Chapter XX

_Reporting.--For the American Reporter Nothing is
Sacred.--Demolition of the Wall of Private Life.--Does your
Husband Snore?--St. Anthony and the Reporters.--I am
Interviewed.--My Manager drops Asleep over it.--The Interview
in Print.--The President of the United States and the
Reporters.--"I am the Interviewer."_

"Journalism has killed literature, and reporting is killing journalism. It is the last gasp of the dying of literature of an epoch; it is the man letters replaced by the _concierge_." So exclaims M. Albert Millaud in one of his clever articles in the _Figaro_.

In America, reporting has simply overrun, swallowed up, journalism. It is a demolition of the wall of private life; the substitution of gossip for chronicle, of chatter for criticism.

For the interviewer, nothing is sacred. Audacity is his stock-in-trade: the most private details of your daily life are at his mercy; and unless you blow his brains out--which is not lawful in New York State--you have no means of getting rid of him.

Do not believe you have got over the difficulty by having him told that you are not at home. He will return to the charge ten, twenty times; he will stand sentinel at your door, sleep on the mat outside your hotel bedroom, so as to pounce on you as soon as you show your face in the morning. He is patient; and if any indisposition should oblige you to keep your room, he will wait till you are well again, and will have his meals brought to him in the corridor. Should you succeed in escaping the hunter, rather than return to the newspaper-office empty-handed from the chase, he will find your wife, and ask her if you snore, whether you are an early riser, whether you are the more amiable after dinner or before, what you eat at breakfast, what is your favourite colour in trousers, and what size boots you take. He will ask her when you were married, how long your honeymoon lasted, if you have children, and whether they have cut their teeth. With these materials he will make up a column.

There is no question too indiscreet for these enterprising inquisitors: they would have interviewed St. Anthony in his hut.

Do not shout victory, either, because you have succeeded in getting rid of the interviewer without replying to his questions. It is in such cases that the American journalist reveals himself in all his glory. To your stupefaction, the newspapers next day will have an account of the conversation which you _might have had_ with their reporters.

If my advice be worth giving, the best thing you can do, when the interviewer presents himself, and says, "I am a reporter, sir, and I have come to ask you for a few moments' chat," is to say to him:

"Mad to see you. Pray be seated."

After all, interviewing is an operation that one survives; and, to be just, I must say that American reporters in general are courteous, obliging, and--which is simply astounding when one considers that they rarely take notes--exact in their accounts of interviews.

The courage, too, with which the interviewer braves rebuffs, and the philosophy with which he pockets abuse, are nothing short of admirable. For my part, I never could find a cross word to say to these intruders; and I had my reward in reading in the papers that it was a pleasure to interview me, because I submitted to the operation with such good grace.

* * * * *

On the 11th of November, 1887, at 9 a.m., the _Germanic_, after a terribly rough passage of nine days, entered the magnificent harbour of New York. The sun had risen resplendent in a cloudless blue sky. We had just passed Bartholdi's statue of "Liberty," and it seemed as if France were not very far off. It was a sweet sensation, and instinctively I had raised my hat. All at once the _Germanic_ stopped. A little steam-tug drew up alongside, and there stepped on board one or two custom-house officers, followed by several other persons.

"Look out!" cried one of my fellow-passengers, seeing that I appeared to be unconscious of danger.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"The interviewers!"

"Nonsense! Not here, surely!" I exclaimed.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than two young men handed me their cards, with the announcement that they were journalists.

"We have come to present our respects to you," they said, "and to wish you a pleasant time in our country."

While they uttered these words they scanned me from head to foot, jotting a few strokes on their note-books. They were taking my portrait, which appeared next morning at the head of the articles that the press of New York thought fit to devote to me. The portrait was a flattering one. One paper, however, gave the following description of your humble servant:

"Max O'Rell is a rather globular Frenchman of about forty." Then followed a description of my travelling suit and other effects.

"Globular!" The idea!

"Forty!" No, gentlemen; thirty-nine, if you please.

But to return to our reporters.

Question after question was put with the rapidity of lightning flashes.

"Have you had a good passage?"

"Are you sick at sea?"

"Where were you born?"

"How old are you?"

"How long do you mean to stay in the United States?"

"How much do your books bring you in?"

This catechising began to annoy me.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," I said; "I am tired, and am going to the hotel to rest. I shall be happy to see you this afternoon."

Oh! that first afternoon in New York, spent in the company of the interviewers; I shall never forget it!

The office of my manager, Major[10] Pond, was situated on the ground floor of the Everett House, where I had put up. Thither I repaired after lunch, to undergo the operation of tapping by eight interviewers at once.

[10] My manager, as the reader will observe, was one of the rare
Americans who are not Colonels.

"Ah!" said one of them, after the usual salutations, "we are going to bore you; so let us begin at the beginning."

Here I smiled.

"I know your first question," I said; "you are going to ask me whether it is the first time I have been in America."

"That is generally our first question, it is true; but I have another to ask you before. You have just eaten your first meal in America; what did you have?"

I submitted with a good grace, and replied as seriously as I could.

"Gentlemen, I have just been in for a piece of turbot, a beefsteak and potato chips, a celery salad, and a vanilla ice."

