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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153,
+Dec. 5, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2004  [eBook #11425]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 153, DEC. 5, 1917***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, William Flis, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 11425-h.htm or 11425-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/4/2/11425/11425-h/11425-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/4/2/11425/11425-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 153.
+
+DECEMBER 5, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The announcement of Mr. Justice BRAY that bigamy is rampant at the
+present time has been drawn to the notice of the FOOD-CONTROLLER, who
+wishes it to be clearly understood that under no circumstances will
+the head of a family be allowed a sugar ration for more than one wife.
+
+       ***
+
+"I have in my possession," writes a correspondent of _The Evening
+News_, "a loaf of bread made by my husband's mother in 1821." This
+should dispose of the popular belief that nobody anticipated the War
+except Mr. BLATCHFORD.
+
+       ***
+
+Lug-worms are being sold at Deal for five shillings a score. They are
+stated to form an agreeable substitute for macaroni.
+
+       ***
+
+"In China," says _The Daily Express_, "a chicken can still be
+purchased for sixpence." Intending purchasers should note, however,
+that at present the return fare to Shanghai brings the total cost a
+trifle in excess of the present London prices.
+
+       ***
+
+A recent applicant to the Warwickshire Appeal Tribunal claimed that he
+had captured the German shell-less egg trade. He denied that the enemy
+had purposely allowed it to escape.
+
+       ***
+
+A tramp charged at Kingston with begging was wearing three overcoats,
+two coats, two pair of trousers and an enormous pair of boots. It
+seems strange that this man should not have realised that he was in a
+position to earn a handsome salary as a music-hall comedian.
+
+       ***
+
+Owing to a cow straying on the line at Acton Bridge last week a goods
+train was derailed. It seems that the unfortunate animal was not aware
+that cow-catchers had been abolished.
+
+       ***
+
+It is reported that the two thousand taxi-drivers still on strike have
+decided to offer their services to Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES for munition
+work. Suitable employment will be found for them in a high-expletive
+factory.
+
+       ***
+
+In New York a club has been started exclusively for golfers. The
+others insisted on it.
+
+       ***
+
+A notice exhibited in the window of a Bermondsey public-house bears
+the words, "There is nothing like Government Ale." Agreed.
+
+       ***
+
+"Shrimps," says a Southern Command Order, "should not be purchased
+where a long train journey is involved." For soldiers, however, who
+require this kind of diet little excursions to the seaside can always
+be arranged for with the C.O.
+
+       ***
+
+At Aberavon the other day the son of an interned German was bitten by
+a dog which he had kicked by accident. The dog of course did not know
+it was an accident.
+
+       ***
+
+We are the first to record the fact that a dear old lady, the other
+morning, went up to the Tank in Trafalgar Square and offered it a bun.
+
+       ***
+
+We should like to deny the rumour that when he heard of Lord
+ROTHERMERE's appointment to the Air Ministry Lord NORTHCLIFFE
+muttered, "Alas! my poor brother."
+
+       ***
+
+More bread is being eaten than ever, says the FOOD CONTROLLER. It
+appears that the stuff is now eaten by itself, instead of being spread
+thinly on butter, as in pre-war days.
+
+       ***
+
+The largest telescope in the World has just been erected at the Mount
+Wilson Observatory in California. Enthusiasts predict that the end of
+the War will be clearly visible through it.
+
+       ***
+
+Owing to scarcity of petrol several fire-brigades have had again to
+resort to horses. In consequence people who have fires are requested
+to place their orders at once, as they can only be dealt with in
+strict rotation.
+
+       ***
+
+The prisoner who escaped from the Manchester Assize Court, after being
+sentenced to three years' imprisonment, has explained that he was just
+pretending to be a German prisoner.
+
+       ***
+
+An awkward situation has arisen through Mr. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW and
+Mr. GEORGE MOORE having solved the Irish problem in the same week, as
+one or the other of them is certain to claim the credit of having his
+solution rejected.
+
+       ***
+
+"Blasting" for tin is being carried on in an experimental station in
+Cornwall. Similar operations are said to be used in searching for
+sugar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "WE'LL NO GANG IN THERE, JOCK."
+
+"FOR WHY, DONAL'?"
+
+"MAN, IT'S GOT AN AWFU' GERRMAN-LIKE NAME, YON."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A DAUGHTER OF LILITH.
+
+    "Gentlewoman, with tame snake, wants quiet home, suburban family,
+    small garden; no others; no animals."--_Melbourne Argus_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Mrs. ---- wishes to recommend a boy (15) who has done well
+    in the pantry."--_Eastern Daily Press_.
+
+But would Sir ARTHUR YAPP approve?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Will any generous soul save and buy up a young scholar,
+    foreign (British) aristocracy, by helping him in his first
+    struggle (legal profession)? acceptable only on returnable
+    condition."--_Manchester Guardian_.
+
+Before starting to save for the above purpose, we should like to know
+more about this scion of the "foreign (British) aristocracy." We don't
+want to find ourselves trading with the enemy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Canon ---- made a strong comment on the Proposal to use the
+    Ulley water for public consumption during his sermon on Sunday
+    morning."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+The rev. gentleman cannot believe that his sermons are so dry as all
+that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The undersigned begs to inform the public that a very superior
+    cow will be slaughtered on the 20th evening and exposed on the
+    morning of the 21st for sale."--_Madras Mail_.
+
+That ought to stop her swanking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "CAMOUFLAGED ATTACK.
+
+    "Paris, Thursday.
+
+    "All the newspapers print long accounts of the new offensive,
+    under the heading, 'Great British Victory,' and all agree in
+    assigning the chief honours attack, and the new British method
+    of organ-attack, and the new British method of arganising the
+    offensive in secret."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+And very well camouflaged, too.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LEAVES FROM A LONDON NOTE-BOOK.
+
+BY OUR MAN ABOUT TOWN.
+
+(WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO SOME OF OUR METROPOLITAN PENNY EVENING
+PAPERS.)
+
+SUGAR CARDS.
+
+A highly-placed official tells me that the discovery that a number of
+people move about from place to place, that servants sometimes leave
+their situations, and that households are consequently liable to
+variation in their personnel, is due to a very smart member of the
+Sugar Commission, who will be suitably decorated. This discovery, on
+the very eve of compulsory rationing in other commodities, will mean
+an immense saving of national funds. Instead of billions, only a few
+millions of cards will need to be destroyed--a very useful economy.
+
+A GREAT MAYFAIR EFFORT.
+
+The Mayfair Tableaux Association will shortly hold a Fancy Dress
+Exhibition of Really Beautiful War-workers. The subjects represented
+will range from CLEOPATRA to BOTTICELLI'S "Primavera," and from SALOME
+to the Sistine Madonna. Preliminary photographs are about to appear
+in the Society Press. The particular object of this great sacrifice
+in the cause of charity has not yet been determined upon, but will be
+announced in due course.
+
+THE SUBMARINE MENACE.
+
+No significance should be attached to recent statistics of torpedoed
+ships in view of public announcements to the effect that the submarine
+menace has been practically scotched.
+
+INTERNATIONAL BOLO.
+
+The British Parliamentary Branch of the International Bolo Club
+indignantly deny that they have received a single pony, or any less
+sum, from German sympathisers in support of Pacifist propaganda.
+They generously recognise that Germany's economical straits are even
+greater than ours, and they would not willingly, even for the sake
+of a common cause, put a strain upon the resources of their German
+friends.
+
+MAHENGE.
+
+The other day I consulted an old friend on the Imperial Staff as to
+the pronunciation of Mahenge, the scene of our latest victory in East
+Africa. From the evasive character of his reply I gathered that my
+inquiry was of the nature of an indiscretion.
+
+THE CABINET AND THE "VICIOUS CIRCLE."
+
+Several members of the Cabinet--the one that doesn't meet--have
+informed me of their conviction that, in the event of the War lasting
+on into 1920, there is every prospect of establishing an elementary
+co-ordination between the various Government departments. Meanwhile
+they ask me to correct a confusion in the public mind by which the
+"Vicious Circle" is regarded as a synonym for themselves.
+
+MANHOOD AND MORAL.
+
+Every day brings me a sheaf of correspondence in which I am asked to
+give my opinion as to our prospects of victory in the near future. I
+have one formula for reply. I refer my correspondents to a recurrent
+paragraph in _The Times_ under the heading "News in Brief." It runs
+as follows: "At the close of play yesterday in the billiard match of
+16,000 points up, between Inman and Stevenson, at the Grand Hall,
+Leicester Square, the scores were," etc., etc. After all, the deciding
+features in the Great World-Struggle will be manhood and _moral_.
+
+TROTSKY'S PEACE OVERTURES.
+
+From private sources, which corroborate the information given to
+the public, I hear that the Spanish Chargé-d'Affaires at Petrograd
+is the only member of the Diplomatic Corps in that capital who has
+taken cognisance of TROTSKY'S overtures (which, of course, must be
+distinguished from TSCHAIKOWSKY'S). I very much doubt if KING ALFONSO
+had a hand in this, though he has more than once intimated to me his
+desire for peace.
+
+LANSDOWNE AND LENIN.
+
+What with the aircraft strike at Coventry and the activities of Lord
+LANSDOWNE, LENIN and others, this has been a great week for Pacifists
+and Pro-Bosches. In Germany, where the Press has eagerly followed _The
+Daily Telegraph_ in giving prominence to Lord LANSDOWNE'S views, it
+is felt that our EX-FOREIGN SECRETARY ought to receive a step in the
+peerage, with the title Duke of Lansdowne and Handsup.
+
+THE PREMIER ABROAD.
+
+In conversation with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE on the occasion of one of
+his flying visits to England, I learned how much he regretted that
+pressure of time prevented him while in Italy from running over to
+Venice and ascending the restored Campanile. While in residence in
+Paris, however, he had had the pleasure of renewing his acquaintance
+with the Eiffel Tower.
+
+BROWNING AND SWINBURNE.
+
+During the dark hour of trial through which Italy has been passing,
+my thoughts have often strayed to Asolo in the Trevisan, the scene
+of _Pippa Passes_, by the late ROBERT BROWNING (whom I knew well).
+"Italy, what of the night?" wrote my old friend SWINBURNE. "Morning's
+at seven!" replies _Pippa_. Those brave words have heartened me a good
+deal.
+
+O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO A DACHSHUND.
+
+    [About the precise nationality of whose remote progenitor--whether
+    Danish, Flemish, or British through the old English Turnspit--the
+    writer will not stay to argue.]
+
+  My faithful Peter, mount upon my knee,
+    And shame me with the patience of your eyes,
+  Till I for divers patriots that be
+      Humbly apologise.
+
+  Not for the street-boy--him you had for years
+    And, knowing, make allowance for his ways,
+  If hoots of ignorance and stones and jeers
+      Martyr your latter days;
+
+  But for such shoddy patriots as join
+    The street-boy's manners to a petty mind,
+  And dealing little in true-minted coin
+      Tender the baser kind.
+
+  For instance, Smith (till lately Gründelhorn),
+    Who meets you with your mistress all alone,
+  And growls a "German beast" with senseless scorn
+      In a (still) guttural tone.
+
+  And Jones, who owes his mansion to the War
+    And loves to drown great luncheons in champagne,
+  But who, to prove he loves his England more,
+      Strikes at you with his cane.
+
+  The while Miss Podsnap, who in dogs can brook
+    No name that smacks of Teuton, snatches up,
+  Lest you contaminate it with a look,
+      Her Pomeranian pup.
+
+  Forgive them, Pete! We are not all well-bred,
+    Not all so wise, so sensible as you;
+  Not all our sires, for generations dead,
+      To British homes were true.
+
+  Yet, prizing steadfast love and fealty, some
+    The gulf of their deficiencies may span,
+  And learn of you the virtues that become
+      An English gentleman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We wish Russia wouldn't wash her dirty LENIN in public.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: DAVID IN RHONDDALAND.
+
+DAVID. "I'M OFTEN AWAY FROM HOME. HOW DO I GET SUGAR?"
+
+THE MAD GROCER. "YOU DON'T; YOU FILL UP A FORM."
+
+DAVID. "BUT I _HAVE_ FILLED UP A FORM."
+
+THE MAD GROCER. "THEN YOU FILL UP ANOTHER FORM."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Friend_ (_to Cinema Commissionaire, who has received
+notice_). "I'M SERPRISED YOU'RE LEAVIN'. I THOUGHT YOU WAS A FIXTURE
+'ERE."
+
+_Commissionaire._ "IS ANYBODY A FIXTURE IN THESE TIMES? LOOK AT THE
+TSAR OF RUSSIA, TINO, TIRPITZ, AND THE REST OF 'EM."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MILLIE AND THE "KAYSER."
+
+Millie is a "daily help." Who it is that she helps--whether herself or
+her employer--I am not in a position to say, for I am only temporarily
+a lodger in the house where Millie helps, and she doesn't help me
+much. But to-day I have made her hear and understand one whole
+sentence. It is the first time during the six days that we have known
+each other that I have conveyed anything to her except by graphic
+gesticulation and grimace.
+
+I accepted the fact at the outset that my soft and seductive tones
+could never penetrate Millie's stone-deafness. Only the loudest and
+angriest remarks are audible to Millie, so I preserve an attitude of
+silent facial amiability in all my relations with her.
+
+BALAAM could not have looked more surprised than did Millie this
+evening when, in the act of clearing away my latest meal, she heard
+me say, "Leave the matches."
+
+She stopped dead and looked at me over the tray of dirty crockery. Her
+expression was not unfriendly.
+
+"But I got t' look after myself," she explained; "I'd be all done up
+if I hadn't they matches in the morning to light the fire and all. You
+wouldn't get no bath-water."
+
+"I want to smoke," I said obstinately.
+
+She kept her hand over the box of matches. She had not heard. I made
+intelligent signs illustrative of the lighting of a cigarette. Millie
+told me, in pure Cornish:
+
+"You can only get a box at a time now, and half-a-pound o' sugar I
+gets when I shows my card, and they do say we won't get that--only
+quarter soon. I'd like to get at that KAYSER! I'd smash him up, I
+would!" She said this in the kindest, most benign way, with a smile
+as nearly caressing as a smile without front teeth can be. "He'd
+come short off if I got to him! And he deserves it, I'm sure," she
+concluded, as she departed--with the matches....
+
+A long walk over the Cornish cliffs in the gusty North wind from
+the Atlantic had made me drowsy, and as I sat before the fire my
+thoughts wandered from Russian politics and the Italian situation
+to Millie--and the "KAYSER": Millie, who was short of stature and
+round-backed, who showed her fifty-odd years unflinchingly to the
+world; Millie with her felt slippers and her overall and coarse hands;
+Millie, the possessor of a sugar-card--and the mighty War Lord, stern
+and implacable, trying to subdue the world to his will. And Millie
+only wished she could get near him to smash him up--"the KAYSER would
+come short off."...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lamp-lit cottage room faded; the sound of November winds and
+swirling leaves outside died away. For a moment I peered through
+a greyish-blue moving mist--it might have been cigarette smoke;
+gradually I distinguished forms and colours beyond; then the fog
+lifted and I looked upon an electrically-lighted room, with the
+aspect of an office _de luxe_. There were telephones and file cases,
+typewriters and all the appurtenances of business operations; the
+furniture was massive and handsome, and carpets and hangings had every
+appearance of magnificence and costliness.
+
+I knew without thought that this was the private room of WILHELM of
+Prussia. He himself, standing with his back to the roaring log fire in
+the deep grate, was too like the cartoons in the English papers to be
+mistaken. The iron-grey hair and upturned moustache, the cold eyes and
+sardonic mouth were all there "as per invoice." He was even wearing an
+aggressively Prussian uniform, and kept his spiked helmet on his head
+and his sword hanging at his side.
+
+The CROWN PRINCE was in evidence, disguised as a Death's Head Hussar,
+and HINDENBURG was easily recognisable as he bristled with the nails
+which the admiring populace had hammered into him; the rest of
+the company were unknown to me. They were all engaged in a heated
+discussion when suddenly there came a knock at the door, a knock
+which, to me, was curiously familiar.
+
+During the silence that ensued Millie walked into the room. She was
+still wearing her overall and felt slippers, and she had not waited
+to put on a hat or even to straighten her hair. She came forward
+unhesitatingly, with her short, shuffling steps and, disregarding the
+furious demand of a Bavarian General as to who she was and how she
+dared to enter there, she addressed herself to the KAISER himself. She
+spoke in her normal tones, but to me there seemed something sinister
+about them at this moment, and I noticed that in her right hand she
+carried a coal-hammer.
+
+Now above all things Millie hated breaking coal and filling scuttles,
+and I knew that she would not be carrying a coal-hammer without a very
+special reason. Her words revealed it.
+
+"You, KAYSER, I've been wanting to get near you and smash you up, I
+have. You've gone a bit too far, you have ... No sugar without a card,
+and then only half-a-pound, and they do say it'll only be a quarter
+soon. And _matches!_--only one box at a time, and _they_ don't strike,
+and how's a body to light a fire at all?"
+
+With this she lifted her coal-hammer and brought it down with all
+her force on the KAISER'S head. Involuntarily I flinched; it was a
+terrible blow.
+
+Several Generals, their iron crosses jingling, rushed forward and
+seized Millie, uttering guttural sounds of horror and indignation.
+But the KAISER stood unmoved--yes, unmoved. Millie gaped at him. He
+ordered his satellites to release her and, as they reluctantly did so,
+Millie nodded her head at them.
+
+"You leave me where I'm to! He can take up his own part," she told
+them.
+
+The KAISER addressed her sternly.
+
+"Presumptuous woman," he said, "it is not written that you shall be
+the cause of my death. There is something much higher in store for
+me. You deserve worse than death at my hands; but since you are from
+England I will squeeze from you all the information I require and bend
+you to my uses."
+
+All this was obviously wasted on Millie, who heard nothing. Having
+waited politely until his lips stopped moving in speech, she again
+cracked him on the head with the coal-hammer.
+
+The KAISER ignored this uncivil retort and spoke again.
+
+"You shall go back to your matchless country and tell them there that
+we have plenty of matches in Germany; that we have kept on good terms
+with Stockholm, and our matches are made in Sweden. We have all we
+need to kindle every fire in hell. Now are you convinced that you are
+beaten?"
+
+He was interrupted by another blow from the coal-hammer, which made
+him bite his tongue, for Millie was becoming exasperated and put all
+her strength into the stroke. The KAISER stepped back.
+
+"Poor fool! You are wasting your strength, even as HAIG wastes _his_
+in blow after blow on the Western front."
+
+But even as he uttered the lying boast he tottered and fell back
+unconscious into the arms of LITTLE WILLIE.
+
+The Generals and Statesmen gathered round their stricken master,
+gabbling purest Prussian.
+
+Millie appeared satisfied at last, although the CROWN PRINCE had
+scarcely glanced at her, for she was not his type. She took advantage
+of the commotion to procure two boxes of matches which had been thrown
+carelessly on the table. These she bestowed mysteriously beneath her
+overall.
+
+"He deserved it too!" she muttered contentedly as she hobbled to the
+door; "and I don't believe so much about all his matches either. You
+can only get two boxes at a time even here." With this reflection she
+unostentatiously departed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again that familiar knock....
+
+I was back in my little sitting-room in Cornwall and Millie entered
+with my candle, which she put down on the table rather noisily. I
+gave her the usual grin and nod of acknowledgment, and she wished me
+good-night and went.
+
+In the tray of the candlestick there was a box of matches. I picked it
+up and turned it over curiously. Could my dream have been true? Or was
+it only a coincidence that in blatant red letters on that match-box
+were the words:--
+
+"MADE IN SWEDEN."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Spokane (Washington), Monday.
+
+    "Troops raided the I.W.W. headquarters and arrested James
+    Rowan (leader) and 2½ others on the eve of threatened
+    disturbances."--_Toowoomba Gazette (Australia)_.
+
+Unfortunately in such cases half-measures are rarely successful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Sub_ (_to A.P.M., who has severely censured him for
+being without gloves, wearing collar of wrong colour, etc._). "OH, BY
+THE BY, SIR, HOW DO YOU LIKE THE WAY I DO MY HAIR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "THE AUTUMN MEETING of the WISBECH LOCAL PEACE ASSOCIATION will be
+    held on WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28th, 1917.
+
+    "Being full moon, a good attendance is expected."--_Isle of
+    Ely Advertiser_.
+
+The Gothas would see that it was a peace-meeting and leave it alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The tanks crossed the deep gulf of the Hindenburg main line,
+    pitching nose downwards as they drew their long bodies over
+    the parapets and rearing up again with their long forward
+    reach of body and heaving themselves on to the German paradise
+    beyond."--_Yorkshire Evening Post_.
+
+That is not what the Germans called it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "IF CAMBRIA FALLS--
+
+    "The possibilities in the New Battle."--_Dublin Evening Herald_.
+
+No wonder Mr. LLOYD GEORGE hurried off to France.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "On the earth, the broken acres; In the heaven, a perfect
+    ground."--_The Canadian Churchman_.
+
+Of course Canada is before everything an agricultural country, and
+we feel sure that BROWNING would be the last man to object to any
+adaptation of his lines which would make them more suited to the needs
+of the people and the times.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THEATRICAL CORRESPONDENCE
+
+SUPPLYING ONE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION, "WHY DOES A DRAMATIST GROW OLD
+SOONER THAN ANYONE ELSE?"
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, author, to Sir James Benfield,
+actor-manager._
+
+Dear Sir,--Herewith I am forwarding a copy of an original three-act
+comedy, entitled, _Men and Munitions_. As the interest is largely
+topical I should he much obliged if you could let me have your verdict
+upon it with as little delay as possible.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+G. SHERIDAN SMITH.
+
+_From the Same to his friend, Buskin Browne, actor._
+
+Dear B.B.,--By this post I am sending my new comedy, _Men and
+Munitions_, to your manager, whom I believe it should suit. If an
+occasion served for you to put in a word about it without too much
+trouble, I should be eternally grateful.
+
+Yours ever, G.S.S.
+
+_From Buskin Browne, in answer._
+
+My Dear Man,--With all the pleasure in life. I fancy we're changing
+our bill shortly, and, as farce is all the rage just now, I'll boom
+your _Munition Mad_ directly I get a chance. Best of luck.
+
+Yours, BEE-BEE.
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, in reply. A telegram._
+
+Thousand thanks play called men and munitions comedy not farce.
+
+_From the Same to the Same, six weeks later._
+
+Dear B.B.,--I hate to trouble you, but as I've heard nothing yet from
+the management about my comedy I am writing to ask if you can give me
+any idea of Sir J.B.'s intentions regarding it. Did he say anything
+that you dare repeat?
+
+Yours, G.S.S.
+
+_From Buskin Browne, in answer, a fortnight later._
+
+Dear old Boy,--No chance as yet, as the chief has been away ill.
+But he comes back on Saturday, when I will mention the farce to him
+without fail.
+
+Yours "while this machine is to him," BEE-BEE.
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, to Sir James Benfield, a month later._
+
+Dear Sir,--I was profoundly grieved to learn from a mutual friend
+that you had been so long on the sick list. Now, however, that you
+are at work again, and (I trust) fully restored to health, may I hope
+for a verdict upon my comedy, _Men and Munitions_, at your earliest
+convenience?
+
+With warmest congratulations,
+
+I am, Faithfully yours,
+
+G. SHERIDAN SMITH.
