The Man of Hats
THE globe-trotter may spin his coloured yarns for ever. Let him come home with a score ,of tiger-skins and antelope heads, rarest orchids Snatched from under the very arrows of pigmy tribes in equatorial forests, memories of dolphins sporting in the silvered foam of tropic seas, of green lagoons and pearl-fishers' islands—it is nothing—at least, it is nothing to become garrulous about. The Man of Hats sets off on more adventurous journeys every time he leaves his cottage door, yet he is for the most part silent. The Man of Hats knows the world as few have known it ; yet when he does speak it is quietly, to a selected audience and with nothing but a pint of old ale (a tot of rum in it is helpful) to jog his memory. To hear him then is to realize how purely relative are the rewards of travel.
The title, Man of Hats, is no mere idle nickname : it has been earned and is lived up to. Local gossip asserts that the Man of Hats possesses no less than twenty-three distinctive head-pieces—top hat, deer-stalker's cap, Chinese skull-cap, fez, sombrero, sun helmet, American naval cap : these are a few—but whatever the exact number of hats may be, there are quite enough to imply familiarity with hundreds of " forrin " places outside our hamlet of T—, and it is in this art of implication that the Man of Hats so excels his fellow travellers. You would never hear him begin an . evening of reminiscence with " the last time I forced my way through the trackless forests of Junga Junga," for example, or with any such Vain Traveller's device as that. (Mr. Yorick would have had to put the Man of Hats in a class by himself). No : the wearing of a fez merely suggests Turkey, and if the Man of Hats happens to be in a particularly gracious mood, in the "Peacock's " taproom, the audience has but to ask a few discreetly impersonal questions and await the answers. Sometimes he—the audience—may have to wait several minutes, the Man of Hats not being one who uses words lightly, but it is always worth it.
On a fine frosty evening the Man of Hats enters the taproom with his best fez, the one with the tassel, set negligently on the back of his head, and calls for his pint. The audience, being but one, and still, as time goes in T--, a stranger, is naturally hopeful and not wishing to leave things too much to chance, presently remarks on the fez—that rich crimson gloss—adding that he believes they are now illegal in Turkey : aren't they ? One must defer to the acknowledged cosmopolitan in such matters.
The Man of Hats nods decisively. " Ar," he says, " true—so they be. Illeager : summat to do with the law I reckon . . . But they dedn't ought to be, that's according to what I thinks. They dedn't ought to be Meager. Not in Turkey they dedn't. Was you ever in that Turkey, Mister ? "
It is advisable not to have been anywhere with the Man of Hats. " No," replies the audience, " but I should think it must be a most interesting country ? "
The Man of Hats nods again. " Ar. That it is. Most particlar intristin' country ever I recollec'. Forrin. Not same as this here. Kind of forrin, like. Why, there's people in that Turkey carries on reg'lar savidge, though I ses it as wears a fizz meself ! Most partic'lar intristing what with the Shar and sich—I never see the Sher though. Kind of a king, that Shar of Turkey, but I never see him. . . ."
That would seem to finish Turkey. The audience remembers noticing the Man of Hats _a few evenings ago in a Glengarry bonnet. " That fez must be cold in frosty weather," he suggests, ". I thought I saw you wear- ing a Scotch hat the other day—isn't it warmer ! "
The Man of Hats agrees that it is, but he likes a change. '" You don't come by all the vallible mimenters as I got for nothing and never use 'em," he reminds the audience sharply. " I dessay I got more hats nor any man in :England, and I don't say but what I don't deserve 'em seein' the trouble I been to. Come. from all about the world, these hats done."
A member of the Vain Traveller class would have said, " I collected these hats in my travels about the world." The Man of Hats delicately leaves his audience with a comfortable feeling of equality. It is his hobby he is proud of—and it is certainly a strange enough one : communism may come, but the villages will keep their individualists—not his travels.
" What's Scotland like ? " asks the audience, determined to take full advantage of this lucky situation. It is a leading question, hardly fair, but the Man of Hats does not flinch.
" Ar—Scotland . . . 'Taint much of a country. Not in size I means. Coorse, bein' as its part of England, 'taint hardly same as forrin. Intristin' country Mister, ever been in it ? . . . Partic'lar wunnerful scenery. Like a kind of heather, like. What with Edinburgh an' Aberdeen. Coorse, I never see that Harry Lauder in it—turns out to be a Sir now, as you might say, but I never see him. . . . But there's a lot of things goes on in that Scotland, partic'lar fer trav'lers bein' as it's part of England, like . . . Home rule fer it ? Never heard on it, Mister. Not in my day, not when I come by that hat it wasn't— " " Not when I come by that hat " ! It is the nearest approach to a boast the Man of Hats has yet allowed himself. The audience remembers a flying helmet and is wondering how to change the subject to aeroplanes without arousing suspicion of a motive other than that of a thirst for knowledge, but the arrival of the 'bus from W— with its load of invading workmen puts an abrupt end to the conversation. In public the Man of Hats is silent and aloof. Why ? The landlord of the " Peacock " says it is because once, years ago, when the hat collection consisted of a mere dozen and was still something of a mystery in the village, someone had told the Man of Hats in public that he knew about as much of the world as one of the white goats in the churchyard, and asked him point-blank why he didn't keep to the thatching instead of wasting his time going to jumble sales and so on. Such damnable insinuations might well render so modest an explorer dumb for ever. But a little rum in the old ale makes a difference : so one may yet H. M. hear what going up in an aeroplane is like.
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