"And now," remarked another reporter, "I have an important question to put to you. I hope it will not astonish you."

"Oh, I am in America," I replied, "and quite ready not to be astonished at anything."

"Well, then," said he, "I wanted to ask you what are your impressions of America?"

"Excuse me," I exclaimed; "I have only been in it three hours, and those three hours have been spent in this hotel. You must really allow me to abstain for the moment from telling you what I think of America; for you will admit, I hope, that one must have passed a whole day at least in America, in order to judge it with any accuracy."

Here I rolled a cigarette, and rang for a lemon squash.

The reporters immediately made an entry in their note-books.

"What is that you have put down?" I asked.

A young fellow, with a face beaming with activity and intelligence, replied:

"I wrote that at this point of our conversation you rolled a cigarette, and rang for a lemon squash."

"Really, gentlemen," I ventured to observe, "do you imagine that such a remark as that can possess the slightest interest for your readers?"

"Without doubt," they replied, and all their faces wore an imperturbable seriousness that nearly made me roar with laughter.

"Oh, in that case excuse me; I ought to have known that in America, as elsewhere, an intelligent man knows his business. Go on with your questions; you interest me greatly."

The fact is, I began to be immensely amused.

The questions recommenced. One wanted biographical details; another, the origin of my pseudonym. One wished to know if I worked in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening; another, whether I worked sitting or standing up, and also whether I used ruled paper and quill pens. One man asked me whether I thought in English or in French; another, whether General Boulanger had any chance of soon being elected President of the French Republic. If I crossed my legs during the conversation, if I took off my glasses, nothing escaped these journalists; everything was jotted down.

The questions they asked really appeared to me so commonplace, so trivial, that I was almost ashamed to think I was the hero of this little farce.

With the idea of giving them something better worth writing, I launched into anecdotes, and told a few to these interviewers.

This brought about a little scene which was quite comic. If I looked at one reporter a little oftener than the rest, while I told an anecdote, he would turn to his brethren and say:

"This story is for my paper; you have no right to take it down, it was told especially to me."

"Not at all," would cry the others; "it was told to all of us."

In spite of this, the harmony of the meeting was not disturbed; and it was easy to see that an excellent spirit of fellowship prevailed in the fraternity.

With the exception of a phrase or two occasionally jotted down, they took no notes of my answers to their questions; and I wondered how it was possible that, with so few notes, they would manage to make an article of a hundred or two hundred lines, that would be acceptable in an important paper, out of an interview so insignificant and so devoid of interest, according to my idea, as this one.

After having spent nearly two hours over me, the reporters shook hands, expressed themselves as much obliged to me, and went their way.

How childish these Americans are! thought I. Is it possible that a conversation such as I have just had with those reporters can interest them?

Next day I procured all the New York morning papers, more from curiosity, I must say in justice to myself, than from vanity; for I was not at all proud of my utterances of the day before.

Judge of my surprise, on opening the first paper, to find two columns full of amusing details, picturesque descriptions, well-told anecdotes, witty remarks; the whole cleverly mingled and arranged by men who, I had always supposed, were simple stenographers.

Everything was faithfully reported and artistically set down. The smallest incidents were rendered interesting by the manner of telling. The Major, for instance, who, accustomed to this kind of interview for many years, had peacefully dropped asleep, comfortably installed, with his head on the sofa pillows and his feet on the back of a chair; my own gestures; the description of the pretty and elegantly furnished office--all was very crisp and vivid. They had turned everything to account; even the arrival of the lemon squash was made to furnish a little paragraph that was droll and attractive. You might have imagined that the whole thing was the first chapter of a novel, commencing with the majestic entry of a steamer into New York harbour.

Well, I said to myself, the American journalist knows, at any rate, how to make a savoury hash out of very little.

* * * * *

Three years ago, when Mr. Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, married the prettiest and most charming of his countrywomen, he chose Deer Park as a suitable place to pass his honeymoon in, far from the world and its bustle, and, above all, far from the reporters. However, the ex-President knew only too well the spirit of enterprise that possesses his countrymen; and to put himself out of reach of the interviewers, and make sure of tranquillity, he thought it well to employ eight detectives to guard the approaches to his retreat. This number was soon found insufficient, for the enemy made his appearance in the neighbourhood. The pickets had to be reinforced, and a week later twelve Argus-eyed watchers were on the alert to prevent any person whomsoever from getting within three hundred yards of the cottage. The interviewers were outdone, and had to admit themselves baffled. The papers had no details worth giving to their readers.

This must have been enough to make any enterprising editor tear his hair, or go and hang himself.

To have in one's editorial drawer such headings as "Grover in Clover," or "Drops of Honey Sipped in Deer Park," and not to be able to use them!

It was hard lines.

* * * * *

A little anecdote to finish with:

A young American lady had married a man well known as a young political orator of great promise.

The day after the wedding, her husband having gone out, she heard some little struggling outside her drawing-room door; and suddenly there entered a very well-dressed man, who made her a most polite bow.

She gazed at him, quite bewildered.

"Excuse me, madam; but you married Mr. John D. yesterday, I believe?"

"I did, sir; but ..."

"I am the Interviewer!"

_Tableau!_