+
+_From Sir James Benfield's Secretary, in answer, a week later._
+
+Dear Sir,--Sir James Benfield desires me to acknowledge your letter,
+and to inform you that he has been away ill, and unable to attend to
+any correspondence.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+_From Buskin Browne to G. Sheridan Smith._
+
+Dear old Man,--I heard unofficially last night that your farce has had
+a quite top-hole report from the reader, and might be put on almost at
+once. _Ça marche!_ Anything for me in it?
+
+B.B.
+
+_From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan Smith, by same post as
+above._
+
+Dear Sir,--In answer to your inquiry we can trace no record of
+the receipt of any MS. from you. If you will kindly let me have
+particulars, name of play, date when forwarded, etc., the matter
+shall receive further attention.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, in answer. A telegram._
+
+Men and munitions comedy fourteen weeks ago kindly wire reply paid.
+
+_Reply to above. A telegram._
+
+No trace comedy entitled fourteen weeks suggest inquire post-office.
+
+_Reply to above_.
+
+Name of comedy men and munitions reply paid urgent.
+
+_Reply to above._
+
+Your play returned last week.
+
+_Reply to above._
+
+Nothing arrived here please look again.
+
+_From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan Smith._
+
+Dear Sir,--In returning herewith your blank-verse tragedy, _Hadrian_,
+I am desired by Sir James Benfield to thank you for kindly allowing
+him the opportunity of reading it.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+_From Buskin Browne to G. Sheridan Smith._
+
+Dear old Boy,--The A.S.M. told me to-day that our backers won't look
+at farce, though the chief simply loves yours. So I'm afraid we can
+only say better luck next time.
+
+Yours disappointed,
+
+B.B.
+
+_From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan Smith, five weeks later._
+
+Dear Sir,--Sir James Benfield has been interested to learn that you
+have written a comedy of topical interest, called (he understands)
+_The Munitioneer_. Should you care to forward it for his consideration
+he would be pleased to read it, and, if suitable, to arrange for its
+production at this theatre.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, in reply. A telegram._
+
+Where did you get a name like that?
+
+_From Basil Vyne-Petherington, in final answer, a month later._
+
+Sir,--I am requested by Sir James Benfield to state that he has been
+compelled to make a rule never to send his autograph to strangers.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WHITE MAGIC.
+
+  Blind folk see the fairies,
+    Oh, better far than we,
+  Who miss the shining of their wings
+  Because our eyes are filled with things
+    We do not wish to see.
+  They need not seek enchantment
+    From solemn printed books,
+  For all about them as they go
+  The fairies flutter to and fro
+    With smiling, friendly looks.
+
+  Deaf folk hear the fairies
+    However soft their song;
+  'Tis we who lose the honey sound
+  Amid the clamour all around
+    That beats the whole day long.
+  But they with gentle faces
+    Sit quietly apart;
+  What room have they for sorrowing
+  While fairy minstrels sit and sing
+    Close to their listening heart?
+
+R.F.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Extract from a French account of the tanks in action in the battle for
+Cambrai:--
+
+    "Les chars d'assaut curent aussi leur cri de guerre. Peu avant
+    l'attaque, le long de leur ligne courut un message répétant, en
+    le modifiant légèrement, celui de Nelson à Trafalgar:
+
+    "'L'Angleterre compte que chaque tank fera aujourd'hui son devoir
+    sacré.'"--_Havas_.
+
+We had often wondered what the French was for "Do your damnedest!" Now
+we know.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: GETTING AWAY FROM IT.
+
+CAPTAIN BROWN, HOME ON LEAVE AND VERY WAR-WEARY, DECIDES THAT AT ALL
+COSTS HE WILL SPEND AN EVENING WHERE KHAKI IS NOT.
+
+HE HAS PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS OF A VISIT, IN TIMES OF PEACE, TO A
+DELIGHTFUL BOHEMIAN CLUB OF WHICH ROBINSON WAS A MEMBER.
+
+SO HE RINGS UP ROBINSON, WHO WILL BE DELIGHTED TO SEE HIM.
+
+BROWN EXPERIENCES A DISTINCT SHOCK ON MEETING ROBINSON,
+
+AND A STILL GREATER SHOCK ON ENTERING THE CLUB.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Head Waiter_. "SORRY, SAIR--CAN'T HELP IT. FULL UP!
+NO ROOM FOR A LONG TIME. AFTER ALL, DERE IS A WAR ON."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO MY BUTCHER.
+
+  O butcher, butcher of the bulbous eye,
+  That in hoarse accents bidst me "buy, buy, buy!"
+  Waving large hands suffused with brutish gore,
+  Have I not found thee evil to the core?
+  The greedy grocer grinds the face of me,
+  The baker trades on my necessity,
+  And from the milkman have I no surcease,
+  But thou art Plunder's perfect masterpiece.
+  These others are not always lost to shame;
+  My grocer, now--last week he let me claim
+  A pound of syrup--'twas a kindly deed
+  To help a fellow-townsman in his need,
+  Though harsh the price, and I was feign to crawl
+  About his feet ere I might buy at all.
+  But thou--although a myriad flocks may crop
+  By Sussex gorse or Cheviot's grassy top,
+  A myriad herds tumultuously snort
+  From Palos Verdes eastward to Del Norte,
+  Or where the fierce vaquero's bold bravado
+  Resounds about the Llano Estacado;
+  Though every abattoir works overtime
+  And every stall in Smithfield groans with prime
+  Cuts, from thy lips the ready lie falls pat,
+  How thou art sold clean out of this and that,
+  But will oblige me, just for old time's sake,
+  With half a shin bone or some hard flank steak;
+  Or (if with mutton I prefer to deck
+  My festive board) the scraggy end of neck.
+  And once, when goaded to a desperate stand,
+  I wrung a sirloin from thy grudging hand,
+  Did not thy boy, a cheeky little brute
+  With shifty eyes, mislay the thing _en route_,
+  Depositing at my address the bones
+  Intended for the dog of Mr. Jones?
+
+  I sometimes think that never runs so thin
+  The milk as when it leaves the milkman's tin;
+  That every link the sausageman prepares
+  Harbours some wandering Towser unawares.
+  And Binns, the baker (whom a murrain seize!),
+  Immune from fraud's accustomed penalties,
+  Sells me a stuff compound of string and lead,
+  And has the nerve to name the substance bread.
+  But deafer far to the voice of conscience grown
+  The type that cuts me off a pound of bone
+  Wherefrom an ounce of fat forlornly drops,
+  And calls the thing two shillings' worth of chops;
+  More steeped in crime the heart that dares to fleece
+  My purse of eighteen-pence for one small piece
+  Of tripe, whereof, when times were not so hard,
+  The price was fourpence for the running yard!
+
+  Wherefore I hate thee, butcher, and would pass
+  Untempted of thy viands. But, alas!
+  The spirit that essays in master flights
+  To sip the honey from Parnassus' heights,
+  That daily doth his Pegasus bestride
+  And keeps the War from spoiling on the side,
+  Fails to be fostered by the sensuous sprout
+  Or with horse carrots blow its waistcoat out.
+  So, though I loathe thee, butcher, I must buy
+  The tokens of thy heartless usury.
+  Yet oft I dream that in some life to come,
+  Where no sharp pangs assail the poet's tum,
+  Athwart high sunburnt plains I drive my plough,
+  Untouched by earth's gross appetites, and thou,
+  My ox, my beast, goest groaning at the tugs,
+  And do I spare thy feelings? No, by jugs!
+  With tireless lash I probe thy leaden feet,
+  And beat and beat and beat and beat and beat.
+
+  ALGOL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: IF EVERYBODY HELPED.
+Every bond you buy goes to tie up the Kaiser.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+_Monday, November 26th_.--Rather a jolly day in the House of Commons.
+It was pleasant to hear Lord WOLMER, ingenuous youth, explaining, on
+behalf of the War Trade Department, that there was no danger of an
+unusually large consignment of rubber bathing-caps finding their way
+from Switzerland to the heads of German Fraüleins. To Colonel YATE
+belongs the credit of pointing out that people do not bathe in
+Switzerland in the winter.
+
+[Illustration: "Can't we go and have a steak somewhere?" Mr. WILL
+THORNE.]
+
+Where Russia is concerned Mr. BALFOUR declines to be included among
+the prophets; all he knows is that that unhappy country has not yet
+evolved a Government with which he can negotiate. He was more explicit
+regarding the German tale of a Privy Council in 1913, presided over
+by the KING, at which Mr. ASQUITH and Lord KITCHENER conspired with
+Sir EDWARD GREY and Lord MORLEY (whose "Reminiscences" are strangely
+silent on the subject) to declare war upon Germany. Who after this
+shall dare to say that the Germans have no imagination?
+
+Mr. WILL THORNE considers that compulsory rationing ought to be
+postponed until the menus at the hotels and clubs are cut down to two
+courses. Somebody ought to invite Mr. THORNE, who from his appearance
+I should judge to have a healthy appetite, to partake of one of these
+(alleged) Gargantuan feasts and see what he thinks of it. His comment
+would probably be, "Can't we go and have a steak somewhere?"
+
+When is a leaflet not a leaflet? "When it is an election address,"
+says Sir GEORGE CAVE. At the same time he warned Mr. KING that if he
+thought to get round the new regulations by embodying his peculiar
+views in the form of electioneering literature he might still collide
+with "Dora." The warning was surely superfluous. The last thing any
+Pacifist M.P. wishes to do is to submit himself to the judgment of his
+constituents.
+
+_Tuesday, November 27th_.--Mr. MACPHERSON'S statement that officers
+with the Expeditionary Force are supplied with whisky at prices
+varying from _3s. 6d_. to _6s_. a bottle may have horrified the
+teetotalers, but has intensified the patriotic desire of some of our
+Volunteers to share the hardships of these gallant fellows in the
+trenches.
+
+There was another long-drawn-out duel between Mr. HOUSTON and Sir LEO
+CHIOZZA MONEY on the subject of shipping freights. The House always
+enjoys these encounters, although the opponents, like the toy
+"wrestlers" of our youth, never get much "forrader." The Member for
+West Toxteth has probably forgotten more about the shipping trade
+than his opponent ever knew. But for all that Sir LEO keeps his end
+up, though his assertion that the consumer would not benefit if the
+Government charged "Blue-book rates" for ordinary cargo does not
+convince everybody. But then everybody does not understand Blue-books.
+
+[Illustration: "Sir Leo keeps his end up." MR. HOUSTON. SIR LEO
+CHIOZZA MONEY.]
+
+_Wednesday, November 28th_.--The Peers were surprised to hear from
+Lord COURTNEY that he was not of the creed of the conscientious
+objector. They had been under the impression that his public career
+had been one long orgie of conscientious objection to everything that
+did not emanate from his own capacious brain. Even his hat and his
+waistcoat proclaim his defiance of conventional opinion.
+
+For weeks past the House of Commons has been invited to believe that
+German "pill-boxes" were composed of British cement; and the case
+seemed clear when a British officer wrote from Flanders the other
+day that he had discovered in the German lines a label plainly
+marked "Artificial Portland." Members were relieved to learn that
+the label came from a Belgian factory taken over by the Germans. "If
+those pill-boxes had really been made of our cement," said a Medway
+representative, "we should be hammering at them still."
+
+_Thursday, November 29th_.--Question-time would be much more amusing
+if Ministers and Members were more accomplished in the art of
+repartee. A few are quick enough. When Mr. LEES SMITH complained that
+one of his statements had been described by the FOREIGN SECRETARY as a
+mare's nest Lord ROBERT CECIL swiftly replied that he did not remember
+the incident, but had no doubt that if his right hon. friend used the
+term it was justified.
+
+Under the Redistribution scheme as arranged by the Boundary
+Commissioners the name West Birmingham would have disappeared from the
+roll of constituencies. In graceful tribute to the memory of JOSEPH
+CHAMBERLAIN the House unanimously agreed to its reinstatement. It also
+changed the name of the Woodstock division to the Banbury division;
+but the idea that this was done as a compliment to the junior Member
+for the City of London is, I am told, erroneous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"IN SUCH A QUESTIONABLE SHAPE."
+
+    "This, of course, brings up the almighty question--Who wrote
+    Shapespeare?"--_Mr. George Moore in "The Observer_."
+
+A short answer to this almighty question is--Either Mr. GEORGE MOORE
+or the writer who determined "to call a spade a spape."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Cook-General, good (26), Wanted immediately, or by December 6th,
+    for three months, in Exeter. Wages 50s. per mouth."--_Express
+    and Echo (Exeter)_.
+
+We confidently hope that she has only one.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mother_. "GOOD GRACIOUS! THAT'S NOT YOUR NEW BEST HAT?"
+
+_Child_. "WELL, MOTHER, YOU KNOW I TOLD YOU WHEN WE GOT IT THAT IT
+WOULDN'T WEAR WELL."
+
+_Mother_. "I DON'T REMEMBER YOUR SAYING SO."
+
+_Child_. "YES, MOTHER. SURELY YOU REMEMBER I SAID, 'THE FIRST TIME
+THAT HAT'S SAT ON IT'S DONE FOR'?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BELIEVE ME OR BELIEVE ME NOT.
+
+Although he had been rendered absolutely dumb by shell-shock the
+soldier was able to earn a little extra money by doing odd jobs.
+But nothing could get his speech back. It was a very stubborn and
+perplexing case. For eighteen months he had not succeeded in uttering
+a word, though understanding everything that was said to him. All the
+usual devices had failed; every kind of sudden surprise to startle
+him into articulation had been attempted; electricity had been passed
+through the muscles of the tongue and larynx; doctors had discussed
+him with a volubility only equalled by his own silence. But he
+remained dumb. It seemed hopeless.
+
+Last week the mistress of the house where he was mostly employed sent
+him to the grocer's with, as usual, a slip of paper. The paper was
+addressed to the grocer, and it said, "Please do your utmost to give
+the bearer some sugar and tea. Even the smallest quantity will be
+gratefully welcomed."
+
+Entering the shop the soldier laid the message on the counter,
+prepared to wait patiently for the harassed tradesman to attend to
+him. He had often been there before and knew what it meant; but on
+this occasion the grocer instantly advanced to meet him, took the
+paper smilingly and read it.
+
+"Certainly," he replied. "I suppose four pounds of each would be
+enough to go on with?"
+
+"Four pounds!" said the soldier. "Strike me pink, she'd think herself
+the Queen with four ounces!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THINGS WE SHOULD LIKE TO SEE ILLUSTRATED.
+
+From a recent novel:--
+
+    "... Then the gong went, and she followed it into the
+    dining-room ..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Class A (fit for general service) is subdivided as
+    follows:--1--Men actually fit for general service in any theatre
+    in all respects. 2--Recruits who should be fit for A1 as soon as
+    trained. 3--Men who have previously served with an expeditionary
+    force who should be fit for £1 as soon as 'hardened.'"--_Scots
+    Paper_.
+
+They must be well worth it, even in a soft state.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MORE WAR ECONOMY.
+
+    "BUTCHER.--Wanted, Second Hand."--_Manchester Evening News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Southport. Mrs. ----, Homely Apts.; sea view; piano:
+    mod."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+We approve Mrs. ----'s candour about the piano, which accords with our
+own experience in seaside boarding-houses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Germany recently began calling up Class 19120."--_Western Mail_.
+
+The end of the War may be in sight, but it still seems to be some
+distance off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In districts where a number of shops were serving the same people
+    and streets, they would be asked to co-operate so that butcher,
+    baker and grocer would use the same vans. Traders who refused to
+    comply with the scheme would be dealt with."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+But surely such unpatriotic shopkeepers should not be dealt with.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lost, on or about September 30 last, a Gold Bar Brooch, with
+    chaste Scotch terrier in centre."--_Manchester Evening News_.
+
+We are glad to see that at least one of our dumb friends has not
+been affected by the wave of bigamy that has been sweeping over the
+country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Old hand_ (_supplying desired information to new
+arrival_). "THOSE THINGS UP THERE? OH, THEY'RE CANTEENS FOR THE
+R.F.C."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE HUT.
+
+As ordered, we marched the Battery to B 35d 45.25. Reader, have you
+ever lived in, or on, an unfurnished map-reference in Flanders? If
+not, permit me to inform you that this group of letters and numerals
+represented a mud-flat pocked with ancient shell-craters, through
+which loafed an unwholesome stream under a bilious-looking sky. The
+Junior Subaltern, fresh from home, asked where the billets were. We
+could but bless his happy innocence and remind him that as Army Field
+Artillery we were nobody's children, the orphan bravoes of the Western
+Front, and that for us a bunch of map co-ordinates was considered
+ample provision.
+
+The horses, having with proper pride sneered at the stream, were
+silenced with their nosebags, and then we asked our cook what
+about it? That dauntless artist in bully-beef promptly brought our
+far-travelled mess-table into action in the open, and thus publicly we
+sat round it on our valises and drank Vichy water until the novelty
+palled. Then the rain began and the men once more united in wishing
+themselves in Tennessee.
+
+The Captain was now driven from the bosom of the mess to find a Camp
+Commandant, and to tell him, with the Major's compliments, that even
+the personnel of Army Brigades were liable, in the words of the book,
+to deteriorate rapidly if unprotected from damp. The officer, whom he
+found lurking in a neighbouring Nissen hut, was tall and stately, but
+admitted, under pressure, that to him was entrusted the stewardship
+of our mud-flat and the adjacent camps, and that he could give us a
+mess. Through the insistent drizzle this person, smiling now very
+pleasantly, led us to a depressed wooden building that suggested
+a derelict Noah's Ark with a sinister look about the windows. The
+bad-tempered sky scowled between the planks of the roof; the querulous
+wind whined up through the floor; rats backed snarling into the
+corners on our entrance.
+
+"This is the place," said the C.C. "You'll soon make yourselves very
+comfortable."
+
+That night I dreamed I was a "U" boat, and started up, snorting, to
+find myself under a cascade, while the felt upon the roof banged and
+rasped and flapped. It sounded as if the ark were trying to fly, but
+found its wings rusty. At dawn we sent the Captain out, and refused
+him breakfast till by some resource of ingenuity or crime he obtained
+certain sausages of new felt. These our fearless batmen unrolled and
+nailed upon the roof. After his porridge we pushed him out again with
+a strong party under orders to carry the nearest R.E. dump by force
+or fraud, and secure large quantities of timber, nails, canvas and,
+if possible (the up-to-date R.E. dump secretes many unexpected
+commodities), Turkey carpets, wall-paper, sofa-cushions and
+bedroom-slippers.
+
+The batmen were sent out with a limbered cart, some smoke shell and
+the total establishment of billhooks, and forbidden to return without
+sufficient material for bedsteads, window-shutters, bookshelves and
+chairs. By evening the place began to feel habitable, and the C.C.,
+when he looked in to borrow a horse, endeared himself to us all by
+his obvious pleasure in our comparative comfort. We lent him the best
+horse in the battery.
+
+The Major's batman devoted the following day to the construction of
+a species of retiring-room at one end of the hut, wherein the modest
+members of the mess might bathe and splash at ease. The remainder of
+the servants went out armed and returned with (1) a zinc bath, (2)
+a stove, (3) a cuckoo clock, (4) a large mirror, (5) a warming-pan.
+"Once let us make a home for ourselves," we said, "and our energies
+will be free to finish the War." We devoted every cunning worker in
+the battery to this great end. Drill was abandoned, stables forgotten.
+We installed bookshelves, bootjacks, a sideboard, hat racks, a dumb
+waiter, a stand for the gramophone and a roll-top desk for the Major.
+The walls were tapestried with canvas, hung with pictures, scalps,
+and the various decorations won by members of the mess. The original
+building, disreputable and hateful, was hidden and forgotten.
+
+And then the C.C. called again, and, after a minute and admiring
+inspection of our abode, informed us that to his bitter sorrow he had
+to turn us out; umteen battalions of infantry were coming in and had
+to be accommodated--this being an infantry camp....
+
+That night, as I walked about in the rain, I looked in at the open
+door of our lost home. Two N.C.O.'s were sitting over our stove, lost,
+lonely in the elongated emptiness; longing, I knew, to be with their
+comrades bellowing in an adjacent hut. And so I understood and knew at
+length how Camp Commandants manage the maintenance and improvement of
+their domain. I devote myself now to warning the simple-hearted gunner
+against unfurnished huts and the hospitality of Camp Commandants.
+And some day I hope to be in a position to lend that particular C.C.
+another horse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PUNCH'S ROLL OF HONOUR.
+
+We deeply regret to learn that Lieutenant GEORGE L. BROWN, Loyal North
+Lancashire Regiment, who contributed sketches to _Punch_ before the
+War, has died of wounds.
+
+We are very glad to say that Captain A.W. LLOYD, Royal Fusiliers, is
+making a good recovery from the severe wound which he received in East
+Africa.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _She_. "OH, WAS THAT A BOMB?"
+
+_He_. "YES, I THINK IT WAS. BUT IF IT WAS AS NEAR AS IT SOUNDED IT
+WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY MUCH LOUDER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MARGARINE.
+
+A HOUSEKEEPER'S PALINODE.
+
+  MARGARINE--the prefix "oleo-"
+    Latterly has been effaced,
+  Though no doubt in many a folio
+    Of the grocer's ledger traced--
+
+  Once I arrogantly rated
+    You below the cheapest lard;
+  Once your "g" enunciated,
+    With pedantic rigour, hard.
+
+  How your elements were blended
+    Naught I knew; but wild surmise
+  Hinted horrors that offended
+    Squeamish and fastidious eyes.
+
+  Now this view, unjust, unfounded,
+    I recant with deep remorse,
+  Knowing you are not compounded
+    From the carcase of the horse.
+
+  Still with glances far from genial
+    I beheld you, margarine,
+  And restricted you to menial
+    Services in my cuisine.
+
+  Still I felt myself unable,
+    Though you helped to fry my fish,
+  To endure you at my table
+    Nestling in the butter-dish.
+
+  _Now_ that I have clearly tracked your
+    Blameless progress from the nut,
+  I proclaim your manufacture
+    As a boon, without a "but."
+
+  Now I trudge to streets far distant,
+    Humbly in your queue to stand,
+  Till the grocer's tired assistant
+    Dumps the packet in my hand.
+
+  Though you lack the special savour
+    Of the product of the churn,
+  Still the difference in flavour
+    I'm beginning to unlearn.
+
+  Thoughts of Devonshire or Dorset
+    From my mind have vanished quite,
+  Since the stern demands of war set
+    Limits to my appetite.
+
+  Butter is of course delicious;
+    But when that is dear and scant
+  Welcome, margarine, nutritious
+    Palatable lubricant!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The undersigned, who has just returned from the Front, begs to
+    inform the Public that he has opened a Barber's Shop on the
+    ground floor of Miss ----'s house in Great George Street, where
+    he is prepared to give CUTS in any style required."--_Dominion
+    Chronicle_.
+
+Well, his customers can't complain that they weren't warned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO HELP OUR OTHER ARMY.
