Free Alfred Hitchcock by Patrick McGilligan Page A

yelled Sid, “you said you were me!”
    “Well, so I am.”
    “You’re not, you’re him!”
    “Look here,” broke in Tom, “let him be you, and you be me, and I’ll be him.”
    “Shut up!” screamed Jim above the din. “Why don’t you all stick to my first arrangement?”
    “All right, then,” commenced Tom, “I’ll be Sid.”
    “No, you won’t. I’ll be Sid.”
    “But just now you said you were me.”
    “Shut up, he’s you.”
    “Well, who’s me?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Why, Sid is, of course,” put in Jim. “Now let’s start.”
    “When—”
    “Wait,” said Tom, “I can’t be him; he’s bandy.”
    “Who’s bandy?”
    “You are, you fool!”
    “I’ll punch your nose!”
    “Don’t start scrap—”
    “Well, he—”
    “Look at what—”
    “I’m not, you idiot—”
    Jim fainted.
    “Hitch” claimed two entries in the December 1920
Telegraph.
If the first seems a precursor to Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” shtick, the second is every bit as frivolous, an amusing disquisition on “pea eating” that could have been dreamed up only by the son of a greengrocer. This story looks forward to the many scenes in Hitchcock films which are centered on sustenance and libation. Sometimes the scenes reveal crucial story information. Other times, as in “The History of Pea Eating,” they offer disarming comedy relief.
THE HISTORY OF PEA EATING
    Modern science, with its far-reaching effects on the life of the community, has yet one more problem to solve to further the progress of the world—that of eating peas. Considerable speculation has been given to the methods employed in the early ages, and we read of the prehistoric man who simply buried his face in the plate of peas and performed practically an illusion by his act of demolishing the vegetables without the use of his hands.
    One must admit, however, that this method may be described as crude, for one can hardly imagine the modern corpulent gentleman attempting the same feat, because of the danger of his excessive “adiposity” reaching the floor before his face reached the plate.
    We are told that Sir Roger D’Arcy, in the early Middle Ages, found no great difficulty in the problem. All he did was to attach to the headpiece of his armor a double piece of elastic in the form of a catapult. He simply placed a pea between the piece of leather attached to the elastic and aimed towards his open mouth. But even this method brought inconvenience, for it was soon discovered that there were many gentlemen with a bad aim, and often a duel resulted from the fact that Sir Percy had badly stung the wife of Baron Edgar over the other side of the room. It is believed that an Act was instituted prohibiting the use of this method without a licence, and one had to pass a test to secure the necessary permission to adopt this very ingenious style of feeding.
    These restrictions were responsible for the falling off in the popularity of peas, and after a time, they were practically non-existent as an edible vegetable. Many years later, however, their revival brought a great interest to the now famous pea-eating contests, the details of which reveal a further method of manipulation. It appears that each competitor was required to balance a certain number of peas along the edge of a sword, from which he was to swallow the peas without spilling any. Of course, in very exciting matches the contestants’ mouths and faces were often cut. It is believed that the performanceof sword swallowing was evolved from this feat, and that very large-mouthed people of today are direct descendants from the champions of that period.
    As is well known, many estimable people still practise this method on a smaller scale.
    Still further styles of deglutition were tried in late years, and the modern boy’s pea-shooter recalls the employment of pages to shoot the peas in My Lord’s mouth. Bad aim, of course, was reflected with dire results to the