So I was misled. I had expected that the
reporter would say: "As soon as Mr. Leacock came across the floor
we felt we were in the presence of a 'dynamo' (or an 'extinct
battle-horse' as the case may be)." Otherwise I would have kept up
those energetic movements all the morning. But they fatigue me,
and I did not think them necessary. But I let that pass.
The more serious trouble was the questions put to me by the reporters.
Over in our chief centres of population we use another set altogether.
I am thinking here especially of the kind of interview that I have
given out in Youngstown, Ohio, and Richmond, Indiana, and
Peterborough, Ontario. In all these places--for example, in
Youngstown, Ohiothe reporter asks as his first question, "What is
your impression of Youngstown?"
In London they don't. They seem indifferent to the fate of their
city. Perhaps it is only English pride. For all I know they may
have been burning to know this, just as the Youngstown, Ohio, people
are, and were too proud to ask. In any case I will insert here the
answer I had written out in my pocket-book (one copy for each
paper--the way we do it in Youngstown), and which read:
"London strikes me as emphatically a city with a future. Standing
as she does in the heart of a rich agricultural district with
railroad connection in all directions, and resting, as she must,
on a bed of coal and oil, I prophesy that she will one day be a
great city.
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