+
+With all eyes so focussed on the great deeds of our men in France, in
+Palestine and on the sea, there is a possibility of losing sight now
+and then of the constant and devoted efforts of the women and girls
+at home, without whose co-operation the War could not be successfully
+waged at all. We are the debtors not only of the munition workers who,
+in their hundreds of thousands, are toiling for victory, but of women
+and girls in myriad other employments, which they have cheerfully
+attacked and mastered; and any little thing that we can do for them
+should, Mr. Punch holds, be done. A practical and very simple way
+of adding to their happiness and well-being is to contribute a mite
+to the funds of the Girls' Friendly Society, an organisation with
+the finest traditions, which is doing its best to build rest and
+recreation huts all over England, for the purpose of conserving the
+health and spirits of our great feminine army. A moment's thought will
+show how vitally and nationally important such help is. Contributions
+should be sent to the Secretary, War Emergency Committee, Girls'
+Friendly Society, 39, Victoria Street, S.W.1.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MY AUNT MATILDA.
+
+"It's too bad," said Francesca, "it really is. It'll spoil Christmas."
+
+"The question is," I said, "that this House do accept my Aunt
+Matilda's invitation of herself to stay in it for an uncertain period
+at or about Christmas. I think the Ayes have it."
+
+"The Noes have it," shouted Francesca.
+
+"Francesca," I said, "it's no use struggling, and you know it. We've
+got to have Aunt Matilda, and there's an end of it."
+
+"There isn't an end of it at all. It's only just beginning, and it'll
+go on getting worse and worse."
+
+"You do not seem to realise," I said, "what the possession of an aunt
+like Aunt Matilda means. She is like all the aunts you've ever read
+about in novels, only more so. She's so true to type that you can
+hardly believe in her existence. To be related to her is to have a
+Stake in the Country and to be part of the British Constitution, which
+she ardently believes in without knowing anything about it. She's been
+a widow for fifteen years, and--"
+
+"Poor old thing," said Francesca, "so she has."
+
+"--for fifteen solitary years she has battled against the world,
+and managed her business affairs extraordinarily well; and yet she
+believes that women are perfect fools, and pities them from the bottom
+of her heart for being women."
+
+"As far as I'm concerned," said Francesca, "she may pity all the other
+women if she'll only not pity me. If I have a headache she not only
+pities me, but despises me as a weakling utterly unfitted to manage a
+household. No, my dear, I can't face it. Your Aunt Matilda's too much
+for me."
+
+"I admit," I said, "that she's a good deal."
+
+"And of course she'll bring her maid."
+
+"And her pug."
+
+"Whose name is 'MacLachlan,' and you mustn't call him 'Mac' because
+it's disrespectful."
+
+"And the children won't be allowed to shout about the house when she
+takes her nap. And of course they _will_ shout about the house, and
+then there'll be trouble.".
+
+"And the children will be compared with other children who are much
+better behaved."
+
+"It's a queer thing, but the children don't seem to mind her."
+
+"She bribes them with chocolates."
+
+"Well, she won't do it any more, because there are no chocolates in
+the world. Chocolates are a luxury."
+
+"So's your aunt," said Francesca. "She's the biggest luxury I ever
+heard of. She's rare--I might almost say unique. She's expensive, and
+she can be done without. Obviously she's forbidden by the Defence of
+the Realm Act. We shall be fined and imprisoned if we conceal her
+here."
+
+"Well, you'd better sit down and tell her so, and get it off your
+chest."
+
+"I suppose I must play the humbug."
+
+"Yes, do. She'll see through you all right, though."
+
+"Oh, I say," said Francesca, "there's a P.S. to her letter. She says
+she's saved two pounds out of her sugar ration, and she's sending it
+to us as a Christmas present. Isn't she an old topper?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I forgive her everything. Is two pounds a lot?"
+
+"It's generally supposed to be just two pounds," said Francesca.
+
+R.C.L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE VENGEANCE.
+
+  I never liked the man at Number Nine,
+    But now my breast is bursting with its wrongs,
+  For when we had a few old friends to dine
+    And crowned our feasting with some gentle songs,
+  Instead of simply drinking in the glamour,
+  The charm of it, he had the cheek to hammer
+    The party-wall with pokers and with tongs.
+
+  Ah, me! that Art should suffer such disdain!
+    But what can one expect in time of war?
+  Mayhap our minstre'sy had given pain
+    To some tired patriot in bed next-door--
+  Some weary soul that all day fashions fuses,
+  To whom his sleep is more than all the Muses--
+    And so, for England's sake we sang no more.
+
+  No longer now the hideous truth is hid:
+    _The man is nothing but a Pacifist_;
+  And, what is worse, he draws four hundred quid
+    For representing views which don't exist,
+  Although in Parliament, without his poker,
+  I'm glad to see they would not hear the croaker,
+    But when he talked they only howled and hissed.
+
+  And now all Hammersmith with zeal prepares
+    To make a night of it when next we sing;
+  We shall not waste our soft romantic airs,
+    But the glad street with warlike strains shall ring
+  Of blood and armaments and Fritz's whacking,
+  And he shall hammer till the walls are cracking,
+    And the whole suburb joins us in "The King."
+
+  A.P.H.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ONE OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS?
+
+    "The unfrequented coral harbour was an ideal spot for this
+    operation. The 60 odd men and women on the Seeadler were
+    landed, and the natives, avid for change of diet, welcomed
+    them."--_The Times_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A distinctive uniform will be given the new Air Service when
+    the old is worn out, Major Baird announces."--_Daily Mail_.
+
+An officer in the R.F.C. writes to say that the old Air Service has no
+intention of wearing out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The coroner said people would be wise to carry electric torches
+    or newspapers, and ladies should wear something white--a pocket
+    handkerchief would be better than nothing."--_Sunday Observer_.
+
+Certainly "better than nothing," but a newspaper would make a more
+showy costume.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW LANGUAGE. _Tommy_ (_to inquisitive French
+children_). "NAH, THEN, ALLEY TOOT SWEET, AN' THE TOOTER THE
+SWEETER!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)
+
+At this date "The Junior Sub" fortunately needs no introduction to a
+public that has long gathered him and his to its appreciative heart. I
+should not like to guess how many people read and enjoyed _The First
+Hundred Thousand_; they all, and more, will delight in the appearance
+of _Carrying On_ (BLACKWOOD), in which the exploits of the famous
+regiment, of _Major Wagstaffe_ and _Captain Bobby Little_ and the rest
+of them are continued. What the precise war position of IAN HAY may be
+by now I am unaware, but I should emphatically suggest his appointment
+to the post of Official Cheerer-Up. Perhaps (how shall I put it?) the
+eye-pieces of the writer's mask are a trifle too rose-coloured for
+strict realism; great-hearted gentlemen as we know our heroes to be,
+are they always quite so merry and bright as here? One can but hope
+so. In any case, as special propaganda on the part of the O.C.U., the
+stories could hardly be bettered. One, called "The Push that Failed,"
+I would order to be read aloud to the workers in every munition
+factory in the land; its heartening tale of how the British people
+had, to the paralysed astonishment of Brother Bosch, "delivered the
+goods" to such effect that his projected spectacular attack under the
+eyes of WILLIAM the Worst was smashed before it began, is of a kind to
+strengthen the most weary arm. While I was yet upon the final page the
+bells in a famous abbey tower close by broke into grateful clamour for
+the news of victory. But IAN HAY does not wait on victory; he has his
+joy-bells ringing always in our hearts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Tree of Heaven_ (CASSELL) spread its friendly branches over a
+pleasant corner of a roomy Hampstead garden. Matter-of-fact _Anthony_,
+the timber merchant, always would insist that it was a mere common
+ash; but the others, _Frances_, and the children, _Dorothy, Michael,
+Nicky_ and adopted _Veronica_, knew better, as also, no doubt, did
+_Jane-Pussy_ and her little son, _Jerry_, who was _Nicky's_ most
+especial pal. Miss MAY SINCLAIR, without being a conscienceless
+sentimentalist, does us the fine service of reminding us that the
+world of men is not all drab ugliness, but that there are beautiful
+human relationships and unselfish characters, and wholesome training
+which justifies itself in the day of trial. She divides her charming
+chronicle into three parts--Peace, The Vortex, and Victory. The
+first deals with the childhood of the happy brood of _Anthony_ and
+_Frances_, delicate studies subtly differentiated. Even the little
+cats have their astonishing individuality, and I don't envy anyone
+who can read of _Jerry's_ death and _Nicky's_ grief without a gulp.
+The Vortex is--no, not the War; that comes later--but the trials of
+a world which tests adolescence, a world of suffrage rebellions,
+of Futuristic art and morals. Then the real vortex of the War, the
+Victory which means ready (or difficult, unready) sacrifice and death
+for the boys and their friends and as great a sacrifice and as cruel a
+thing as death for the others, the women and the elders.... A novel,
+which is much more than a novel, packed with beauty and sincerity,
+setting forth its tragedy without false glamour or shallow
+consolations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since it is natural to expect that a much-heralded book will fail,
+when it does eventually appear, to fulfil the promise of its
+publishers, it is the more pleasant to find oneself agreeing with
+Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON that bashfulness on their part would have
+been out of place in regard to Mr. JAMES W. GERARD'S memoirs, _My Four
+Years in Germany_. As read in their completed and collected form these
+papers are not only, as one could foresee, of historic importance,
+but they are moreover capital reading. There is a world of unaffected
+geniality and humour about them that forms a most admirable complement
+to such serious matters as the protracted negotiations over the U-boat
+campaign, or the now famous incriminating telegram addressed by the
+ALL-HIGHEST to President WILSON in the days before the Huns had quite
+decided with what lies to defend the indefensible. This document is
+reproduced in facsimile as the egregious sender of telegrams wrote it
+for Mr. GERARD to transmit, and is one link more in the thrice-forged
+chain of evidence. But even stronger witness to German guilt is to be
+found in the series of minor corroborations appearing incidentally in
+the course of Mr. GERARD'S narrative, whether the author is pretending
+to be in awe of Prussian Court Etiquette, or openly laughing at the
+Orders of the Many Coloured Eagles, or simply detailing his work at
+Ruhleben and the other prison camps. His devotion there has earned a
+gratitude throughout this country that it would be mere presumption to
+try to put into words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Those of us who have loitered with Mr. DE VERE STACPOOLE by blue
+lagoons and silent pools know that he is a master of atmosphere, and
+so he proves himself again in _The Starlit Garden_ (HUTCHINSON),
+though it takes him some time to get there. When a young American
+finds himself the guardian of an Irish flapper--a distant
+relation--and comes over to take her back with him to the States, it
+does not require much perspicacity to guess what will happen. _Phyl
+Berknowles_ strongly objects to the intrusion of _Richard Pinckney_
+into the glorious muddle of her Irish ménage, and irritates him so
+successfully that he returns in a considerable tantrum to America,
+leaving her with some friends in Dublin. So far the tale is lively
+enough, but not until _Phyl_ feels the call of her blood and goes to
+stay with her relatives in Charleston does the author find scope for
+his peculiar charm. Then we get a most delightful picture of a starlit
+garden in the south of America, where _Phyl's_ experiences, without
+placing a tiresome strain upon our powers of belief, produce a
+sensation at once romantic and unusual. Memories of the past hang
+over this garden, and although Mr. STACPOOLE'S attempt to reconcile
+the period of which he writes with the years that are gone is not
+uniformly successful I am cordially glad that he made it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The publishers of Mrs. ALICE PERRIN'S new volume, _Tales that are
+Told_ (SKEFFINGTON), appear to be anxious that the public should have
+no hesitations on the score of measure supplied, as they explain that
+the chief of the tales is "a short novel of over 20,000 words." I am
+content to take their word for the figure, but I agree that they were
+well advised to focus attention upon "Gift of God," which, whatever
+its length, is an admirable and distinguished piece of writing. The
+subject of it is the old question of mixed-marriage, but treated from
+a new aspect. _Kudah Bux_ (the Gift in question) is the son of an
+adoring Mohamedan father; he goes to England for education in the law,
+and there falls in love with and marries the brainless daughter of a
+London landlady. He is a very human and appealing figure. The debacle
+that follows his return to India with so impossible a bride is told
+in a way that convinces. Here Mrs. PERRIN is at her best. Some of the
+shorter tales also succeed very happily in conveying that peculiar
+Simla-by-South-Kensington atmosphere of retired Anglo-Indian society
+which she suggests with such intimate understanding. But, to be
+honest, the others (with the exception of one quaint little comedy
+of a canine ghost) are but indifferent stuff, too full of snakes and
+hidden treasure and general tawdriness--the kind of Orientalism,
+in fact, that one used to associate chiefly with the Earl's Court
+Exhibition. Mrs. PERRIN must not mingle her genuine native goods with
+such Brummagem ware.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My idea is that when Mr. H.C. BAILEY called his latest story _The
+Young Lovers_ (METHUEN) he was doing it something less than justice.
+For the width and variety of the plot make it far more than a mere
+love-tale. _Arma virique_ are quite as much Mr. BAILEY'S theme as
+Cupid, who indeed makes a rather belated appearance at the tag end.
+Before that we have a vast deal of agreeable adventuring. The scene is
+set in the period of the Peninsular War; all the characters, lovers,
+parents and hangers-on, are more or less involved in the fluctuating
+fortunes of my Lord WELLINGTON. There are spies of both sides,
+intrigues, abductions and what not. Mr. BAILEY has a pretty touch
+for such matters; his people move with an air; and, if at times their
+speech seems a trifle over-burnished, dulness is far from them.
+Moreover, the incidents of the campaign give scope for some vivid
+descriptions of war and battles, as such were in the old days before
+Mars put off his gold lace and sacrificed the picturesque. Sometimes,
+on the other hand, it is the similarity of conditions then and now
+that will strike you. For example, the passage telling how, despite
+apparent inactivity and home prognostications of stalemate, the
+confidence of the Army grew from day to day--impossible not to see the
+very obvious parallel there. In fine, Mr. BAILEY has given us another
+brisk and engaging romance, which, if it is not quite the kind you
+might expect from its title, is something a good deal better worth
+reading.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Fort Worth, Texas.--Poolville, Parker county, near here, has
+    raised $1,246.50 as a reward for the delivery of the German
+    emperor into the hands of the American authorities."--_Buffalo
+    Courier_.
+
+On reading this item HINDENBURG is reported to have said that if
+Poolville would make it even money he would think about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED INCIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF
+ANCIENT ROME. SEQUEL TO THE WARNING GIVEN BY THE PATRIOTIC GEESE.]
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+153, DEC. 5, 1917***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 11425-8.txt or 11425-8.zip *******
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917, by Various</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153,
+Dec. 5, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917</p>
+<p>Author: Various</p>
+<p>Release Date: March 3, 2004  [eBook #11425]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: iso-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 153, DEC. 5, 1917***</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, William Flis,<br />
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center>
+<br />
+<br />
+    <hr class="full" />
+    <br />
+    <h1>PUNCH,<br />
+     OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+    <h2>Vol. 153.</h2>
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+    <h2>December 5, 1917.</h2>
+    <hr class="full" />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page375"
+       id="page375"></a>[pg 375]</span>
+
+    <h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+
+    <p>The announcement of Mr. Justice BRAY that bigamy is rampant
+    at the present time has been drawn to the notice of the
+    FOOD-CONTROLLER, who wishes it to be clearly understood that
+    under no circumstances will the head of a family be allowed a
+    sugar ration for more than one wife.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>"I have in my possession," writes a correspondent of <i>The
+    Evening News</i>, "a loaf of bread made by my husband's mother
+    in 1821." This should dispose of the popular belief that nobody
+    anticipated the War except Mr. BLATCHFORD.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Lug-worms are being sold at Deal for five shillings a score.
+    They are stated to form an agreeable substitute for
+    macaroni.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>"In China," says <i>The Daily Express</i>, "a chicken can
+    still be purchased for sixpence." Intending purchasers should
+    note, however, that at present the return fare to Shanghai
+    brings the total cost a trifle in excess of the present London
+    prices.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>A recent applicant to the Warwickshire Appeal Tribunal
+    claimed that he had captured the German shell-less egg trade.
+    He denied that the enemy had purposely allowed it to
+    escape.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>A tramp charged at Kingston with begging was wearing three
+    overcoats, two coats, two pair of trousers and an enormous pair
+    of boots. It seems strange that this man should not have
+    realised that he was in a position to earn a handsome salary as
+    a music-hall comedian.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Owing to a cow straying on the line at Acton Bridge last
+    week a goods train was derailed. It seems that the unfortunate
+    animal was not aware that cow-catchers had been abolished.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It is reported that the two thousand taxi-drivers still on
+    strike have decided to offer their services to Sir AUCKLAND
+    GEDDES for munition work. Suitable employment will be found for
+    them in a high-expletive factory.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>In New York a club has been started exclusively for golfers.
+    The others insisted on it.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>A notice exhibited in the window of a Bermondsey
+    public-house bears the words, "There is nothing like Government
+    Ale." Agreed.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>"Shrimps," says a Southern Command Order, "should not be
+    purchased where a long train journey is involved." For
+    soldiers, however, who require this kind of diet little
+    excursions to the seaside can always be arranged for with the
+    C.O.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>At Aberavon the other day the son of an interned German was
+    bitten by a dog which he had kicked by accident. The dog of
+    course did not know it was an accident.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>We are the first to record the fact that a dear old lady,
+    the other morning, went up to the Tank in Trafalgar Square and
+    offered it a bun.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>We should like to deny the rumour that when he heard of Lord
+    ROTHERMERE's appointment to the Air Ministry Lord NORTHCLIFFE
+    muttered, "Alas! my poor brother."</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>More bread is being eaten than ever, says the FOOD
+    CONTROLLER. It appears that the stuff is now eaten by itself,
+    instead of being spread thinly on butter, as in pre-war
+    days.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>The largest telescope in the World has just been erected at
+    the Mount Wilson Observatory in California. Enthusiasts predict
+    that the end of the War will be clearly visible through it.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Owing to scarcity of petrol several fire-brigades have had
+    again to resort to horses. In consequence people who have fires
+    are requested to place their orders at once, as they can only
+    be dealt with in strict rotation.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>The prisoner who escaped from the Manchester Assize Court,
+    after being sentenced to three years' imprisonment, has
+    explained that he was just pretending to be a German
+    prisoner.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>An awkward situation has arisen through Mr. GEORGE BERNARD
+    SHAW and Mr. GEORGE MOORE having solved the Irish problem in
+    the same week, as one or the other of them is certain to claim
+    the credit of having his solution rejected.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>"Blasting" for tin is being carried on in an experimental
+    station in Cornwall. Similar operations are said to be used in
+    searching for sugar.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/375.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/375.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+
+        <p>"WE'LL NO GANG IN THERE, JOCK."</p>
+
+        <p>"FOR WHY, DONAL'?"</p>
+
+        <p>"MAN, IT'S GOT AN AWFU' GERRMAN-LIKE NAME, YON."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>A Daughter of Lilith.</h3>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Gentlewoman, with tame snake, wants quiet home,
+        suburban family, small garden; no others; no
+        animals."&mdash;<i>Melbourne Argus</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Mrs. &mdash;&mdash; wishes to recommend a boy (15) who
+        has done well in the pantry."&mdash;<i>Eastern Daily
+        Press</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>But would Sir ARTHUR YAPP approve?</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Will any generous soul save and buy up a young scholar,
+        foreign (British) aristocracy, by helping him in his first
+        struggle (legal profession)? acceptable only on returnable
+        condition."&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Before starting to save for the above purpose, we should
+    like to know more about this scion of the "foreign (British)
+    aristocracy." We don't want to find ourselves trading with the
+    enemy.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Canon &mdash;&mdash; made a strong comment on the
+        Proposal to use the Ulley water for public consumption
+        during his sermon on Sunday morning."&mdash;<i>Provincial
+        Paper</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>The rev. gentleman cannot believe that his sermons are so
+    dry as all that.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"The undersigned begs to inform the public that a very
+        superior cow will be slaughtered on the 20th evening and
+        exposed on the morning of the 21st for
+        sale."&mdash;<i>Madras Mail</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>That ought to stop her swanking.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"CAMOUFLAGED ATTACK.</p>
+
+        <p>"Paris, Thursday.</p>
+
+        <p>"All the newspapers print long accounts of the new
+        offensive, under the heading, 'Great British Victory,' and
+        all agree in assigning the chief honours attack, and the
+        new British method of organ-attack, and the new British
+        method of arganising the offensive in
+        secret."&mdash;<i>Provincial Paper</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>And very well camouflaged, too.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page376"
+       id="page376"></a>[pg 376]</span>
+
+    <h2>LEAVES FROM A LONDON NOTE-BOOK.</h2>
+
+    <h3>BY OUR MAN ABOUT TOWN.</h3>
+
+    <h4>(With acknowledgments to some of our Metropolitan penny
+    evening papers.)</h4>
+
+    <p><b>Sugar Cards.</b></p>
+
+    <p>A highly-placed official tells me that the discovery that a
+    number of people move about from place to place, that servants
+    sometimes leave their situations, and that households are
+    consequently liable to variation in their personnel, is due to
+    a very smart member of the Sugar Commission, who will be
+    suitably decorated. This discovery, on the very eve of
+    compulsory rationing in other commodities, will mean an immense
+    saving of national funds. Instead of billions, only a few
+    millions of cards will need to be destroyed&mdash;a very useful
+    economy.</p>
+
+    <p><b>A Great Mayfair Effort.</b></p>
+
+    <p>The Mayfair Tableaux Association will shortly hold a Fancy
+    Dress Exhibition of Really Beautiful War-workers. The subjects
+    represented will range from CLEOPATRA to BOTTICELLI'S
+    "Primavera," and from SALOME to the Sistine Madonna.
