Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Star-dust in Hollywood " You'll hexcuse me, sir and madam, but what I says about these people is they hare barbarians. They 'ave no culture.' ' On the second occasion our rich landlady offered him work, which he unhesitatingly refused. " If you'll hexcuse me, madam," he said to Jo, " Hi've seen that sort before. They do not know 'ow to be'ave to a hemployee." Like most Englishmen, however, he had his hobby and was a passionate amateur painter. In his shack, which he called " the Studio," he copied postcards in oil-paint during his leisure. Once he had sold a sketch for a pound. The Greek confessed himself unhappy in this land of sunshine and high wages. " Ya eats well, an' ya earns good money," he said, " but what's da use'a dat? I tell ya, dey ain't no fun here. Ya gets tired of going to da movie, or gettin' drunk, or playin' de card. Dat ain't no fun. Back in my country I 'member we uset'a dance in de street, an' we sing, an' we make'a fun wit' de girl. . . . Ya don' get much to eat dere, but life's easy. Here ya gets plenty ta eat, but life's hard." Nevertheless we had met his kind all up and down the Balkans. Would he have been content in Greece ? We doubt it. He was not an American yet. Europe clung still closely about his soul, but he was a Greek spoiled. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but return does not always make that affection permanent, for absence has eliminated the memories of a thousand minor irritations and inconveniences. Undoubtedly the American-European barrier is a smaller one than that which separates us from Asia and Africa. And yet the combination of Africa and America may make something that often seemed to us strangely akin to the European. For with the really cultivated ' coloured person ' (or what is called ' coloured ' in America) we found an ease of [38]