Chesson." But now he was saying, still with the same firm smile,
"Good. It's English." He was pleased by every unlikeness to things
American, by every item he could hail as characteristic; in the train to

London he had laughed aloud with pleasure at the chequer-board of
little fields upon the hills of Cheshire, he had chuckled to find himself
in a compartment without a corridor; he had tipped the polite yet kindly
guard magnificently, after doubting for a moment whether he ought to
tip him at all, and he had gone about his hotel in London saying "Lordy!
Lordy! My word!" in a kind of ecstasy, verifying the delightful absence
of telephone, of steam-heat, of any dependent bathroom. At breakfast
the waiter (out of Dickens it seemed) had refused to know what
"cereals" were, and had given him his egg in a china egg-cup such as
you see in the pictures in Punch. The Thames, when he sallied out to
see it, had been too good to be true, the smallest thing in rivers he had
ever seen, and he had had to restrain himself from affecting a marked
accent and accosting some passer-by with the question, "Say! But is
this little wet ditch here the Historical River Thames?"
In America, it must be explained, Mr. Direck spoke a very good and
careful English indeed, but he now found the utmost difficulty in
controlling his impulse to use a high-pitched nasal drone and indulge in
dry "Americanisms" and poker metaphors upon all occasions. When
people asked him questions he wanted to say "Yep" or "Sure," words
he would no more have used in America than he could have used a
bowie knife. But he had a sense of rôle. He wanted