+    Preliminary photographs are about to appear in the Society
+    Press. The particular object of this great sacrifice in the
+    cause of charity has not yet been determined upon, but will be
+    announced in due course.</p>
+
+    <p><b>The Submarine Menace.</b></p>
+
+    <p>No significance should be attached to recent statistics of
+    torpedoed ships in view of public announcements to the effect
+    that the submarine menace has been practically scotched.</p>
+
+    <p><b>International Bolo.</b></p>
+
+    <p>The British Parliamentary Branch of the International Bolo
+    Club indignantly deny that they have received a single pony, or
+    any less sum, from German sympathisers in support of Pacifist
+    propaganda. They generously recognise that Germany's economical
+    straits are even greater than ours, and they would not
+    willingly, even for the sake of a common cause, put a strain
+    upon the resources of their German friends.</p>
+
+    <p><b>Mahenge.</b></p>
+
+    <p>The other day I consulted an old friend on the Imperial
+    Staff as to the pronunciation of Mahenge, the scene of our
+    latest victory in East Africa. From the evasive character of
+    his reply I gathered that my inquiry was of the nature of an
+    indiscretion.</p>
+
+    <p><b>The Cabinet and the "Vicious Circle."</b></p>
+
+    <p>Several members of the Cabinet&mdash;the one that doesn't
+    meet&mdash;have informed me of their conviction that, in the
+    event of the War lasting on into 1920, there is every prospect
+    of establishing an elementary co-ordination between the various
+    Government departments. Meanwhile they ask me to correct a
+    confusion in the public mind by which the "Vicious Circle" is
+    regarded as a synonym for themselves.</p>
+
+    <p><b>Manhood and Moral.</b></p>
+
+    <p>Every day brings me a sheaf of correspondence in which I am
+    asked to give my opinion as to our prospects of victory in the
+    near future. I have one formula for reply. I refer my
+    correspondents to a recurrent paragraph in <i>The Times</i>
+    under the heading "News in Brief." It runs as follows: "At the
+    close of play yesterday in the billiard match of 16,000 points
+    up, between Inman and Stevenson, at the Grand Hall, Leicester
+    Square, the scores were," etc., etc. After all, the deciding
+    features in the Great World-Struggle will be manhood and
+    <i>moral</i>.</p>
+
+    <p><b>Trotsky's Peace Overtures.</b></p>
+
+    <p>From private sources, which corroborate the information
+    given to the public, I hear that the Spanish
+    Charg&eacute;-d'Affaires at Petrograd is the only member of the
+    Diplomatic Corps in that capital who has taken cognisance of
+    TROTSKY'S overtures (which, of course, must be distinguished
+    from TSCHAIKOWSKY'S). I very much doubt if KING ALFONSO had a
+    hand in this, though he has more than once intimated to me his
+    desire for peace.</p>
+
+    <p><b>Lansdowne and Lenin.</b></p>
+
+    <p>What with the aircraft strike at Coventry and the activities
+    of Lord LANSDOWNE, LENIN and others, this has been a great week
+    for Pacifists and Pro-Bosches. In Germany, where the Press has
+    eagerly followed <i>The Daily Telegraph</i> in giving
+    prominence to Lord LANSDOWNE'S views, it is felt that our
+    EX-FOREIGN SECRETARY ought to receive a step in the peerage,
+    with the title Duke of Lansdowne and Handsup.</p>
+
+    <p><b>The Premier Abroad.</b></p>
+
+    <p>In conversation with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE on the occasion of one
+    of his flying visits to England, I learned how much he
+    regretted that pressure of time prevented him while in Italy
+    from running over to Venice and ascending the restored
+    Campanile. While in residence in Paris, however, he had had the
+    pleasure of renewing his acquaintance with the Eiffel
+    Tower.</p>
+
+    <p><b>Browning and Swinburne.</b></p>
+
+    <p>During the dark hour of trial through which Italy has been
+    passing, my thoughts have often strayed to Asolo in the
+    Trevisan, the scene of <i>Pippa Passes</i>, by the late ROBERT
+    BROWNING (whom I knew well). "Italy, what of the night?" wrote
+    my old friend SWINBURNE. "Morning's at seven!" replies
+    <i>Pippa</i>. Those brave words have heartened me a good
+    deal.</p>
+
+    <p>O.S.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>TO A DACHSHUND.</h3>
+
+    <blockquote class="note">
+        <p>[About the precise nationality of whose remote
+        progenitor&mdash;whether Danish, Flemish, or British
+        through the old English Turnspit&mdash;the writer will not
+        stay to argue.]</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>My faithful Peter, mount upon my knee,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And shame me with the patience of your
+            eyes,</p>
+
+            <p>Till I for divers patriots that be</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">Humbly apologise.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Not for the street-boy&mdash;him you had for
+            years</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And, knowing, make allowance for his
+            ways,</p>
+
+            <p>If hoots of ignorance and stones and jeers</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">Martyr your latter days;</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>But for such shoddy patriots as join</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The street-boy's manners to a petty
+            mind,</p>
+
+            <p>And dealing little in true-minted coin</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">Tender the baser kind.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>For instance, Smith (till lately
+            Gr&uuml;ndelhorn),</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Who meets you with your mistress all
+            alone,</p>
+
+            <p>And growls a "German beast" with senseless scorn</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">In a (still) guttural tone.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>And Jones, who owes his mansion to the War</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And loves to drown great luncheons in
+            champagne,</p>
+
+            <p>But who, to prove he loves his England more,</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">Strikes at you with his cane.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>The while Miss Podsnap, who in dogs can brook</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">No name that smacks of Teuton, snatches
+            up,</p>
+
+            <p>Lest you contaminate it with a look,</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">Her Pomeranian pup.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Forgive them, Pete! We are not all well-bred,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Not all so wise, so sensible as you;</p>
+
+            <p>Not all our sires, for generations dead,</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">To British homes were true.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Yet, prizing steadfast love and fealty, some</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The gulf of their deficiencies may
+            span,</p>
+
+            <p>And learn of you the virtues that become</p>
+
+            <p class="i4">An English gentleman.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <p>We wish Russia wouldn't wash her dirty LENIN in public.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page377"
+       id="page377"></a>[pg 377]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/377.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/377.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+
+        <h3>DAVID IN RHONDDALAND.</h3>
+
+        <p>DAVID. "I'M OFTEN AWAY FROM HOME. HOW DO I GET
+        SUGAR?"</p>
+
+        <p>THE MAD GROCER. "YOU DON'T; YOU FILL UP A FORM."</p>
+
+        <p>DAVID. "BUT I <i>HAVE</i> FILLED UP A FORM."</p>
+
+        <p>THE MAD GROCER. "THEN YOU FILL UP ANOTHER FORM."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page378"
+       id="page378"></a>[pg 378]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:60%;">
+        <a href="images/378.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/378.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+
+        <p><i>Friend</i> (<i>to Cinema Commissionaire, who has
+        received notice</i>). "I'M SERPRISED YOU'RE LEAVIN'. I
+        THOUGHT YOU WAS A FIXTURE 'ERE."</p>
+
+        <p><i>Commissionaire.</i> "IS ANYBODY A FIXTURE IN THESE
+        TIMES? LOOK AT THE TSAR OF RUSSIA, TINO, TIRPITZ, AND THE
+        REST OF 'EM."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>MILLIE AND THE "KAYSER."</h2>
+
+    <p>Millie is a "daily help." Who it is that she
+    helps&mdash;whether herself or her employer&mdash;I am not in a
+    position to say, for I am only temporarily a lodger in the
+    house where Millie helps, and she doesn't help me much. But
+    to-day I have made her hear and understand one whole sentence.
+    It is the first time during the six days that we have known
+    each other that I have conveyed anything to her except by
+    graphic gesticulation and grimace.</p>
+
+    <p>I accepted the fact at the outset that my soft and seductive
+    tones could never penetrate Millie's stone-deafness. Only the
+    loudest and angriest remarks are audible to Millie, so I
+    preserve an attitude of silent facial amiability in all my
+    relations with her.</p>
+
+    <p>BALAAM could not have looked more surprised than did Millie
+    this evening when, in the act of clearing away my latest meal,
+    she heard me say, "Leave the matches."</p>
+
+    <p>She stopped dead and looked at me over the tray of dirty
+    crockery. Her expression was not unfriendly.</p>
+
+    <p>"But I got t' look after myself," she explained; "I'd be all
+    done up if I hadn't they matches in the morning to light the
+    fire and all. You wouldn't get no bath-water."</p>
+
+    <p>"I want to smoke," I said obstinately.</p>
+
+    <p>She kept her hand over the box of matches. She had not
+    heard. I made intelligent signs illustrative of the lighting of
+    a cigarette. Millie told me, in pure Cornish:</p>
+
+    <p>"You can only get a box at a time now, and half-a-pound o'
+    sugar I gets when I shows my card, and they do say we won't get
+    that&mdash;only quarter soon. I'd like to get at that KAYSER!
+    I'd smash him up, I would!" She said this in the kindest, most
+    benign way, with a smile as nearly caressing as a smile without
+    front teeth can be. "He'd come short off if I got to him! And
+    he deserves it, I'm sure," she concluded, as she
+    departed&mdash;with the matches....</p>
+
+    <p>A long walk over the Cornish cliffs in the gusty North wind
+    from the Atlantic had made me drowsy, and as I sat before the
+    fire my thoughts wandered from Russian politics and the Italian
+    situation to Millie&mdash;and the "KAYSER": Millie, who was
+    short of stature and round-backed, who showed her fifty-odd
+    years unflinchingly to the world; Millie with her felt slippers
+    and her overall and coarse hands; Millie, the possessor of a
+    sugar-card&mdash;and the mighty War Lord, stern and implacable,
+    trying to subdue the world to his will. And Millie only wished
+    she could get near him to smash him up&mdash;"the KAYSER would
+    come short off."...</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>The lamp-lit cottage room faded; the sound of November winds
+    and swirling leaves outside died away. For a moment I peered
+    through a greyish-blue moving mist&mdash;it might have been
+    cigarette smoke; gradually I distinguished forms and colours
+    beyond; then the fog lifted and I looked upon an
+    electrically-lighted room, with the aspect of an office <i>de
+    luxe</i>. There were telephones and file cases, typewriters and
+    all the appurtenances of business operations; the furniture was
+    massive and handsome, and carpets and hangings had every
+    appearance of magnificence and costliness.</p>
+
+    <p>I knew without thought that this was the private room of
+    WILHELM of Prussia. He himself, standing with his back to the
+    roaring log fire in the deep grate, was too like the cartoons
+    in the English papers to be mistaken. The iron-grey hair and
+    upturned moustache, the cold eyes and sardonic mouth were all
+    there "as per invoice." He was even wearing an aggressively
+    Prussian uniform, and kept his spiked helmet on his head and
+    his sword hanging at his side.</p>
+
+    <p>The CROWN PRINCE was in evidence, disguised as a Death's
+    Head Hussar, and HINDENBURG was easily recognisable as he
+    bristled with the nails which the admiring populace had
+    hammered into him; the rest of the company were unknown to me.
+    They were all engaged in a heated discussion when suddenly
+    there came a knock at the door, a knock which, to me, was
+    curiously familiar.</p>
+
+    <p>During the silence that ensued Millie walked into the room.
+    She was still wearing her overall and felt slippers, and she
+    had not waited to put on a hat or even to straighten her hair.
+    She came forward unhesitatingly, with her short, shuffling
+    steps and, disregarding the furious demand of a Bavarian
+    General as to who she was and how she dared to enter there, she
+    addressed herself to the KAISER himself. She spoke in her
+    normal tones, but to me there seemed something sinister about
+    them at this moment, and I noticed that in her right hand she
+    carried a coal-hammer.</p>
+
+    <p>Now above all things Millie hated breaking coal and filling
+    scuttles, and I knew that she would not be carrying a
+    coal-hammer without a very special reason. Her words revealed
+    it.</p>
+
+    <p>"You, KAYSER, I've been wanting to get near you and smash
+    you up, I have. You've gone a bit too far, you have ... No
+    sugar without a card, and then only half-a-pound, and they do
+    say it'll only be a quarter soon. And
+    <i>matches!</i>&mdash;only one box at a time, and <i>they</i>
+    don't strike, and how's a body to light a fire at all?"</p>
+
+    <p>With this she lifted her coal-hammer and brought it down
+    with all her force on the KAISER'S head. Involuntarily I
+    flinched; it was a terrible blow.</p>
+
+    <p>Several Generals, their iron crosses jingling, rushed
+    forward and seized Millie, uttering guttural sounds of horror
+    and indignation. But the KAISER stood unmoved&mdash;yes,
+    unmoved. Millie gaped at him. He ordered his satellites to
+    release her and, as they reluctantly did so, Millie nodded her
+    head at them.</p>
+
+    <p>"You leave me where I'm to! He can take up his own part,"
+    she told them.</p>
+
+    <p>The KAISER addressed her sternly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Presumptuous woman," he said, "it is not written that you
+    shall be the cause of my death. There is something much higher
+    in store for me. You deserve worse than death at my hands; but
+    since you are from England I will squeeze from you all the
+    information I require and bend you to my uses."</p>
+
+    <p>All this was obviously wasted on
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page379"
+       id="page379"></a>[pg 379]</span> Millie, who heard nothing.
+       Having waited politely until his lips stopped moving in
+       speech, she again cracked him on the head with the
+       coal-hammer.</p>
+
+    <p>The KAISER ignored this uncivil retort and spoke again.</p>
+
+    <p>"You shall go back to your matchless country and tell them
+    there that we have plenty of matches in Germany; that we have
+    kept on good terms with Stockholm, and our matches are made in
+    Sweden. We have all we need to kindle every fire in hell. Now
+    are you convinced that you are beaten?"</p>
+
+    <p>He was interrupted by another blow from the coal-hammer,
+    which made him bite his tongue, for Millie was becoming
+    exasperated and put all her strength into the stroke. The
+    KAISER stepped back.</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor fool! You are wasting your strength, even as HAIG
+    wastes <i>his</i> in blow after blow on the Western front."</p>
+
+    <p>But even as he uttered the lying boast he tottered and fell
+    back unconscious into the arms of LITTLE WILLIE.</p>
+
+    <p>The Generals and Statesmen gathered round their stricken
+    master, gabbling purest Prussian.</p>
+
+    <p>Millie appeared satisfied at last, although the CROWN PRINCE
+    had scarcely glanced at her, for she was not his type. She took
+    advantage of the commotion to procure two boxes of matches
+    which had been thrown carelessly on the table. These she
+    bestowed mysteriously beneath her overall.</p>
+
+    <p>"He deserved it too!" she muttered contentedly as she
+    hobbled to the door; "and I don't believe so much about all his
+    matches either. You can only get two boxes at a time even
+    here." With this reflection she unostentatiously departed.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Again that familiar knock....</p>
+
+    <p>I was back in my little sitting-room in Cornwall and Millie
+    entered with my candle, which she put down on the table rather
+    noisily. I gave her the usual grin and nod of acknowledgment,
+    and she wished me good-night and went.</p>
+
+    <p>In the tray of the candlestick there was a box of matches. I
+    picked it up and turned it over curiously. Could my dream have
+    been true? Or was it only a coincidence that in blatant red
+    letters on that match-box were the words:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <p>"MADE IN SWEDEN."</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Spokane (Washington), Monday.</p>
+
+        <p>"Troops raided the I.W.W. headquarters and arrested James
+        Rowan (leader) and 2&frac12; others on the eve of
+        threatened disturbances."&mdash;<i>Toowoomba Gazette
+        (Australia)</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Unfortunately in such cases half-measures are rarely
+    successful.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:65%;">
+        <a href="images/379.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/379.png"
+             alt="" /></a><i>Sub</i> (<i>to A.P.M., who has
+             severely censured him for being without gloves,
+             wearing collar of wrong colour, etc.</i>). "OH, BY THE
+             BY, SIR, HOW DO YOU LIKE THE WAY I DO MY HAIR?"
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"THE AUTUMN MEETING of the WISBECH LOCAL PEACE
+        ASSOCIATION will be held on WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28th,
+        1917.</p>
+
+        <p>"Being full moon, a good attendance is
+        expected."&mdash;<i>Isle of Ely Advertiser</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>The Gothas would see that it was a peace-meeting and leave
+    it alone.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"The tanks crossed the deep gulf of the Hindenburg main
+        line, pitching nose downwards as they drew their long
+        bodies over the parapets and rearing up again with their
+        long forward reach of body and heaving themselves on to the
+        German paradise beyond."&mdash;<i>Yorkshire Evening
+        Post</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>That is not what the Germans called it.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"IF CAMBRIA FALLS&mdash;</p>
+
+        <p>"The possibilities in the New Battle."&mdash;<i>Dublin
+        Evening Herald</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>No wonder Mr. LLOYD GEORGE hurried off to France.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"On the earth, the broken acres; In the heaven, a
+        perfect ground."&mdash;<i>The Canadian Churchman</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Of course Canada is before everything an agricultural
+    country, and we feel sure that BROWNING would be the last man
+    to object to any adaptation of his lines which would make them
+    more suited to the needs of the people and the times.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page380"
+       id="page380"></a>[pg 380]</span>
+
+    <h2>THEATRICAL CORRESPONDENCE</h2>
+
+    <h3>SUPPLYING ONE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION, "WHY DOES A DRAMATIST
+    GROW OLD SOONER THAN ANYONE ELSE?"</h3>
+
+    <p><i>From G. Sheridan Smith, author, to Sir James Benfield,
+    actor-manager.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Herewith I am forwarding a copy of an
+    original three-act comedy, entitled, <i>Men and Munitions</i>.
+    As the interest is largely topical I should he much obliged if
+    you could let me have your verdict upon it with as little delay
+    as possible.</p>
+
+    <p>Faithfully yours,</p>
+
+    <p>G. SHERIDAN SMITH.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From the Same to his friend, Buskin Browne,
+    actor.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear B.B.,&mdash;By this post I am sending my new comedy,
+    <i>Men and Munitions</i>, to your manager, whom I believe it
+    should suit. If an occasion served for you to put in a word
+    about it without too much trouble, I should be eternally
+    grateful.</p>
+
+    <p>Yours ever, G.S.S.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Buskin Browne, in answer.</i></p>
+
+    <p>My Dear Man,&mdash;With all the pleasure in life. I fancy
+    we're changing our bill shortly, and, as farce is all the rage
+    just now, I'll boom your <i>Munition Mad</i> directly I get a
+    chance. Best of luck.</p>
+
+    <p>Yours, BEE-BEE.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From G. Sheridan Smith, in reply. A telegram.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Thousand thanks play called men and munitions comedy not
+    farce.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From the Same to the Same, six weeks later.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear B.B.,&mdash;I hate to trouble you, but as I've heard
+    nothing yet from the management about my comedy I am writing to
+    ask if you can give me any idea of Sir J.B.'s intentions
+    regarding it. Did he say anything that you dare repeat?</p>
+
+    <p>Yours, G.S.S.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Buskin Browne, in answer, a fortnight later.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear old Boy,&mdash;No chance as yet, as the chief has been
+    away ill. But he comes back on Saturday, when I will mention
+    the farce to him without fail.</p>
+
+    <p>Yours "while this machine is to him," BEE-BEE.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From G. Sheridan Smith, to Sir James Benfield, a month
+    later.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear Sir,&mdash;I was profoundly grieved to learn from a
+    mutual friend that you had been so long on the sick list. Now,
+    however, that you are at work again, and (I trust) fully
+    restored to health, may I hope for a verdict upon my comedy,
+    <i>Men and Munitions</i>, at your earliest convenience?</p>
+
+    <p>With warmest congratulations,</p>
+
+    <p>I am, Faithfully yours,</p>
+
+    <p>G. SHERIDAN SMITH.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Sir James Benfield's Secretary, in answer, a week
+    later.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Sir James Benfield desires me to acknowledge
+    your letter, and to inform you that he has been away ill, and
+    unable to attend to any correspondence.</p>
+
+    <p>Faithfully yours,</p>
+
+    <p>BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,</p>
+
+    <p>Secretary.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Buskin Browne to G. Sheridan Smith.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear old Man,&mdash;I heard unofficially last night that
+    your farce has had a quite top-hole report from the reader, and
+    might be put on almost at once. <i>&Ccedil;a marche!</i>
+    Anything for me in it?</p>
+
+    <p>B.B.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan Smith, by
+    same post as above.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear Sir,&mdash;In answer to your inquiry we can trace no
+    record of the receipt of any MS. from you. If you will kindly
+    let me have particulars, name of play, date when forwarded,
+    etc., the matter shall receive further attention.</p>
+
+    <p>Faithfully yours,</p>
+
+    <p>BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,</p>
+
+    <p>Secretary.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From G. Sheridan Smith, in answer. A telegram.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Men and munitions comedy fourteen weeks ago kindly wire
+    reply paid.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Reply to above. A telegram.</i></p>
+
+    <p>No trace comedy entitled fourteen weeks suggest inquire
+    post-office.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Reply to above</i>.</p>
+
+    <p>Name of comedy men and munitions reply paid urgent.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Reply to above.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Your play returned last week.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Reply to above.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Nothing arrived here please look again.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan
+    Smith.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear Sir,&mdash;In returning herewith your blank-verse
+    tragedy, <i>Hadrian</i>, I am desired by Sir James Benfield to
+    thank you for kindly allowing him the opportunity of reading
+    it.</p>
+
+    <p>Faithfully yours,</p>
+
+    <p>BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,</p>
+
+    <p>Secretary.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Buskin Browne to G. Sheridan Smith.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear old Boy,&mdash;The A.S.M. told me to-day that our
+    backers won't look at farce, though the chief simply loves
+    yours. So I'm afraid we can only say better luck next time.</p>
+
+    <p>Yours disappointed,</p>
+
+    <p>B.B.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan Smith, five
+    weeks later.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Sir James Benfield has been interested to
+    learn that you have written a comedy of topical interest,
+    called (he understands) <i>The Munitioneer</i>. Should you care
+    to forward it for his consideration he would be pleased to read
+    it, and, if suitable, to arrange for its production at this
+    theatre.</p>
+
+    <p>Faithfully yours,</p>
+
+    <p>BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,</p>
+
+    <p>Secretary.</p>
+
+    <p><i>From G. Sheridan Smith, in reply. A telegram.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Where did you get a name like that?</p>
+
+    <p><i>From Basil Vyne-Petherington, in final answer, a month
+    later.</i></p>
+
+    <p>Sir,&mdash;I am requested by Sir James Benfield to state
+    that he has been compelled to make a rule never to send his
+    autograph to strangers.</p>
+
+    <p>Yours faithfully,</p>
+
+    <p>BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,</p>
+
+    <p>Secretary.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>WHITE MAGIC.</h3>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Blind folk see the fairies,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Oh, better far than we,</p>
+
+            <p>Who miss the shining of their wings</p>
+
+            <p>Because our eyes are filled with things</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">We do not wish to see.</p>
+
+            <p>They need not seek enchantment</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">From solemn printed books,</p>
+
+            <p>For all about them as they go</p>
+
+            <p>The fairies flutter to and fro</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">With smiling, friendly looks.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Deaf folk hear the fairies</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">However soft their song;</p>
+
+            <p>'Tis we who lose the honey sound</p>
+
+            <p>Amid the clamour all around</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">That beats the whole day long.</p>
+
+            <p>But they with gentle faces</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Sit quietly apart;</p>
+
+            <p>What room have they for sorrowing</p>
+
+            <p>While fairy minstrels sit and sing</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Close to their listening heart?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>R.F.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <p>Extract from a French account of the tanks in action in the
+    battle for Cambrai:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Les chars d'assaut curent aussi leur cri de guerre. Peu
+        avant l'attaque, le long de leur ligne courut un message
+        r&eacute;p&eacute;tant, en le modifiant
+        l&eacute;g&egrave;rement, celui de Nelson &agrave;
+        Trafalgar:</p>
+
+        <p>"'L'Angleterre compte que chaque tank fera aujourd'hui
+        son devoir sacr&eacute;.'"&mdash;<i>Havas</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>We had often wondered what the French was for "Do your
+    damnedest!" Now we know.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page381"
+       id="page381"></a>[pg 381]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <h3>GETTING AWAY FROM
+        IT.</h3><a href="images/381.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/381.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page382"
+       id="page382"></a>[pg 382]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/382.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/382.png"
+             alt="" /></a><i>Head Waiter</i>. "SORRY,
+             SAIR&mdash;CAN'T HELP IT. FULL UP! NO ROOM FOR A LONG
+             TIME. AFTER ALL, DERE IS A WAR ON."
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>TO MY BUTCHER.</h2>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>O butcher, butcher of the bulbous eye,</p>
+
+            <p>That in hoarse accents bidst me "buy, buy, buy!"</p>
+
+            <p>Waving large hands suffused with brutish gore,</p>
+
+            <p>Have I not found thee evil to the core?</p>
+
+            <p>The greedy grocer grinds the face of me,</p>
+
+            <p>The baker trades on my necessity,</p>
+
+            <p>And from the milkman have I no surcease,</p>
+
+            <p>But thou art Plunder's perfect masterpiece.</p>
+
+            <p>These others are not always lost to shame;</p>
+
+            <p>My grocer, now&mdash;last week he let me claim</p>
+
+            <p>A pound of syrup&mdash;'twas a kindly deed</p>
+
+            <p>To help a fellow-townsman in his need,</p>
+
+            <p>Though harsh the price, and I was feign to crawl</p>
+
+            <p>About his feet ere I might buy at all.</p>
+
+            <p>But thou&mdash;although a myriad flocks may crop</p>
+
+            <p>By Sussex gorse or Cheviot's grassy top,</p>
+
+            <p>A myriad herds tumultuously snort</p>
+
+            <p>From Palos Verdes eastward to Del Norte,</p>
+
+            <p>Or where the fierce vaquero's bold bravado</p>
+
+            <p>Resounds about the Llano Estacado;</p>
+
+            <p>Though every abattoir works overtime</p>
+
+            <p>And every stall in Smithfield groans with prime</p>
+
+            <p>Cuts, from thy lips the ready lie falls pat,</p>
+
+            <p>How thou art sold clean out of this and that,</p>
+
+            <p>But will oblige me, just for old time's sake,</p>
+
+            <p>With half a shin bone or some hard flank steak;</p>
+
+            <p>Or (if with mutton I prefer to deck</p>
+
+            <p>My festive board) the scraggy end of neck.</p>
+
+            <p>And once, when goaded to a desperate stand,</p>
+
+            <p>I wrung a sirloin from thy grudging hand,</p>
+
+            <p>Did not thy boy, a cheeky little brute</p>
+
+            <p>With shifty eyes, mislay the thing <i>en
+            route</i>,</p>
+
+            <p>Depositing at my address the bones</p>
+
+            <p>Intended for the dog of Mr. Jones?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>I sometimes think that never runs so thin</p>
+
+            <p>The milk as when it leaves the milkman's tin;</p>
+
+            <p>That every link the sausageman prepares</p>
+
+            <p>Harbours some wandering Towser unawares.</p>
+
+            <p>And Binns, the baker (whom a murrain seize!),</p>
+
+            <p>Immune from fraud's accustomed penalties,</p>
+
+            <p>Sells me a stuff compound of string and lead,</p>
+
+            <p>And has the nerve to name the substance bread.</p>
+
+            <p>But deafer far to the voice of conscience grown</p>
+
+            <p>The type that cuts me off a pound of bone</p>
+
+            <p>Wherefrom an ounce of fat forlornly drops,</p>
+
+            <p>And calls the thing two shillings' worth of
+            chops;</p>
+
+            <p>More steeped in crime the heart that dares to
+            fleece</p>
+
+            <p>My purse of eighteen-pence for one small piece</p>
+
+            <p>Of tripe, whereof, when times were not so hard,</p>
+
+            <p>The price was fourpence for the running yard!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Wherefore I hate thee, butcher, and would pass</p>
+
+            <p>Untempted of thy viands. But, alas!</p>
+
+            <p>The spirit that essays in master flights</p>
+
+            <p>To sip the honey from Parnassus' heights,</p>
+
+            <p>That daily doth his Pegasus bestride</p>
+
+            <p>And keeps the War from spoiling on the side,</p>
+
+            <p>Fails to be fostered by the sensuous sprout</p>
+
+            <p>Or with horse carrots blow its waistcoat out.</p>
+
+            <p>So, though I loathe thee, butcher, I must buy</p>
+
+            <p>The tokens of thy heartless usury.</p>
+
+            <p>Yet oft I dream that in some life to come,</p>
+
+            <p>Where no sharp pangs assail the poet's tum,</p>
+
+            <p>Athwart high sunburnt plains I drive my plough,</p>
+
+            <p>Untouched by earth's gross appetites, and thou,</p>
+
+            <p>My ox, my beast, goest groaning at the tugs,</p>
+
+            <p>And do I spare thy feelings? No, by jugs!</p>
+
+            <p>With tireless lash I probe thy leaden feet,</p>
+
+            <p>And beat and beat and beat and beat and beat.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>ALGOL.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page383"
+       id="page383"></a>[pg 383]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/383.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/383.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+
+        <h3>IF EVERYBODY HELPED&mdash;</h3>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page384"
+       id="page384"></a>[pg 384]</span>
+
+    <h2>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h2>
+
+    <p><i>Monday, November 26th</i>.&mdash;Rather a jolly day in
+    the House of Commons. It was pleasant to hear Lord WOLMER,
+    ingenuous youth, explaining, on behalf of the War Trade
+    Department, that there was no danger of an unusually large
+    consignment of rubber bathing-caps finding their way from
+    Switzerland to the heads of German Fra&uuml;leins. To Colonel
+    YATE belongs the credit of pointing out that people do not
+    bathe in Switzerland in the winter.</p>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:33%;">
+        <a href="images/384-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/384-1.png"
+             alt="" /></a>"Can't we go and have a steak
+             somewhere?"<br />
+        Mr. WILL THORNE.
+    </div>
+
+    <p>Where Russia is concerned Mr. BALFOUR declines to be
+    included among the prophets; all he knows is that that unhappy
+    country has not yet evolved a Government with which he can
+    negotiate. He was more explicit regarding the German tale of a
+    Privy Council in 1913, presided over by the KING, at which Mr.
+    ASQUITH and Lord KITCHENER conspired with Sir EDWARD GREY and
+    Lord MORLEY (whose "Reminiscences" are strangely silent on the
+    subject) to declare war upon Germany. Who after this shall dare
+    to say that the Germans have no imagination?</p>
+
+    <p>Mr. WILL THORNE considers that compulsory rationing ought to
+    be postponed until the menus at the hotels and clubs are cut
+    down to two courses. Somebody ought to invite Mr. THORNE, who
+    from his appearance I should judge to have a healthy appetite,
+    to partake of one of these (alleged) Gargantuan feasts and see
+    what he thinks of it. His comment would probably be, "Can't we
+    go and have a steak somewhere?"</p>
+
+    <p>When is a leaflet not a leaflet? "When it is an election
+    address," says Sir GEORGE CAVE. At the same time he warned Mr.
+    KING that if he thought to get round the new regulations by
+    embodying his peculiar views in the form of electioneering
+    literature he might still collide with "Dora." The warning was
+    surely superfluous. The last thing any Pacifist M.P. wishes to
+    do is to submit himself to the judgment of his
+    constituents.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tuesday, November 27th</i>.&mdash;Mr. MACPHERSON'S
+    statement that officers with the Expeditionary Force are
+    supplied with whisky at prices varying from <i>3s. 6d</i>. to
+    <i>6s</i>. a bottle may have horrified the teetotalers, but has
+    intensified the patriotic desire of some of our Volunteers to
+    share the hardships of these gallant fellows in the
+    trenches.</p>
+
+    <p>There was another long-drawn-out duel between Mr. HOUSTON
+    and Sir LEO CHIOZZA MONEY on the subject of shipping freights.
+    The House always enjoys these encounters, although the
+    opponents, like the toy "wrestlers" of our youth, never get
+    much "forrader." The Member for West Toxteth has probably
+    forgotten more about the shipping trade than his opponent ever
+    knew. But for all that Sir LEO keeps his end up, though his
+    assertion that the consumer would not benefit if the Government
+    charged "Blue-book rates" for ordinary cargo does not convince
+    everybody. But then everybody does not understand
+    Blue-books.</p>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/384-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/384-2.png"
+             alt="" /></a>"Sir Leo keeps his end up."<br />
+        MR. HOUSTON. SIR LEO CHIOZZA MONEY.
+    </div>
+
+    <p><i>Wednesday, November 28th</i>.&mdash;The Peers were
+    surprised to hear from Lord COURTNEY that he was not of the
+    creed of the conscientious objector. They had been under the
+    impression that his public career had been one long orgie of
+    conscientious objection to everything that did not emanate from
+    his own capacious brain. Even his hat and his waistcoat
+    proclaim his defiance of conventional opinion.</p>
+
+    <p>For weeks past the House of Commons has been invited to
+    believe that German "pill-boxes" were composed of British
+    cement; and the case seemed clear when a British officer wrote
+    from Flanders the other day that he had discovered in the
+    German lines a label plainly marked "Artificial Portland."
+    Members were relieved to learn that the label came from a
+    Belgian factory taken over by the Germans. "If those pill-boxes
+    had really been made of our cement," said a Medway
+    representative, "we should be hammering at them still."</p>
+
+    <p><i>Thursday, November 29th</i>.&mdash;Question-time would be
+    much more amusing if Ministers and Members were more
+    accomplished in the art of repartee. A few are quick enough.
+    When Mr. LEES SMITH complained that one of his statements had
+    been described by the FOREIGN SECRETARY as a mare's nest Lord
+    ROBERT CECIL swiftly replied that he did not remember the
+    incident, but had no doubt that if his right hon. friend used
+    the term it was justified.</p>
+
+    <p>Under the Redistribution scheme as arranged by the Boundary
+    Commissioners the name West Birmingham would have disappeared
+    from the roll of constituencies. In graceful tribute to the
+    memory of JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN the House unanimously agreed to
+    its reinstatement. It also changed the name of the Woodstock
+    division to the Banbury division; but the idea that this was
+    done as a compliment to the junior Member for the City of
+    London is, I am told, erroneous.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>"In such a Questionable Shape."</h3>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"This, of course, brings up the almighty
+        question&mdash;Who wrote Shapespeare?"&mdash;<i>Mr. George
+        Moore in "The Observer</i>."</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>A short answer to this almighty question is&mdash;Either Mr.
+    GEORGE MOORE or the writer who determined "to call a spade a
+    spape."</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Cook-General, good (26), Wanted immediately, or by
+        December 6th, for three months, in Exeter. Wages 50s. per
+        mouth."&mdash;<i>Express and Echo (Exeter)</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>We confidently hope that she has only one.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page385"
+       id="page385"></a>[pg 385]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/385.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/385.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+
+        <p><i>Mother</i>. "GOOD GRACIOUS! THAT'S NOT YOUR NEW BEST
+        HAT?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>Child</i>. "WELL, MOTHER, YOU KNOW I TOLD YOU WHEN WE
+        GOT IT THAT IT WOULDN'T WEAR WELL."</p>
+
+        <p><i>Mother</i>. "I DON'T REMEMBER YOUR SAYING SO."</p>
+
+        <p><i>Child</i>. "YES, MOTHER. SURELY YOU REMEMBER I SAID,
+        'THE FIRST TIME THAT HAT'S SAT ON IT'S DONE FOR'?"</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>BELIEVE ME OR BELIEVE ME NOT.</h2>
+
+    <p>Although he had been rendered absolutely dumb by shell-shock
+    the soldier was able to earn a little extra money by doing odd
+    jobs. But nothing could get his speech back. It was a very
+    stubborn and perplexing case. For eighteen months he had not
+    succeeded in uttering a word, though understanding everything
+    that was said to him. All the usual devices had failed; every
+    kind of sudden surprise to startle him into articulation had
+    been attempted; electricity had been passed through the muscles
+    of the tongue and larynx; doctors had discussed him with a
+    volubility only equalled by his own silence. But he remained
+    dumb. It seemed hopeless.</p>
+
+    <p>Last week the mistress of the house where he was mostly
+    employed sent him to the grocer's with, as usual, a slip of
+    paper. The paper was addressed to the grocer, and it said,
+    "Please do your utmost to give the bearer some sugar and tea.
+    Even the smallest quantity will be gratefully welcomed."</p>
+
+    <p>Entering the shop the soldier laid the message on the
+    counter, prepared to wait patiently for the harassed tradesman
+    to attend to him. He had often been there before and knew what
+    it meant; but on this occasion the grocer instantly advanced to
+    meet him, took the paper smilingly and read it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Certainly," he replied. "I suppose four pounds of each
+    would be enough to go on with?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Four pounds!" said the soldier. "Strike me pink, she'd
+    think herself the Queen with four ounces!"</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>Things we should like to see Illustrated.</h3>
+
+    <p>From a recent novel:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"... Then the gong went, and she followed it into the
+        dining-room ..."</p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Class A (fit for general service) is subdivided as
+        follows:&mdash;1&mdash;Men actually fit for general service
+        in any theatre in all respects. 2&mdash;Recruits who should
+        be fit for A1 as soon as trained. 3&mdash;Men who have
+        previously served with an expeditionary force who should be
+        fit for &pound;1 as soon as 'hardened.'"&mdash;<i>Scots
+        Paper</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>They must be well worth it, even in a soft state.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <h3>More War Economy.</h3>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"BUTCHER.&mdash;Wanted, Second
+        Hand."&mdash;<i>Manchester Evening News</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Southport. Mrs. &mdash;&mdash;, Homely Apts.; sea view;
+        piano: mod."&mdash;<i>Daily Paper</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>We approve Mrs. &mdash;&mdash;'s candour about the piano,
+    which accords with our own experience in seaside
+    boarding-houses.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Germany recently began calling up Class
+        19120."&mdash;<i>Western Mail</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>The end of the War may be in sight, but it still seems to be
+    some distance off.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"In districts where a number of shops were serving the
+        same people and streets, they would be asked to co-operate
+        so that butcher, baker and grocer would use the same vans.
+        Traders who refused to comply with the scheme would be
+        dealt with."&mdash;<i>Evening Paper</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>But surely such unpatriotic shopkeepers should not be dealt
+    with.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Lost, on or about September 30 last, a Gold Bar Brooch,
+        with chaste Scotch terrier in centre."&mdash;<i>Manchester
+        Evening News</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>We are glad to see that at least one of our dumb friends has
+    not been affected by the wave of bigamy that has been sweeping
+    over the country.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page386"
+       id="page386"></a>[pg 386]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/386.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/386.png"
+             alt="" /></a><i>Old hand</i> (<i>supplying desired
+             information to new arrival</i>). "THOSE THINGS UP
+             THERE? OH, THEY'RE CANTEENS FOR THE R.F.C."
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>THE HUT.</h2>
+
+    <p>As ordered, we marched the Battery to B 35d 45.25. Reader,
+    have you ever lived in, or on, an unfurnished map-reference in
+    Flanders? If not, permit me to inform you that this group of
+    letters and numerals represented a mud-flat pocked with ancient
+    shell-craters, through which loafed an unwholesome stream under
+    a bilious-looking sky. The Junior Subaltern, fresh from home,
+    asked where the billets were. We could but bless his happy
+    innocence and remind him that as Army Field Artillery we were
+    nobody's children, the orphan bravoes of the Western Front, and
+    that for us a bunch of map co-ordinates was considered ample
+    provision.</p>
+
+    <p>The horses, having with proper pride sneered at the stream,
+    were silenced with their nosebags, and then we asked our cook
+    what about it? That dauntless artist in bully-beef promptly
+    brought our far-travelled mess-table into action in the open,
+    and thus publicly we sat round it on our valises and drank
+    Vichy water until the novelty palled. Then the rain began and
+    the men once more united in wishing themselves in
+    Tennessee.</p>
+
+    <p>The Captain was now driven from the bosom of the mess to
+    find a Camp Commandant, and to tell him, with the Major's
+    compliments, that even the personnel of Army Brigades were
+    liable, in the words of the book, to deteriorate rapidly if
+    unprotected from damp. The officer, whom he found lurking in a
+    neighbouring Nissen hut, was tall and stately, but admitted,
+    under pressure, that to him was entrusted the stewardship of
+    our mud-flat and the adjacent camps, and that he could give us
+    a mess. Through the insistent drizzle this person, smiling now
+    very pleasantly, led us to a depressed wooden building that
+    suggested a derelict Noah's Ark with a sinister look about the
+    windows. The bad-tempered sky scowled between the planks of the
+    roof; the querulous wind whined up through the floor; rats
+    backed snarling into the corners on our entrance.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is the place," said the C.C. "You'll soon make
+    yourselves very comfortable."</p>
+
+    <p>That night I dreamed I was a "U" boat, and started up,
+    snorting, to find myself under a cascade, while the felt upon
+    the roof banged and rasped and flapped. It sounded as if the
+    ark were trying to fly, but found its wings rusty. At dawn we
+    sent the Captain out, and refused him breakfast till by some
+    resource of ingenuity or crime he obtained certain sausages of
+    new felt. These our fearless batmen unrolled and nailed upon
+    the roof. After his porridge we pushed him out again with a
+    strong party under orders to carry the nearest R.E. dump by
+    force or fraud, and secure large quantities of timber, nails,
+    canvas and, if possible (the up-to-date R.E. dump secretes many
+    unexpected commodities), Turkey carpets, wall-paper,
+    sofa-cushions and bedroom-slippers.</p>
+
+    <p>The batmen were sent out with a limbered cart, some smoke
+    shell and the total establishment of billhooks, and forbidden
+    to return without sufficient material for bedsteads,
+    window-shutters, bookshelves and chairs. By evening the place
+    began to feel habitable, and the C.C., when he looked in to
+    borrow a horse, endeared himself to us all by his obvious
+    pleasure in our comparative comfort. We lent him the best horse
+    in the battery.</p>
+
+    <p>The Major's batman devoted the following day to the
+    construction of a species of retiring-room at one end of the
+    hut, wherein the modest members of the mess might bathe and
+    splash at ease. The remainder of the servants went out armed
+    and returned with (1) a zinc bath, (2) a stove, (3) a cuckoo
+    clock, (4) a large mirror, (5) a warming-pan. "Once let us make
+    a home for ourselves," we said, "and our energies will be free
+    to finish the War." We devoted every cunning worker in the
+    battery to this great end. Drill was abandoned, stables
+    forgotten. We installed bookshelves, bootjacks, a sideboard,
+    hat racks, a dumb waiter, a stand for the gramophone and a
+    roll-top desk for the Major. The walls were tapestried with
+    canvas, hung with pictures, scalps, and the various decorations
+    won by members of the mess. The original building, disreputable
+    and hateful, was hidden and forgotten.</p>
+
+    <p>And then the C.C. called again, and, after a minute and
+    admiring inspection of our abode, informed us that to his
+    bitter sorrow he had to turn us out;
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page387"
+       id="page387"></a>[pg 387]</span> umteen battalions of
+       infantry were coming in and had to be
+       accommodated&mdash;this being an infantry camp....</p>
+
+    <p>That night, as I walked about in the rain, I looked in at
+    the open door of our lost home. Two N.C.O.'s were sitting over
+    our stove, lost, lonely in the elongated emptiness; longing, I
+    knew, to be with their comrades bellowing in an adjacent hut.
+    And so I understood and knew at length how Camp Commandants
+    manage the maintenance and improvement of their domain. I
+    devote myself now to warning the simple-hearted gunner against
+    unfurnished huts and the hospitality of Camp Commandants. And
+    some day I hope to be in a position to lend that particular
+    C.C. another horse.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>Punch's Roll of Honour.</h3>
+
+    <p>We deeply regret to learn that Lieutenant GEORGE L. BROWN,
+    Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, who contributed sketches to
+    <i>Punch</i> before the War, has died of wounds.</p>
+
+    <p>We are very glad to say that Captain A.W. LLOYD, Royal
+    Fusiliers, is making a good recovery from the severe wound
+    which he received in East Africa.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/387.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/387.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+
+        <p><i>She</i>. "OH, WAS THAT A BOMB?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>He</i>. "YES, I THINK IT WAS. BUT IF IT WAS AS NEAR
+        AS IT SOUNDED IT WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY MUCH LOUDER."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>MARGARINE.</h2>
+
+    <h3>A HOUSEKEEPER'S PALINODE.</h3>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>MARGARINE&mdash;the prefix "oleo-"</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Latterly has been effaced,</p>
+
+            <p>Though no doubt in many a folio</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Of the grocer's ledger traced&mdash;</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Once I arrogantly rated</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">You below the cheapest lard;</p>
+
+            <p>Once your "g" enunciated,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">With pedantic rigour, hard.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>How your elements were blended</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Naught I knew; but wild surmise</p>
+
+            <p>Hinted horrors that offended</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Squeamish and fastidious eyes.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Now this view, unjust, unfounded,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">I recant with deep remorse,</p>
+
+            <p>Knowing you are not compounded</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">From the carcase of the horse.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Still with glances far from genial</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">I beheld you, margarine,</p>
+
+            <p>And restricted you to menial</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Services in my cuisine.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Still I felt myself unable,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Though you helped to fry my fish,</p>
+
+            <p>To endure you at my table</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Nestling in the butter-dish.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p><i>Now</i> that I have clearly tracked your</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Blameless progress from the nut,</p>
+
+            <p>I proclaim your manufacture</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">As a boon, without a "but."</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Now I trudge to streets far distant,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Humbly in your queue to stand,</p>
+
+            <p>Till the grocer's tired assistant</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Dumps the packet in my hand.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Though you lack the special savour</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Of the product of the churn,</p>
+
+            <p>Still the difference in flavour</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">I'm beginning to unlearn.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Thoughts of Devonshire or Dorset</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">From my mind have vanished quite,</p>
+
+            <p>Since the stern demands of war set</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Limits to my appetite.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Butter is of course delicious;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">But when that is dear and scant</p>
+
+            <p>Welcome, margarine, nutritious</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Palatable lubricant!</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"The undersigned, who has just returned from the Front,
+        begs to inform the Public that he has opened a Barber's
+        Shop on the ground floor of Miss &mdash;&mdash;'s house in
+        Great George Street, where he is prepared to give CUTS in
+        any style required."&mdash;<i>Dominion Chronicle</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Well, his customers can't complain that they weren't
+    warned.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page388"
+       id="page388"></a>[pg 388]</span>
+
+    <h2>TO HELP OUR OTHER ARMY.</h2>
+
+    <p>With all eyes so focussed on the great deeds of our men in
+    France, in Palestine and on the sea, there is a possibility of
+    losing sight now and then of the constant and devoted efforts
+    of the women and girls at home, without whose co-operation the
+    War could not be successfully waged at all. We are the debtors
+    not only of the munition workers who, in their hundreds of
+    thousands, are toiling for victory, but of women and girls in
+    myriad other employments, which they have cheerfully attacked
+    and mastered; and any little thing that we can do for them
+    should, Mr. Punch holds, be done. A practical and very simple
+    way of adding to their happiness and well-being is to
+    contribute a mite to the funds of the Girls' Friendly Society,
+    an organisation with the finest traditions, which is doing its
+    best to build rest and recreation huts all over England, for
+    the purpose of conserving the health and spirits of our great
+    feminine army. A moment's thought will show how vitally and
+    nationally important such help is. Contributions should be sent
+    to the Secretary, War Emergency Committee, Girls' Friendly
+    Society, 39, Victoria Street, S.W.1.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>MY AUNT MATILDA.</h2>
+
+    <p>"It's too bad," said Francesca, "it really is. It'll spoil
+    Christmas."</p>
+
+    <p>"The question is," I said, "that this House do accept my
+    Aunt Matilda's invitation of herself to stay in it for an
+    uncertain period at or about Christmas. I think the Ayes have
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"The Noes have it," shouted Francesca.</p>
+
+    <p>"Francesca," I said, "it's no use struggling, and you know
+    it. We've got to have Aunt Matilda, and there's an end of
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"There isn't an end of it at all. It's only just beginning,
+    and it'll go on getting worse and worse."</p>
+
+    <p>"You do not seem to realise," I said, "what the possession
+    of an aunt like Aunt Matilda means. She is like all the aunts
+    you've ever read about in novels, only more so. She's so true
+    to type that you can hardly believe in her existence. To be
+    related to her is to have a Stake in the Country and to be part
+    of the British Constitution, which she ardently believes in
+    without knowing anything about it. She's been a widow for
+    fifteen years, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor old thing," said Francesca, "so she has."</p>
+
+    <p>"&mdash;for fifteen solitary years she has battled against
+    the world, and managed her business affairs extraordinarily
+    well; and yet she believes that women are perfect fools, and
+    pities them from the bottom of her heart for being women."</p>
+
+    <p>"As far as I'm concerned," said Francesca, "she may pity all
+    the other women if she'll only not pity me. If I have a
+    headache she not only pities me, but despises me as a weakling
+    utterly unfitted to manage a household. No, my dear, I can't
+    face it. Your Aunt Matilda's too much for me."</p>
+
+    <p>"I admit," I said, "that she's a good deal."</p>
+
+    <p>"And of course she'll bring her maid."</p>
+
+    <p>"And her pug."</p>
+
+    <p>"Whose name is 'MacLachlan,' and you mustn't call him 'Mac'
+    because it's disrespectful."</p>
+
+    <p>"And the children won't be allowed to shout about the house
+    when she takes her nap. And of course they <i>will</i> shout
+    about the house, and then there'll be trouble.".</p>
+
+    <p>"And the children will be compared with other children who
+    are much better behaved."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a queer thing, but the children don't seem to mind
+    her."</p>
+
+    <p>"She bribes them with chocolates."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, she won't do it any more, because there are no
+    chocolates in the world. Chocolates are a luxury."</p>
+
+    <p>"So's your aunt," said Francesca. "She's the biggest luxury
+    I ever heard of. She's rare&mdash;I might almost say unique.
+    She's expensive, and she can be done without. Obviously she's
+    forbidden by the Defence of the Realm Act. We shall be fined
+    and imprisoned if we conceal her here."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you'd better sit down and tell her so, and get it off
+    your chest."</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose I must play the humbug."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, do. She'll see through you all right, though."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I say," said Francesca, "there's a P.S. to her letter.
+    She says she's saved two pounds out of her sugar ration, and
+    she's sending it to us as a Christmas present. Isn't she an old
+    topper?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," I said, "I forgive her everything. Is two pounds a
+    lot?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's generally supposed to be just two pounds," said
+    Francesca. R. C. L.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>THE VENGEANCE.</h2>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>I never liked the man at Number Nine,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">But now my breast is bursting with its
+            wrongs,</p>
+
+            <p>For when we had a few old friends to dine</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And crowned our feasting with some gentle
+            songs,</p>
+
+            <p>Instead of simply drinking in the glamour,</p>
+
+            <p>The charm of it, he had the cheek to hammer</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The party-wall with pokers and with
+            tongs.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Ah, me! that Art should suffer such disdain!</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">But what can one expect in time of
+            war?</p>
+
+            <p>Mayhap our minstre'sy had given pain</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To some tired patriot in bed
+            next-door&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>Some weary soul that all day fashions fuses,</p>
+
+            <p>To whom his sleep is more than all the
+            Muses&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And so, for England's sake we sang no
+            more.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>No longer now the hideous truth is hid:</p>
+
+            <p class="i2"><i>The man is nothing but a
+            Pacifist</i>;</p>
+
+            <p>And, what is worse, he draws four hundred quid</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">For representing views which don't
+            exist,</p>
+
+            <p>Although in Parliament, without his poker,</p>
+
+            <p>I'm glad to see they would not hear the croaker,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">But when he talked they only howled and
+            hissed.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>And now all Hammersmith with zeal prepares</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To make a night of it when next we
+            sing;</p>
+
+            <p>We shall not waste our soft romantic airs,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">But the glad street with warlike strains
+            shall ring</p>
+
+            <p>Of blood and armaments and Fritz's whacking,</p>
+
+            <p>And he shall hammer till the walls are cracking,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And the whole suburb joins us in "The
+            King."</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>A.P.H.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>ONE OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS?</h3>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"The unfrequented coral harbour was an ideal spot for
+        this operation. The 60 odd men and women on the Seeadler
+        were landed, and the natives, avid for change of diet,
+        welcomed them."&mdash;<i>The Times</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"A distinctive uniform will be given the new Air Service
+        when the old is worn out, Major Baird
+        announces."&mdash;<i>Daily Mail</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>An officer in the R.F.C. writes to say that the old Air
+    Service has no intention of wearing out.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"The coroner said people would be wise to carry electric
+        torches or newspapers, and ladies should wear something
+        white&mdash;a pocket handkerchief would be better than
+        nothing."&mdash;<i>Sunday Observer</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Certainly "better than nothing," but a newspaper would make
+    a more showy costume.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page389"
+       id="page389"></a>[pg 389]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/389.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/389.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+
+        <h3>THE NEW LANGUAGE.</h3><i>Tommy</i> (<i>to inquisitive
+        French children</i>). "NAH, THEN, ALLEY TOOT SWEET, AN' THE
+        TOOTER THE SWEETER!"
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+
+    <h4>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks</i>.)</h4>
+
+    <p>At this date "The Junior Sub" fortunately needs no
+    introduction to a public that has long gathered him and his to
+    its appreciative heart. I should not like to guess how many
+    people read and enjoyed <i>The First Hundred Thousand</i>; they
+    all, and more, will delight in the appearance of <i>Carrying
+    On</i> (BLACKWOOD), in which the exploits of the famous
+    regiment, of <i>Major Wagstaffe</i> and <i>Captain Bobby
+    Little</i> and the rest of them are continued. What the precise
+    war position of IAN HAY may be by now I am unaware, but I
+    should emphatically suggest his appointment to the post of
+    Official Cheerer-Up. Perhaps (how shall I put it?) the
+    eye-pieces of the writer's mask are a trifle too rose-coloured
+    for strict realism; great-hearted gentlemen as we know our
+    heroes to be, are they always quite so merry and bright as
+    here? One can but hope so. In any case, as special propaganda
+    on the part of the O.C.U., the stories could hardly be
+    bettered. One, called "The Push that Failed," I would order to
+    be read aloud to the workers in every munition factory in the
+    land; its heartening tale of how the British people had, to the
+    paralysed astonishment of Brother Bosch, "delivered the goods"
+    to such effect that his projected spectacular attack under the
+    eyes of WILLIAM the Worst was smashed before it began, is of a
+    kind to strengthen the most weary arm. While I was yet upon the
+    final page the bells in a famous abbey tower close by broke
+    into grateful clamour for the news of victory. But IAN HAY does
+    not wait on victory; he has his joy-bells ringing always in our
+    hearts.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p><i>The Tree of Heaven</i> (CASSELL) spread its friendly
+    branches over a pleasant corner of a roomy Hampstead garden.
+    Matter-of-fact <i>Anthony</i>, the timber merchant, always
+    would insist that it was a mere common ash; but the others,
+    <i>Frances</i>, and the children, <i>Dorothy, Michael,
+    Nicky</i> and adopted <i>Veronica</i>, knew better, as also, no
+    doubt, did <i>Jane-Pussy</i> and her little son, <i>Jerry</i>,
+    who was <i>Nicky's</i> most especial pal. Miss MAY SINCLAIR,
+    without being a conscienceless sentimentalist, does us the fine
+    service of reminding us that the world of men is not all drab
+    ugliness, but that there are beautiful human relationships and
+    unselfish characters, and wholesome training which justifies
+    itself in the day of trial. She divides her charming chronicle
+    into three parts&mdash;Peace, The Vortex, and Victory. The
+    first deals with the childhood of the happy brood of
+    <i>Anthony</i> and <i>Frances</i>, delicate studies subtly
+    differentiated. Even the little cats have their astonishing
+    individuality, and I don't envy anyone who can read of
+    <i>Jerry's</i> death and <i>Nicky's</i> grief without a gulp.
+    The Vortex is&mdash;no, not the War; that comes later&mdash;but
+    the trials of a world which tests adolescence, a world of
+    suffrage rebellions, of Futuristic art and morals. Then the
+    real vortex of the War, the Victory which means ready (or
+    difficult, unready) sacrifice and death for the boys and their
+    friends and as great a sacrifice and as cruel a thing as death
+    for the others, the women and the elders.... A novel, which is
+    much more than a novel, packed with beauty and sincerity,
+    setting forth its tragedy without false glamour or shallow
+    consolations.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Since it is natural to expect that a much-heralded book will
+    fail, when it does eventually appear, to fulfil the promise of
+    its publishers, it is the more pleasant to find oneself
+    agreeing with Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON that bashfulness on
+    their part would have been out of place in regard to Mr. JAMES
+    W. GERARD'S memoirs, <i>My Four Years in
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page390"
+       id="page390"></a>[pg 390]</span> Germany</i>. As read in
+       their completed and collected form these papers are not
+       only, as one could foresee, of historic importance, but they
+       are moreover capital reading. There is a world of unaffected
+       geniality and humour about them that forms a most admirable
+       complement to such serious matters as the protracted
+       negotiations over the U-boat campaign, or the now famous
+       incriminating telegram addressed by the ALL-HIGHEST to
+       President WILSON in the days before the Huns had quite
+       decided with what lies to defend the indefensible. This
+       document is reproduced in facsimile as the egregious sender
+       of telegrams wrote it for Mr. GERARD to transmit, and is one
+       link more in the thrice-forged chain of evidence. But even
+       stronger witness to German guilt is to be found in the
+       series of minor corroborations appearing incidentally in the
+       course of Mr. GERARD'S narrative, whether the author is
+       pretending to be in awe of Prussian Court Etiquette, or
+       openly laughing at the Orders of the Many Coloured Eagles,
+       or simply detailing his work at Ruhleben and the other
+       prison camps. His devotion there has earned a gratitude
+       throughout this country that it would be mere presumption to
+       try to put into words.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Those of us who have loitered with Mr. DE VERE STACPOOLE by
+    blue lagoons and silent pools know that he is a master of
+    atmosphere, and so he proves himself again in <i>The Starlit
+    Garden</i> (HUTCHINSON), though it takes him some time to get
+    there. When a young American finds himself the guardian of an
+    Irish flapper&mdash;a distant relation&mdash;and comes over to
+    take her back with him to the States, it does not require much
+    perspicacity to guess what will happen. <i>Phyl Berknowles</i>
+    strongly objects to the intrusion of <i>Richard Pinckney</i>
+    into the glorious muddle of her Irish m&eacute;nage, and
+    irritates him so successfully that he returns in a considerable
+    tantrum to America, leaving her with some friends in Dublin. So
+    far the tale is lively enough, but not until <i>Phyl</i> feels
+    the call of her blood and goes to stay with her relatives in
+    Charleston does the author find scope for his peculiar charm.
+    Then we get a most delightful picture of a starlit garden in
+    the south of America, where <i>Phyl's</i> experiences, without
+    placing a tiresome strain upon our powers of belief, produce a
+    sensation at once romantic and unusual. Memories of the past
+    hang over this garden, and although Mr. STACPOOLE'S attempt to
+    reconcile the period of which he writes with the years that are
+    gone is not uniformly successful I am cordially glad that he
+    made it.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>The publishers of Mrs. ALICE PERRIN'S new volume, <i>Tales
+    that are Told</i> (SKEFFINGTON), appear to be anxious that the
+    public should have no hesitations on the score of measure
+    supplied, as they explain that the chief of the tales is "a
+    short novel of over 20,000 words." I am content to take their
+    word for the figure, but I agree that they were well advised to
+    focus attention upon "Gift of God," which, whatever its length,
+    is an admirable and distinguished piece of writing. The subject
+    of it is the old question of mixed-marriage, but treated from a
+    new aspect. <i>Kudah Bux</i> (the Gift in question) is the son
+    of an adoring Mohamedan father; he goes to England for
+    education in the law, and there falls in love with and marries
+    the brainless daughter of a London landlady. He is a very human
+    and appealing figure. The debacle that follows his return to
+    India with so impossible a bride is told in a way that
+    convinces. Here Mrs. PERRIN is at her best. Some of the shorter
+    tales also succeed very happily in conveying that peculiar
+    Simla-by-South-Kensington atmosphere of retired Anglo-Indian
+    society which she suggests with such intimate understanding.
+    But, to be honest, the others (with the exception of one quaint
+    little comedy of a canine ghost) are but indifferent stuff, too
+    full of snakes and hidden treasure and general
+    tawdriness&mdash;the kind of Orientalism, in fact, that one
+    used to associate chiefly with the Earl's Court Exhibition.
+    Mrs. PERRIN must not mingle her genuine native goods with such
+    Brummagem ware.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>My idea is that when Mr. H.C. BAILEY called his latest story
+    <i>The Young Lovers</i> (METHUEN) he was doing it something
+    less than justice. For the width and variety of the plot make
+    it far more than a mere love-tale. <i>Arma virique</i> are
+    quite as much Mr. BAILEY'S theme as Cupid, who indeed makes a
+    rather belated appearance at the tag end. Before that we have a
+    vast deal of agreeable adventuring. The scene is set in the
+    period of the Peninsular War; all the characters, lovers,
+    parents and hangers-on, are more or less involved in the
+    fluctuating fortunes of my Lord WELLINGTON. There are spies of
+    both sides, intrigues, abductions and what not. Mr. BAILEY has
+    a pretty touch for such matters; his people move with an air;
+    and, if at times their speech seems a trifle over-burnished,
+    dulness is far from them. Moreover, the incidents of the
+    campaign give scope for some vivid descriptions of war and
+    battles, as such were in the old days before Mars put off his
+    gold lace and sacrificed the picturesque. Sometimes, on the
+    other hand, it is the similarity of conditions then and now
+    that will strike you. For example, the passage telling how,
+    despite apparent inactivity and home prognostications of
+    stalemate, the confidence of the Army grew from day to
+    day&mdash;impossible not to see the very obvious parallel
+    there. In fine, Mr. BAILEY has given us another brisk and
+    engaging romance, which, if it is not quite the kind you might
+    expect from its title, is something a good deal better worth
+    reading.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <p>"Fort Worth, Texas.&mdash;Poolville, Parker county, near
+        here, has raised $1,246.50 as a reward for the delivery of
+        the German emperor into the hands of the American
+        authorities."&mdash;<i>Buffalo Courier</i>.</p>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>On reading this item HINDENBURG is reported to have said
+    that if Poolville would make it even money he would think about
+    it.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:60%;">
+        <a href="images/390.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/390.png"
+             alt="" /></a>
+
+        <h3>A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED INCIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF
+        ANCIENT ROME.</h3>SEQUEL TO THE WARNING GIVEN BY THE
+        PATRIOTIC GEESE.
+    </div>
+    <br />
+    <br />
+    <hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 153, DEC. 5, 1917***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 11425-h.txt or 11425-h.zip *******</p>
+<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/4/2/11425">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/4/2/11425</a></p>
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+
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153,
+Dec. 5, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2004  [eBook #11425]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 153, DEC. 5, 1917***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, William Flis, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 11425-h.htm or 11425-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/4/2/11425/11425-h/11425-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/4/2/11425/11425-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 153.
+
+DECEMBER 5, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The announcement of Mr. Justice BRAY that bigamy is rampant at the
+present time has been drawn to the notice of the FOOD-CONTROLLER, who
+wishes it to be clearly understood that under no circumstances will
+the head of a family be allowed a sugar ration for more than one wife.
+
+       ***
+
+"I have in my possession," writes a correspondent of _The Evening
+News_, "a loaf of bread made by my husband's mother in 1821." This
+should dispose of the popular belief that nobody anticipated the War
+except Mr. BLATCHFORD.
+
+       ***
+
+Lug-worms are being sold at Deal for five shillings a score. They are
+stated to form an agreeable substitute for macaroni.
+
+       ***
+
+"In China," says _The Daily Express_, "a chicken can still be
+purchased for sixpence." Intending purchasers should note, however,
+that at present the return fare to Shanghai brings the total cost a
+trifle in excess of the present London prices.
+
+       ***
+
+A recent applicant to the Warwickshire Appeal Tribunal claimed that he
+had captured the German shell-less egg trade. He denied that the enemy
+had purposely allowed it to escape.
+
+       ***
+
+A tramp charged at Kingston with begging was wearing three overcoats,
+two coats, two pair of trousers and an enormous pair of boots. It
+seems strange that this man should not have realised that he was in a
+position to earn a handsome salary as a music-hall comedian.
+
+       ***
+
+Owing to a cow straying on the line at Acton Bridge last week a goods
+train was derailed. It seems that the unfortunate animal was not aware
+that cow-catchers had been abolished.
+
+       ***
+
+It is reported that the two thousand taxi-drivers still on strike have
+decided to offer their services to Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES for munition
+work. Suitable employment will be found for them in a high-expletive
+factory.
+
+       ***
+
+In New York a club has been started exclusively for golfers. The
+others insisted on it.
+
+       ***
+
+A notice exhibited in the window of a Bermondsey public-house bears
+the words, "There is nothing like Government Ale." Agreed.
+
+       ***
+
+"Shrimps," says a Southern Command Order, "should not be purchased
+where a long train journey is involved." For soldiers, however, who
+require this kind of diet little excursions to the seaside can always
+be arranged for with the C.O.
+
+       ***
+
+At Aberavon the other day the son of an interned German was bitten by
+a dog which he had kicked by accident. The dog of course did not know
+it was an accident.
+
+       ***
+
+We are the first to record the fact that a dear old lady, the other
+morning, went up to the Tank in Trafalgar Square and offered it a bun.
+
+       ***
+
+We should like to deny the rumour that when he heard of Lord
+ROTHERMERE's appointment to the Air Ministry Lord NORTHCLIFFE
+muttered, "Alas! my poor brother."
+
+       ***
+
+More bread is being eaten than ever, says the FOOD CONTROLLER. It
+appears that the stuff is now eaten by itself, instead of being spread
+thinly on butter, as in pre-war days.
+
+       ***
+
+The largest telescope in the World has just been erected at the Mount
+Wilson Observatory in California. Enthusiasts predict that the end of
+the War will be clearly visible through it.
+
+       ***
+
+Owing to scarcity of petrol several fire-brigades have had again to
+resort to horses. In consequence people who have fires are requested
+to place their orders at once, as they can only be dealt with in
+strict rotation.
+
+       ***
+
+The prisoner who escaped from the Manchester Assize Court, after being
+sentenced to three years' imprisonment, has explained that he was just
+pretending to be a German prisoner.
+
+       ***
+
+An awkward situation has arisen through Mr. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW and
+Mr. GEORGE MOORE having solved the Irish problem in the same week, as
+one or the other of them is certain to claim the credit of having his
+solution rejected.
+
+       ***
+
+"Blasting" for tin is being carried on in an experimental station in
+Cornwall. Similar operations are said to be used in searching for
+sugar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "WE'LL NO GANG IN THERE, JOCK."
+
+"FOR WHY, DONAL'?"
+
+"MAN, IT'S GOT AN AWFU' GERRMAN-LIKE NAME, YON."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A DAUGHTER OF LILITH.
+
+    "Gentlewoman, with tame snake, wants quiet home, suburban family,
+    small garden; no others; no animals."--_Melbourne Argus_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Mrs. ---- wishes to recommend a boy (15) who has done well
+    in the pantry."--_Eastern Daily Press_.
+
+But would Sir ARTHUR YAPP approve?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Will any generous soul save and buy up a young scholar,
+    foreign (British) aristocracy, by helping him in his first
+    struggle (legal profession)? acceptable only on returnable
+    condition."--_Manchester Guardian_.
+
+Before starting to save for the above purpose, we should like to know
+more about this scion of the "foreign (British) aristocracy." We don't
+want to find ourselves trading with the enemy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Canon ---- made a strong comment on the Proposal to use the
+    Ulley water for public consumption during his sermon on Sunday
+    morning."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+The rev. gentleman cannot believe that his sermons are so dry as all
+that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The undersigned begs to inform the public that a very superior
+    cow will be slaughtered on the 20th evening and exposed on the
+    morning of the 21st for sale."--_Madras Mail_.
+
+That ought to stop her swanking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "CAMOUFLAGED ATTACK.
+
+    "Paris, Thursday.
+
+    "All the newspapers print long accounts of the new offensive,
+    under the heading, 'Great British Victory,' and all agree in
+    assigning the chief honours attack, and the new British method
+    of organ-attack, and the new British method of arganising the
+    offensive in secret."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+And very well camouflaged, too.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LEAVES FROM A LONDON NOTE-BOOK.
+
+BY OUR MAN ABOUT TOWN.
+
+(WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO SOME OF OUR METROPOLITAN PENNY EVENING
+PAPERS.)
+
+SUGAR CARDS.
+
+A highly-placed official tells me that the discovery that a number of
+people move about from place to place, that servants sometimes leave
+their situations, and that households are consequently liable to
+variation in their personnel, is due to a very smart member of the
+Sugar Commission, who will be suitably decorated. This discovery, on
+the very eve of compulsory rationing in other commodities, will mean
+an immense saving of national funds. Instead of billions, only a few
+millions of cards will need to be destroyed--a very useful economy.
+
+A GREAT MAYFAIR EFFORT.
+
+The Mayfair Tableaux Association will shortly hold a Fancy Dress
+Exhibition of Really Beautiful War-workers. The subjects represented
+will range from CLEOPATRA to BOTTICELLI'S "Primavera," and from SALOME
+to the Sistine Madonna. Preliminary photographs are about to appear
+in the Society Press. The particular object of this great sacrifice
+in the cause of charity has not yet been determined upon, but will be
+announced in due course.
+
+THE SUBMARINE MENACE.
+
+No significance should be attached to recent statistics of torpedoed
+ships in view of public announcements to the effect that the submarine
+menace has been practically scotched.
+
+INTERNATIONAL BOLO.
+
+The British Parliamentary Branch of the International Bolo Club
+indignantly deny that they have received a single pony, or any less
+sum, from German sympathisers in support of Pacifist propaganda.
+They generously recognise that Germany's economical straits are even
+greater than ours, and they would not willingly, even for the sake
+of a common cause, put a strain upon the resources of their German
+friends.
+
+MAHENGE.
+
+The other day I consulted an old friend on the Imperial Staff as to
+the pronunciation of Mahenge, the scene of our latest victory in East
+Africa. From the evasive character of his reply I gathered that my
+inquiry was of the nature of an indiscretion.
+
+THE CABINET AND THE "VICIOUS CIRCLE."
+
+Several members of the Cabinet--the one that doesn't meet--have
+informed me of their conviction that, in the event of the War lasting
+on into 1920, there is every prospect of establishing an elementary
+co-ordination between the various Government departments. Meanwhile
+they ask me to correct a confusion in the public mind by which the
+"Vicious Circle" is regarded as a synonym for themselves.
+
+MANHOOD AND MORAL.
+
+Every day brings me a sheaf of correspondence in which I am asked to
+give my opinion as to our prospects of victory in the near future. I
+have one formula for reply. I refer my correspondents to a recurrent
+paragraph in _The Times_ under the heading "News in Brief." It runs
+as follows: "At the close of play yesterday in the billiard match of
+16,000 points up, between Inman and Stevenson, at the Grand Hall,
+Leicester Square, the scores were," etc., etc. After all, the deciding
+features in the Great World-Struggle will be manhood and _moral_.
+
+TROTSKY'S PEACE OVERTURES.
+
+From private sources, which corroborate the information given to
+the public, I hear that the Spanish Charge-d'Affaires at Petrograd
+is the only member of the Diplomatic Corps in that capital who has
+taken cognisance of TROTSKY'S overtures (which, of course, must be
+distinguished from TSCHAIKOWSKY'S). I very much doubt if KING ALFONSO
+had a hand in this, though he has more than once intimated to me his
+desire for peace.
+
+LANSDOWNE AND LENIN.
+
+What with the aircraft strike at Coventry and the activities of Lord
+LANSDOWNE, LENIN and others, this has been a great week for Pacifists
+and Pro-Bosches. In Germany, where the Press has eagerly followed _The
+Daily Telegraph_ in giving prominence to Lord LANSDOWNE'S views, it
+is felt that our EX-FOREIGN SECRETARY ought to receive a step in the
+peerage, with the title Duke of Lansdowne and Handsup.
+
+THE PREMIER ABROAD.
+
+In conversation with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE on the occasion of one of
+his flying visits to England, I learned how much he regretted that
+pressure of time prevented him while in Italy from running over to
+Venice and ascending the restored Campanile. While in residence in
+Paris, however, he had had the pleasure of renewing his acquaintance
+with the Eiffel Tower.
+
+BROWNING AND SWINBURNE.
+
+During the dark hour of trial through which Italy has been passing,
+my thoughts have often strayed to Asolo in the Trevisan, the scene
+of _Pippa Passes_, by the late ROBERT BROWNING (whom I knew well).
+"Italy, what of the night?" wrote my old friend SWINBURNE. "Morning's
+at seven!" replies _Pippa_. Those brave words have heartened me a good
+deal.
+
+O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO A DACHSHUND.
+
+    [About the precise nationality of whose remote progenitor--whether
+    Danish, Flemish, or British through the old English Turnspit--the
+    writer will not stay to argue.]
+
+  My faithful Peter, mount upon my knee,
+    And shame me with the patience of your eyes,
+  Till I for divers patriots that be
+      Humbly apologise.
+
+  Not for the street-boy--him you had for years
+    And, knowing, make allowance for his ways,
+  If hoots of ignorance and stones and jeers
+      Martyr your latter days;
+
+  But for such shoddy patriots as join
+    The street-boy's manners to a petty mind,
+  And dealing little in true-minted coin
+      Tender the baser kind.
+
+  For instance, Smith (till lately Gruendelhorn),
+    Who meets you with your mistress all alone,
+  And growls a "German beast" with senseless scorn
+      In a (still) guttural tone.
+
+  And Jones, who owes his mansion to the War
+    And loves to drown great luncheons in champagne,
+  But who, to prove he loves his England more,
+      Strikes at you with his cane.
+
+  The while Miss Podsnap, who in dogs can brook
+    No name that smacks of Teuton, snatches up,
+  Lest you contaminate it with a look,
+      Her Pomeranian pup.
+
+  Forgive them, Pete! We are not all well-bred,
+    Not all so wise, so sensible as you;
+  Not all our sires, for generations dead,
+      To British homes were true.
+
+  Yet, prizing steadfast love and fealty, some
+    The gulf of their deficiencies may span,
+  And learn of you the virtues that become
+      An English gentleman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We wish Russia wouldn't wash her dirty LENIN in public.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: DAVID IN RHONDDALAND.
+
+DAVID. "I'M OFTEN AWAY FROM HOME. HOW DO I GET SUGAR?"
+
+THE MAD GROCER. "YOU DON'T; YOU FILL UP A FORM."
+
+DAVID. "BUT I _HAVE_ FILLED UP A FORM."
+
+THE MAD GROCER. "THEN YOU FILL UP ANOTHER FORM."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Friend_ (_to Cinema Commissionaire, who has received
+notice_). "I'M SERPRISED YOU'RE LEAVIN'. I THOUGHT YOU WAS A FIXTURE
+'ERE."
+
+_Commissionaire._ "IS ANYBODY A FIXTURE IN THESE TIMES? LOOK AT THE
+TSAR OF RUSSIA, TINO, TIRPITZ, AND THE REST OF 'EM."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MILLIE AND THE "KAYSER."
+
+Millie is a "daily help." Who it is that she helps--whether herself or
+her employer--I am not in a position to say, for I am only temporarily
+a lodger in the house where Millie helps, and she doesn't help me
+much. But to-day I have made her hear and understand one whole
+sentence. It is the first time during the six days that we have known
+each other that I have conveyed anything to her except by graphic
+gesticulation and grimace.
+
+I accepted the fact at the outset that my soft and seductive tones
+could never penetrate Millie's stone-deafness. Only the loudest and
+angriest remarks are audible to Millie, so I preserve an attitude of
+silent facial amiability in all my relations with her.
+
+BALAAM could not have looked more surprised than did Millie this
+evening when, in the act of clearing away my latest meal, she heard
+me say, "Leave the matches."
+
+She stopped dead and looked at me over the tray of dirty crockery. Her
+expression was not unfriendly.
+
+"But I got t' look after myself," she explained; "I'd be all done up
+if I hadn't they matches in the morning to light the fire and all. You
+wouldn't get no bath-water."
+
+"I want to smoke," I said obstinately.
+
+She kept her hand over the box of matches. She had not heard. I made
+intelligent signs illustrative of the lighting of a cigarette. Millie
+told me, in pure Cornish:
+
+"You can only get a box at a time now, and half-a-pound o' sugar I
+gets when I shows my card, and they do say we won't get that--only
+quarter soon. I'd like to get at that KAYSER! I'd smash him up, I
+would!" She said this in the kindest, most benign way, with a smile
+as nearly caressing as a smile without front teeth can be. "He'd
+come short off if I got to him! And he deserves it, I'm sure," she
+concluded, as she departed--with the matches....
+
+A long walk over the Cornish cliffs in the gusty North wind from
+the Atlantic had made me drowsy, and as I sat before the fire my
+thoughts wandered from Russian politics and the Italian situation
+to Millie--and the "KAYSER": Millie, who was short of stature and
+round-backed, who showed her fifty-odd years unflinchingly to the
+world; Millie with her felt slippers and her overall and coarse hands;
+Millie, the possessor of a sugar-card--and the mighty War Lord, stern
+and implacable, trying to subdue the world to his will. And Millie
+only wished she could get near him to smash him up--"the KAYSER would
+come short off."...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lamp-lit cottage room faded; the sound of November winds and
+swirling leaves outside died away. For a moment I peered through
+a greyish-blue moving mist--it might have been cigarette smoke;
+gradually I distinguished forms and colours beyond; then the fog
+lifted and I looked upon an electrically-lighted room, with the
+aspect of an office _de luxe_. There were telephones and file cases,
+typewriters and all the appurtenances of business operations; the
+furniture was massive and handsome, and carpets and hangings had every
+appearance of magnificence and costliness.
+
+I knew without thought that this was the private room of WILHELM of
+Prussia. He himself, standing with his back to the roaring log fire in
+the deep grate, was too like the cartoons in the English papers to be
+mistaken. The iron-grey hair and upturned moustache, the cold eyes and
+sardonic mouth were all there "as per invoice." He was even wearing an
+aggressively Prussian uniform, and kept his spiked helmet on his head
+and his sword hanging at his side.
+
+The CROWN PRINCE was in evidence, disguised as a Death's Head Hussar,
+and HINDENBURG was easily recognisable as he bristled with the nails
+which the admiring populace had hammered into him; the rest of
+the company were unknown to me. They were all engaged in a heated
+discussion when suddenly there came a knock at the door, a knock
+which, to me, was curiously familiar.
+
+During the silence that ensued Millie walked into the room. She was
+still wearing her overall and felt slippers, and she had not waited
+to put on a hat or even to straighten her hair. She came forward
+unhesitatingly, with her short, shuffling steps and, disregarding the
+furious demand of a Bavarian General as to who she was and how she
+dared to enter there, she addressed herself to the KAISER himself. She
+spoke in her normal tones, but to me there seemed something sinister
+about them at this moment, and I noticed that in her right hand she
+carried a coal-hammer.
+
+Now above all things Millie hated breaking coal and filling scuttles,
+and I knew that she would not be carrying a coal-hammer without a very
+special reason. Her words revealed it.
+
+"You, KAYSER, I've been wanting to get near you and smash you up, I
+have. You've gone a bit too far, you have ... No sugar without a card,
+and then only half-a-pound, and they do say it'll only be a quarter
+soon. And _matches!_--only one box at a time, and _they_ don't strike,
+and how's a body to light a fire at all?"
+
+With this she lifted her coal-hammer and brought it down with all
+her force on the KAISER'S head. Involuntarily I flinched; it was a
+terrible blow.
+
+Several Generals, their iron crosses jingling, rushed forward and
+seized Millie, uttering guttural sounds of horror and indignation.
+But the KAISER stood unmoved--yes, unmoved. Millie gaped at him. He
+ordered his satellites to release her and, as they reluctantly did so,
+Millie nodded her head at them.
+
+"You leave me where I'm to! He can take up his own part," she told
+them.
+
+The KAISER addressed her sternly.
+
+"Presumptuous woman," he said, "it is not written that you shall be
+the cause of my death. There is something much higher in store for
+me. You deserve worse than death at my hands; but since you are from
+England I will squeeze from you all the information I require and bend
+you to my uses."
+
+All this was obviously wasted on Millie, who heard nothing. Having
+waited politely until his lips stopped moving in speech, she again
+cracked him on the head with the coal-hammer.
+
+The KAISER ignored this uncivil retort and spoke again.
+
+"You shall go back to your matchless country and tell them there that
+we have plenty of matches in Germany; that we have kept on good terms
+with Stockholm, and our matches are made in Sweden. We have all we
+need to kindle every fire in hell. Now are you convinced that you are
+beaten?"
+
+He was interrupted by another blow from the coal-hammer, which made
+him bite his tongue, for Millie was becoming exasperated and put all
+her strength into the stroke. The KAISER stepped back.
+
+"Poor fool! You are wasting your strength, even as HAIG wastes _his_
+in blow after blow on the Western front."
+
+But even as he uttered the lying boast he tottered and fell back
+unconscious into the arms of LITTLE WILLIE.
+
+The Generals and Statesmen gathered round their stricken master,
+gabbling purest Prussian.
+
+Millie appeared satisfied at last, although the CROWN PRINCE had
+scarcely glanced at her, for she was not his type. She took advantage
+of the commotion to procure two boxes of matches which had been thrown
+carelessly on the table. These she bestowed mysteriously beneath her
+overall.
+
+"He deserved it too!" she muttered contentedly as she hobbled to the
+door; "and I don't believe so much about all his matches either. You
+can only get two boxes at a time even here." With this reflection she
+unostentatiously departed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again that familiar knock....
+
+I was back in my little sitting-room in Cornwall and Millie entered
+with my candle, which she put down on the table rather noisily. I
+gave her the usual grin and nod of acknowledgment, and she wished me
+good-night and went.
+
+In the tray of the candlestick there was a box of matches. I picked it
+up and turned it over curiously. Could my dream have been true? Or was
+it only a coincidence that in blatant red letters on that match-box
+were the words:--
+
+"MADE IN SWEDEN."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Spokane (Washington), Monday.
+
+    "Troops raided the I.W.W. headquarters and arrested James
+    Rowan (leader) and 21/2 others on the eve of threatened
+    disturbances."--_Toowoomba Gazette (Australia)_.
+
+Unfortunately in such cases half-measures are rarely successful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Sub_ (_to A.P.M., who has severely censured him for
+being without gloves, wearing collar of wrong colour, etc._). "OH, BY
+THE BY, SIR, HOW DO YOU LIKE THE WAY I DO MY HAIR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "THE AUTUMN MEETING of the WISBECH LOCAL PEACE ASSOCIATION will be
+    held on WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28th, 1917.
+
+    "Being full moon, a good attendance is expected."--_Isle of
+    Ely Advertiser_.
+
+The Gothas would see that it was a peace-meeting and leave it alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The tanks crossed the deep gulf of the Hindenburg main line,
+    pitching nose downwards as they drew their long bodies over
+    the parapets and rearing up again with their long forward
+    reach of body and heaving themselves on to the German paradise
+    beyond."--_Yorkshire Evening Post_.
+
+That is not what the Germans called it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "IF CAMBRIA FALLS--
+
+    "The possibilities in the New Battle."--_Dublin Evening Herald_.
+
+No wonder Mr. LLOYD GEORGE hurried off to France.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "On the earth, the broken acres; In the heaven, a perfect
+    ground."--_The Canadian Churchman_.
+
+Of course Canada is before everything an agricultural country, and
+we feel sure that BROWNING would be the last man to object to any
+adaptation of his lines which would make them more suited to the needs
+of the people and the times.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THEATRICAL CORRESPONDENCE
+
+SUPPLYING ONE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION, "WHY DOES A DRAMATIST GROW OLD
+SOONER THAN ANYONE ELSE?"
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, author, to Sir James Benfield,
+actor-manager._
+
+Dear Sir,--Herewith I am forwarding a copy of an original three-act
+comedy, entitled, _Men and Munitions_. As the interest is largely
+topical I should he much obliged if you could let me have your verdict
+upon it with as little delay as possible.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+G. SHERIDAN SMITH.
+
+_From the Same to his friend, Buskin Browne, actor._
+
+Dear B.B.,--By this post I am sending my new comedy, _Men and
+Munitions_, to your manager, whom I believe it should suit. If an
+occasion served for you to put in a word about it without too much
+trouble, I should be eternally grateful.
+
+Yours ever, G.S.S.
+
+_From Buskin Browne, in answer._
+
+My Dear Man,--With all the pleasure in life. I fancy we're changing
+our bill shortly, and, as farce is all the rage just now, I'll boom
+your _Munition Mad_ directly I get a chance. Best of luck.
+
+Yours, BEE-BEE.
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, in reply. A telegram._
+
+Thousand thanks play called men and munitions comedy not farce.
+
+_From the Same to the Same, six weeks later._
+
+Dear B.B.,--I hate to trouble you, but as I've heard nothing yet from
+the management about my comedy I am writing to ask if you can give me
+any idea of Sir J.B.'s intentions regarding it. Did he say anything
+that you dare repeat?
+
+Yours, G.S.S.
+
+_From Buskin Browne, in answer, a fortnight later._
+
+Dear old Boy,--No chance as yet, as the chief has been away ill.
+But he comes back on Saturday, when I will mention the farce to him
+without fail.
+
+Yours "while this machine is to him," BEE-BEE.
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, to Sir James Benfield, a month later._
+
+Dear Sir,--I was profoundly grieved to learn from a mutual friend
+that you had been so long on the sick list. Now, however, that you
+are at work again, and (I trust) fully restored to health, may I hope
+for a verdict upon my comedy, _Men and Munitions_, at your earliest
+convenience?
+
+With warmest congratulations,
+
+I am, Faithfully yours,
+
+G. SHERIDAN SMITH.
+
+_From Sir James Benfield's Secretary, in answer, a week later._
+
+Dear Sir,--Sir James Benfield desires me to acknowledge your letter,
+and to inform you that he has been away ill, and unable to attend to
+any correspondence.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+_From Buskin Browne to G. Sheridan Smith._
+
+Dear old Man,--I heard unofficially last night that your farce has had
+a quite top-hole report from the reader, and might be put on almost at
+once. _Ca marche!_ Anything for me in it?
+
+B.B.
+
+_From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan Smith, by same post as
+above._
+
+Dear Sir,--In answer to your inquiry we can trace no record of
+the receipt of any MS. from you. If you will kindly let me have
+particulars, name of play, date when forwarded, etc., the matter
+shall receive further attention.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, in answer. A telegram._
+
+Men and munitions comedy fourteen weeks ago kindly wire reply paid.
+
+_Reply to above. A telegram._
+
+No trace comedy entitled fourteen weeks suggest inquire post-office.
+
+_Reply to above_.
+
+Name of comedy men and munitions reply paid urgent.
+
+_Reply to above._
+
+Your play returned last week.
+
+_Reply to above._
+
+Nothing arrived here please look again.
+
+_From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan Smith._
+
+Dear Sir,--In returning herewith your blank-verse tragedy, _Hadrian_,
+I am desired by Sir James Benfield to thank you for kindly allowing
+him the opportunity of reading it.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+_From Buskin Browne to G. Sheridan Smith._
+
+Dear old Boy,--The A.S.M. told me to-day that our backers won't look
+at farce, though the chief simply loves yours. So I'm afraid we can
+only say better luck next time.
+
+Yours disappointed,
+
+B.B.
+
+_From Basil Vyne-Petherington to G. Sheridan Smith, five weeks later._
+
+Dear Sir,--Sir James Benfield has been interested to learn that you
+have written a comedy of topical interest, called (he understands)
+_The Munitioneer_. Should you care to forward it for his consideration
+he would be pleased to read it, and, if suitable, to arrange for its
+production at this theatre.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+_From G. Sheridan Smith, in reply. A telegram._
+
+Where did you get a name like that?
+
+_From Basil Vyne-Petherington, in final answer, a month later._
+
+Sir,--I am requested by Sir James Benfield to state that he has been
+compelled to make a rule never to send his autograph to strangers.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+BASIL VYNE-PETHERINGTON,
+
+Secretary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WHITE MAGIC.
+
+  Blind folk see the fairies,
+    Oh, better far than we,
+  Who miss the shining of their wings
+  Because our eyes are filled with things
+    We do not wish to see.
+  They need not seek enchantment
+    From solemn printed books,
+  For all about them as they go
+  The fairies flutter to and fro
+    With smiling, friendly looks.
+
+  Deaf folk hear the fairies
+    However soft their song;
+  'Tis we who lose the honey sound
+  Amid the clamour all around
+    That beats the whole day long.
+  But they with gentle faces
+    Sit quietly apart;
+  What room have they for sorrowing
+  While fairy minstrels sit and sing
+    Close to their listening heart?
+
+R.F.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Extract from a French account of the tanks in action in the battle for
+Cambrai:--
+
+    "Les chars d'assaut curent aussi leur cri de guerre. Peu avant
+    l'attaque, le long de leur ligne courut un message repetant, en
+    le modifiant legerement, celui de Nelson a Trafalgar:
+
+    "'L'Angleterre compte que chaque tank fera aujourd'hui son devoir
+    sacre.'"--_Havas_.
+
+We had often wondered what the French was for "Do your damnedest!" Now
+we know.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: GETTING AWAY FROM IT.
+
+CAPTAIN BROWN, HOME ON LEAVE AND VERY WAR-WEARY, DECIDES THAT AT ALL
+COSTS HE WILL SPEND AN EVENING WHERE KHAKI IS NOT.
+
+HE HAS PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS OF A VISIT, IN TIMES OF PEACE, TO A
+DELIGHTFUL BOHEMIAN CLUB OF WHICH ROBINSON WAS A MEMBER.
+
+SO HE RINGS UP ROBINSON, WHO WILL BE DELIGHTED TO SEE HIM.
+
+BROWN EXPERIENCES A DISTINCT SHOCK ON MEETING ROBINSON,
+
+AND A STILL GREATER SHOCK ON ENTERING THE CLUB.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Head Waiter_. "SORRY, SAIR--CAN'T HELP IT. FULL UP!
+NO ROOM FOR A LONG TIME. AFTER ALL, DERE IS A WAR ON."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO MY BUTCHER.
+
+  O butcher, butcher of the bulbous eye,
+  That in hoarse accents bidst me "buy, buy, buy!"
+  Waving large hands suffused with brutish gore,
+  Have I not found thee evil to the core?
+  The greedy grocer grinds the face of me,
+  The baker trades on my necessity,
+  And from the milkman have I no surcease,
+  But thou art Plunder's perfect masterpiece.
+  These others are not always lost to shame;
+  My grocer, now--last week he let me claim
+  A pound of syrup--'twas a kindly deed
+  To help a fellow-townsman in his need,
+  Though harsh the price, and I was feign to crawl
+  About his feet ere I might buy at all.
+  But thou--although a myriad flocks may crop
+  By Sussex gorse or Cheviot's grassy top,
+  A myriad herds tumultuously snort
+  From Palos Verdes eastward to Del Norte,
+  Or where the fierce vaquero's bold bravado
+  Resounds about the Llano Estacado;
+  Though every abattoir works overtime
+  And every stall in Smithfield groans with prime
+  Cuts, from thy lips the ready lie falls pat,
+  How thou art sold clean out of this and that,
+  But will oblige me, just for old time's sake,
+  With half a shin bone or some hard flank steak;
+  Or (if with mutton I prefer to deck
+  My festive board) the scraggy end of neck.
+  And once, when goaded to a desperate stand,
+  I wrung a sirloin from thy grudging hand,
+  Did not thy boy, a cheeky little brute
+  With shifty eyes, mislay the thing _en route_,
+  Depositing at my address the bones
+  Intended for the dog of Mr. Jones?
+
+  I sometimes think that never runs so thin
+  The milk as when it leaves the milkman's tin;
+  That every link the sausageman prepares
+  Harbours some wandering Towser unawares.
+  And Binns, the baker (whom a murrain seize!),
+  Immune from fraud's accustomed penalties,
+  Sells me a stuff compound of string and lead,
+  And has the nerve to name the substance bread.
+  But deafer far to the voice of conscience grown
+  The type that cuts me off a pound of bone
+  Wherefrom an ounce of fat forlornly drops,
+  And calls the thing two shillings' worth of chops;
+  More steeped in crime the heart that dares to fleece
+  My purse of eighteen-pence for one small piece
+  Of tripe, whereof, when times were not so hard,
+  The price was fourpence for the running yard!
+
+  Wherefore I hate thee, butcher, and would pass
+  Untempted of thy viands. But, alas!
+  The spirit that essays in master flights
+  To sip the honey from Parnassus' heights,
+  That daily doth his Pegasus bestride
+  And keeps the War from spoiling on the side,
+  Fails to be fostered by the sensuous sprout
+  Or with horse carrots blow its waistcoat out.
+  So, though I loathe thee, butcher, I must buy
+  The tokens of thy heartless usury.
+  Yet oft I dream that in some life to come,
+  Where no sharp pangs assail the poet's tum,
+  Athwart high sunburnt plains I drive my plough,
+  Untouched by earth's gross appetites, and thou,
+  My ox, my beast, goest groaning at the tugs,
+  And do I spare thy feelings? No, by jugs!
+  With tireless lash I probe thy leaden feet,
+  And beat and beat and beat and beat and beat.
+
+  ALGOL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: IF EVERYBODY HELPED.
+Every bond you buy goes to tie up the Kaiser.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+_Monday, November 26th_.--Rather a jolly day in the House of Commons.
+It was pleasant to hear Lord WOLMER, ingenuous youth, explaining, on
+behalf of the War Trade Department, that there was no danger of an
+unusually large consignment of rubber bathing-caps finding their way
+from Switzerland to the heads of German Fraueleins. To Colonel YATE
+belongs the credit of pointing out that people do not bathe in
+Switzerland in the winter.
+
+[Illustration: "Can't we go and have a steak somewhere?" Mr. WILL
+THORNE.]
+
+Where Russia is concerned Mr. BALFOUR declines to be included among
+the prophets; all he knows is that that unhappy country has not yet
+evolved a Government with which he can negotiate. He was more explicit
+regarding the German tale of a Privy Council in 1913, presided over
+by the KING, at which Mr. ASQUITH and Lord KITCHENER conspired with
+Sir EDWARD GREY and Lord MORLEY (whose "Reminiscences" are strangely
+silent on the subject) to declare war upon Germany. Who after this
+shall dare to say that the Germans have no imagination?
+
+Mr. WILL THORNE considers that compulsory rationing ought to be
+postponed until the menus at the hotels and clubs are cut down to two
+courses. Somebody ought to invite Mr. THORNE, who from his appearance
+I should judge to have a healthy appetite, to partake of one of these
+(alleged) Gargantuan feasts and see what he thinks of it. His comment
+would probably be, "Can't we go and have a steak somewhere?"
+
+When is a leaflet not a leaflet? "When it is an election address,"
+says Sir GEORGE CAVE. At the same time he warned Mr. KING that if he
+thought to get round the new regulations by embodying his peculiar
+views in the form of electioneering literature he might still collide
+with "Dora." The warning was surely superfluous. The last thing any
+Pacifist M.P. wishes to do is to submit himself to the judgment of his
+constituents.
+
+_Tuesday, November 27th_.--Mr. MACPHERSON'S statement that officers
+with the Expeditionary Force are supplied with whisky at prices
+varying from _3s. 6d_. to _6s_. a bottle may have horrified the
+teetotalers, but has intensified the patriotic desire of some of our
+Volunteers to share the hardships of these gallant fellows in the
+trenches.
+
+There was another long-drawn-out duel between Mr. HOUSTON and Sir LEO
+CHIOZZA MONEY on the subject of shipping freights. The House always
+enjoys these encounters, although the opponents, like the toy
+"wrestlers" of our youth, never get much "forrader." The Member for
+West Toxteth has probably forgotten more about the shipping trade
+than his opponent ever knew. But for all that Sir LEO keeps his end
+up, though his assertion that the consumer would not benefit if the
+Government charged "Blue-book rates" for ordinary cargo does not
+convince everybody. But then everybody does not understand Blue-books.
+
+[Illustration: "Sir Leo keeps his end up." MR. HOUSTON. SIR LEO
+CHIOZZA MONEY.]
+
+_Wednesday, November 28th_.--The Peers were surprised to hear from
+Lord COURTNEY that he was not of the creed of the conscientious
+objector. They had been under the impression that his public career
+had been one long orgie of conscientious objection to everything that
+did not emanate from his own capacious brain. Even his hat and his
+waistcoat proclaim his defiance of conventional opinion.
+
+For weeks past the House of Commons has been invited to believe that
+German "pill-boxes" were composed of British cement; and the case
+seemed clear when a British officer wrote from Flanders the other
+day that he had discovered in the German lines a label plainly
+marked "Artificial Portland." Members were relieved to learn that
+the label came from a Belgian factory taken over by the Germans. "If
+those pill-boxes had really been made of our cement," said a Medway
+representative, "we should be hammering at them still."
+
+_Thursday, November 29th_.--Question-time would be much more amusing
+if Ministers and Members were more accomplished in the art of
+repartee. A few are quick enough. When Mr. LEES SMITH complained that
+one of his statements had been described by the FOREIGN SECRETARY as a
+mare's nest Lord ROBERT CECIL swiftly replied that he did not remember
+the incident, but had no doubt that if his right hon. friend used the
+term it was justified.
+
+Under the Redistribution scheme as arranged by the Boundary
+Commissioners the name West Birmingham would have disappeared from the
+roll of constituencies. In graceful tribute to the memory of JOSEPH
+CHAMBERLAIN the House unanimously agreed to its reinstatement. It also
+changed the name of the Woodstock division to the Banbury division;
+but the idea that this was done as a compliment to the junior Member
+for the City of London is, I am told, erroneous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"IN SUCH A QUESTIONABLE SHAPE."
+
+    "This, of course, brings up the almighty question--Who wrote
+    Shapespeare?"--_Mr. George Moore in "The Observer_."
+
+A short answer to this almighty question is--Either Mr. GEORGE MOORE
+or the writer who determined "to call a spade a spape."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Cook-General, good (26), Wanted immediately, or by December 6th,
+    for three months, in Exeter. Wages 50s. per mouth."--_Express
+    and Echo (Exeter)_.
+
+We confidently hope that she has only one.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mother_. "GOOD GRACIOUS! THAT'S NOT YOUR NEW BEST HAT?"
+
+_Child_. "WELL, MOTHER, YOU KNOW I TOLD YOU WHEN WE GOT IT THAT IT
+WOULDN'T WEAR WELL."
+
+_Mother_. "I DON'T REMEMBER YOUR SAYING SO."
+
+_Child_. "YES, MOTHER. SURELY YOU REMEMBER I SAID, 'THE FIRST TIME
+THAT HAT'S SAT ON IT'S DONE FOR'?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BELIEVE ME OR BELIEVE ME NOT.
+
+Although he had been rendered absolutely dumb by shell-shock the
+soldier was able to earn a little extra money by doing odd jobs.
+But nothing could get his speech back. It was a very stubborn and
+perplexing case. For eighteen months he had not succeeded in uttering
+a word, though understanding everything that was said to him. All the
+usual devices had failed; every kind of sudden surprise to startle
+him into articulation had been attempted; electricity had been passed
+through the muscles of the tongue and larynx; doctors had discussed
+him with a volubility only equalled by his own silence. But he
+remained dumb. It seemed hopeless.
+
+Last week the mistress of the house where he was mostly employed sent
+him to the grocer's with, as usual, a slip of paper. The paper was
+addressed to the grocer, and it said, "Please do your utmost to give
+the bearer some sugar and tea. Even the smallest quantity will be
+gratefully welcomed."
+
+Entering the shop the soldier laid the message on the counter,
+prepared to wait patiently for the harassed tradesman to attend to
+him. He had often been there before and knew what it meant; but on
+this occasion the grocer instantly advanced to meet him, took the
+paper smilingly and read it.
+
+"Certainly," he replied. "I suppose four pounds of each would be
+enough to go on with?"
+
+"Four pounds!" said the soldier. "Strike me pink, she'd think herself
+the Queen with four ounces!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THINGS WE SHOULD LIKE TO SEE ILLUSTRATED.
+
+From a recent novel:--
+
+    "... Then the gong went, and she followed it into the
+    dining-room ..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Class A (fit for general service) is subdivided as
+    follows:--1--Men actually fit for general service in any theatre
+    in all respects. 2--Recruits who should be fit for A1 as soon as
+    trained. 3--Men who have previously served with an expeditionary
+    force who should be fit for L1 as soon as 'hardened.'"--_Scots
+    Paper_.
+
+They must be well worth it, even in a soft state.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MORE WAR ECONOMY.
+
+    "BUTCHER.--Wanted, Second Hand."--_Manchester Evening News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Southport. Mrs. ----, Homely Apts.; sea view; piano:
+    mod."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+We approve Mrs. ----'s candour about the piano, which accords with our
+own experience in seaside boarding-houses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Germany recently began calling up Class 19120."--_Western Mail_.
+
+The end of the War may be in sight, but it still seems to be some
+distance off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In districts where a number of shops were serving the same people
+    and streets, they would be asked to co-operate so that butcher,
+    baker and grocer would use the same vans. Traders who refused to
+    comply with the scheme would be dealt with."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+But surely such unpatriotic shopkeepers should not be dealt with.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lost, on or about September 30 last, a Gold Bar Brooch, with
+    chaste Scotch terrier in centre."--_Manchester Evening News_.
+
+We are glad to see that at least one of our dumb friends has not
+been affected by the wave of bigamy that has been sweeping over the
+country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Old hand_ (_supplying desired information to new
+arrival_). "THOSE THINGS UP THERE? OH, THEY'RE CANTEENS FOR THE
+R.F.C."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE HUT.
+
+As ordered, we marched the Battery to B 35d 45.25. Reader, have you
+ever lived in, or on, an unfurnished map-reference in Flanders? If
+not, permit me to inform you that this group of letters and numerals
+represented a mud-flat pocked with ancient shell-craters, through
+which loafed an unwholesome stream under a bilious-looking sky. The
+Junior Subaltern, fresh from home, asked where the billets were. We
+could but bless his happy innocence and remind him that as Army Field
+Artillery we were nobody's children, the orphan bravoes of the Western
+Front, and that for us a bunch of map co-ordinates was considered
+ample provision.
+
+The horses, having with proper pride sneered at the stream, were
+silenced with their nosebags, and then we asked our cook what
+about it? That dauntless artist in bully-beef promptly brought our
+far-travelled mess-table into action in the open, and thus publicly we
+sat round it on our valises and drank Vichy water until the novelty
+palled. Then the rain began and the men once more united in wishing
+themselves in Tennessee.
+
+The Captain was now driven from the bosom of the mess to find a Camp
+Commandant, and to tell him, with the Major's compliments, that even
+the personnel of Army Brigades were liable, in the words of the book,
+to deteriorate rapidly if unprotected from damp. The officer, whom he
+found lurking in a neighbouring Nissen hut, was tall and stately, but
+admitted, under pressure, that to him was entrusted the stewardship
+of our mud-flat and the adjacent camps, and that he could give us a
+mess. Through the insistent drizzle this person, smiling now very
+pleasantly, led us to a depressed wooden building that suggested
+a derelict Noah's Ark with a sinister look about the windows. The
+bad-tempered sky scowled between the planks of the roof; the querulous
+wind whined up through the floor; rats backed snarling into the
+corners on our entrance.
+
+"This is the place," said the C.C. "You'll soon make yourselves very
+comfortable."
+
+That night I dreamed I was a "U" boat, and started up, snorting, to
+find myself under a cascade, while the felt upon the roof banged and
+rasped and flapped. It sounded as if the ark were trying to fly, but
+found its wings rusty. At dawn we sent the Captain out, and refused
+him breakfast till by some resource of ingenuity or crime he obtained
+certain sausages of new felt. These our fearless batmen unrolled and
+nailed upon the roof. After his porridge we pushed him out again with
+a strong party under orders to carry the nearest R.E. dump by force
+or fraud, and secure large quantities of timber, nails, canvas and,
+if possible (the up-to-date R.E. dump secretes many unexpected
+commodities), Turkey carpets, wall-paper, sofa-cushions and
+bedroom-slippers.
+
+The batmen were sent out with a limbered cart, some smoke shell and
+the total establishment of billhooks, and forbidden to return without
+sufficient material for bedsteads, window-shutters, bookshelves and
+chairs. By evening the place began to feel habitable, and the C.C.,
+when he looked in to borrow a horse, endeared himself to us all by
+his obvious pleasure in our comparative comfort. We lent him the best
+horse in the battery.
+
+The Major's batman devoted the following day to the construction of
+a species of retiring-room at one end of the hut, wherein the modest
+members of the mess might bathe and splash at ease. The remainder of
+the servants went out armed and returned with (1) a zinc bath, (2)
+a stove, (3) a cuckoo clock, (4) a large mirror, (5) a warming-pan.
+"Once let us make a home for ourselves," we said, "and our energies
+will be free to finish the War." We devoted every cunning worker in
+the battery to this great end. Drill was abandoned, stables forgotten.
+We installed bookshelves, bootjacks, a sideboard, hat racks, a dumb
+waiter, a stand for the gramophone and a roll-top desk for the Major.
+The walls were tapestried with canvas, hung with pictures, scalps,
+and the various decorations won by members of the mess. The original
+building, disreputable and hateful, was hidden and forgotten.
+
+And then the C.C. called again, and, after a minute and admiring
+inspection of our abode, informed us that to his bitter sorrow he had
+to turn us out; umteen battalions of infantry were coming in and had
+to be accommodated--this being an infantry camp....
+
+That night, as I walked about in the rain, I looked in at the open
+door of our lost home. Two N.C.O.'s were sitting over our stove, lost,
+lonely in the elongated emptiness; longing, I knew, to be with their
+comrades bellowing in an adjacent hut. And so I understood and knew at
+length how Camp Commandants manage the maintenance and improvement of
+their domain. I devote myself now to warning the simple-hearted gunner
+against unfurnished huts and the hospitality of Camp Commandants.
+And some day I hope to be in a position to lend that particular C.C.
+another horse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PUNCH'S ROLL OF HONOUR.
+
+We deeply regret to learn that Lieutenant GEORGE L. BROWN, Loyal North
+Lancashire Regiment, who contributed sketches to _Punch_ before the
+War, has died of wounds.
+
+We are very glad to say that Captain A.W. LLOYD, Royal Fusiliers, is
+making a good recovery from the severe wound which he received in East
+Africa.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _She_. "OH, WAS THAT A BOMB?"
+
+_He_. "YES, I THINK IT WAS. BUT IF IT WAS AS NEAR AS IT SOUNDED IT
+WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY MUCH LOUDER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MARGARINE.
+
+A HOUSEKEEPER'S PALINODE.
+
+  MARGARINE--the prefix "oleo-"
+    Latterly has been effaced,
+  Though no doubt in many a folio
+    Of the grocer's ledger traced--
+
+  Once I arrogantly rated
+    You below the cheapest lard;
+  Once your "g" enunciated,
+    With pedantic rigour, hard.
+
+  How your elements were blended
+    Naught I knew; but wild surmise
+  Hinted horrors that offended
+    Squeamish and fastidious eyes.
+
+  Now this view, unjust, unfounded,
+    I recant with deep remorse,
+  Knowing you are not compounded
+    From the carcase of the horse.
+
+  Still with glances far from genial
+    I beheld you, margarine,
+  And restricted you to menial
+    Services in my cuisine.
+
+  Still I felt myself unable,
+    Though you helped to fry my fish,
+  To endure you at my table
+    Nestling in the butter-dish.
+
+  _Now_ that I have clearly tracked your
+    Blameless progress from the nut,
+  I proclaim your manufacture
+    As a boon, without a "but."
+
+  Now I trudge to streets far distant,
+    Humbly in your queue to stand,
+  Till the grocer's tired assistant
+    Dumps the packet in my hand.
+
+  Though you lack the special savour
+    Of the product of the churn,
+  Still the difference in flavour
+    I'm beginning to unlearn.
+
+  Thoughts of Devonshire or Dorset
+    From my mind have vanished quite,
+  Since the stern demands of war set
+    Limits to my appetite.
+
+  Butter is of course delicious;
+    But when that is dear and scant
+  Welcome, margarine, nutritious
+    Palatable lubricant!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The undersigned, who has just returned from the Front, begs to
+    inform the Public that he has opened a Barber's Shop on the
+    ground floor of Miss ----'s house in Great George Street, where
+    he is prepared to give CUTS in any style required."--_Dominion
+    Chronicle_.
+
+Well, his customers can't complain that they weren't warned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO HELP OUR OTHER ARMY.
+
+With all eyes so focussed on the great deeds of our men in France, in
+Palestine and on the sea, there is a possibility of losing sight now
+and then of the constant and devoted efforts of the women and girls
+at home, without whose co-operation the War could not be successfully
+waged at all. We are the debtors not only of the munition workers who,
+in their hundreds of thousands, are toiling for victory, but of women
+and girls in myriad other employments, which they have cheerfully
+attacked and mastered; and any little thing that we can do for them
+should, Mr. Punch holds, be done. A practical and very simple way
+of adding to their happiness and well-being is to contribute a mite
+to the funds of the Girls' Friendly Society, an organisation with
+the finest traditions, which is doing its best to build rest and
+recreation huts all over England, for the purpose of conserving the
+health and spirits of our great feminine army. A moment's thought will
+show how vitally and nationally important such help is. Contributions
+should be sent to the Secretary, War Emergency Committee, Girls'
+Friendly Society, 39, Victoria Street, S.W.1.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MY AUNT MATILDA.
+
+"It's too bad," said Francesca, "it really is. It'll spoil Christmas."
+
+"The question is," I said, "that this House do accept my Aunt
+Matilda's invitation of herself to stay in it for an uncertain period
+at or about Christmas. I think the Ayes have it."
+
+"The Noes have it," shouted Francesca.
+
+"Francesca," I said, "it's no use struggling, and you know it. We've
+got to have Aunt Matilda, and there's an end of it."
+
+"There isn't an end of it at all. It's only just beginning, and it'll
+go on getting worse and worse."
+
+"You do not seem to realise," I said, "what the possession of an aunt
+like Aunt Matilda means. She is like all the aunts you've ever read
+about in novels, only more so. She's so true to type that you can
+hardly believe in her existence. To be related to her is to have a
+Stake in the Country and to be part of the British Constitution, which
+she ardently believes in without knowing anything about it. She's been
+a widow for fifteen years, and--"
+
+"Poor old thing," said Francesca, "so she has."
+
+"--for fifteen solitary years she has battled against the world,
+and managed her business affairs extraordinarily well; and yet she
+believes that women are perfect fools, and pities them from the bottom
+of her heart for being women."
+
+"As far as I'm concerned," said Francesca, "she may pity all the other
+women if she'll only not pity me. If I have a headache she not only
+pities me, but despises me as a weakling utterly unfitted to manage a
+household. No, my dear, I can't face it. Your Aunt Matilda's too much
+for me."
+
+"I admit," I said, "that she's a good deal."
+
+"And of course she'll bring her maid."
+
+"And her pug."
+
+"Whose name is 'MacLachlan,' and you mustn't call him 'Mac' because
+it's disrespectful."
+
+"And the children won't be allowed to shout about the house when she
+takes her nap. And of course they _will_ shout about the house, and
+then there'll be trouble.".
+
+"And the children will be compared with other children who are much
+better behaved."
+
+"It's a queer thing, but the children don't seem to mind her."
+
+"She bribes them with chocolates."
+
+"Well, she won't do it any more, because there are no chocolates in
+the world. Chocolates are a luxury."
+
+"So's your aunt," said Francesca. "She's the biggest luxury I ever
+heard of. She's rare--I might almost say unique. She's expensive, and
+she can be done without. Obviously she's forbidden by the Defence of
+the Realm Act. We shall be fined and imprisoned if we conceal her
+here."
+
+"Well, you'd better sit down and tell her so, and get it off your
+chest."
+
+"I suppose I must play the humbug."
+
+"Yes, do. She'll see through you all right, though."
+
+"Oh, I say," said Francesca, "there's a P.S. to her letter. She says
+she's saved two pounds out of her sugar ration, and she's sending it
+to us as a Christmas present. Isn't she an old topper?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I forgive her everything. Is two pounds a lot?"
+
+"It's generally supposed to be just two pounds," said Francesca.
+
+R.C.L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE VENGEANCE.
+
+  I never liked the man at Number Nine,
+    But now my breast is bursting with its wrongs,
+  For when we had a few old friends to dine
+    And crowned our feasting with some gentle songs,
+  Instead of simply drinking in the glamour,
+  The charm of it, he had the cheek to hammer
+    The party-wall with pokers and with tongs.
+
+  Ah, me! that Art should suffer such disdain!
+    But what can one expect in time of war?
+  Mayhap our minstre'sy had given pain
+    To some tired patriot in bed next-door--
+  Some weary soul that all day fashions fuses,
+  To whom his sleep is more than all the Muses--
+    And so, for England's sake we sang no more.
+
+  No longer now the hideous truth is hid:
+    _The man is nothing but a Pacifist_;
+  And, what is worse, he draws four hundred quid
+    For representing views which don't exist,
+  Although in Parliament, without his poker,
+  I'm glad to see they would not hear the croaker,
+    But when he talked they only howled and hissed.
+
+  And now all Hammersmith with zeal prepares
+    To make a night of it when next we sing;
+  We shall not waste our soft romantic airs,
+    But the glad street with warlike strains shall ring
+  Of blood and armaments and Fritz's whacking,
+  And he shall hammer till the walls are cracking,
+    And the whole suburb joins us in "The King."
+
+  A.P.H.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ONE OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS?
+
+    "The unfrequented coral harbour was an ideal spot for this
+    operation. The 60 odd men and women on the Seeadler were
+    landed, and the natives, avid for change of diet, welcomed
+    them."--_The Times_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A distinctive uniform will be given the new Air Service when
+    the old is worn out, Major Baird announces."--_Daily Mail_.
+
+An officer in the R.F.C. writes to say that the old Air Service has no
+intention of wearing out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The coroner said people would be wise to carry electric torches
+    or newspapers, and ladies should wear something white--a pocket
+    handkerchief would be better than nothing."--_Sunday Observer_.
+
+Certainly "better than nothing," but a newspaper would make a more
+showy costume.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW LANGUAGE. _Tommy_ (_to inquisitive French
+children_). "NAH, THEN, ALLEY TOOT SWEET, AN' THE TOOTER THE
+SWEETER!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)
+
+At this date "The Junior Sub" fortunately needs no introduction to a
+public that has long gathered him and his to its appreciative heart. I
+should not like to guess how many people read and enjoyed _The First
+Hundred Thousand_; they all, and more, will delight in the appearance
+of _Carrying On_ (BLACKWOOD), in which the exploits of the famous
+regiment, of _Major Wagstaffe_ and _Captain Bobby Little_ and the rest
+of them are continued. What the precise war position of IAN HAY may be
+by now I am unaware, but I should emphatically suggest his appointment
+to the post of Official Cheerer-Up. Perhaps (how shall I put it?) the
+eye-pieces of the writer's mask are a trifle too rose-coloured for
+strict realism; great-hearted gentlemen as we know our heroes to be,
+are they always quite so merry and bright as here? One can but hope
+so. In any case, as special propaganda on the part of the O.C.U., the
+stories could hardly be bettered. One, called "The Push that Failed,"
+I would order to be read aloud to the workers in every munition
+factory in the land; its heartening tale of how the British people
+had, to the paralysed astonishment of Brother Bosch, "delivered the
+goods" to such effect that his projected spectacular attack under the
+eyes of WILLIAM the Worst was smashed before it began, is of a kind to
+strengthen the most weary arm. While I was yet upon the final page the
+bells in a famous abbey tower close by broke into grateful clamour for
+the news of victory. But IAN HAY does not wait on victory; he has his
+joy-bells ringing always in our hearts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Tree of Heaven_ (CASSELL) spread its friendly branches over a
+pleasant corner of a roomy Hampstead garden. Matter-of-fact _Anthony_,
+the timber merchant, always would insist that it was a mere common
+ash; but the others, _Frances_, and the children, _Dorothy, Michael,
+Nicky_ and adopted _Veronica_, knew better, as also, no doubt, did
+_Jane-Pussy_ and her little son, _Jerry_, who was _Nicky's_ most
+especial pal. Miss MAY SINCLAIR, without being a conscienceless
+sentimentalist, does us the fine service of reminding us that the
+world of men is not all drab ugliness, but that there are beautiful
+human relationships and unselfish characters, and wholesome training
+which justifies itself in the day of trial. She divides her charming
+chronicle into three parts--Peace, The Vortex, and Victory. The
+first deals with the childhood of the happy brood of _Anthony_ and
+_Frances_, delicate studies subtly differentiated. Even the little
+cats have their astonishing individuality, and I don't envy anyone
+who can read of _Jerry's_ death and _Nicky's_ grief without a gulp.
+The Vortex is--no, not the War; that comes later--but the trials of
+a world which tests adolescence, a world of suffrage rebellions,
+of Futuristic art and morals. Then the real vortex of the War, the
+Victory which means ready (or difficult, unready) sacrifice and death
+for the boys and their friends and as great a sacrifice and as cruel a
+thing as death for the others, the women and the elders.... A novel,
+which is much more than a novel, packed with beauty and sincerity,
+setting forth its tragedy without false glamour or shallow
+consolations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since it is natural to expect that a much-heralded book will fail,
+when it does eventually appear, to fulfil the promise of its
+publishers, it is the more pleasant to find oneself agreeing with
+Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON that bashfulness on their part would have
+been out of place in regard to Mr. JAMES W. GERARD'S memoirs, _My Four
+Years in Germany_. As read in their completed and collected form these
+papers are not only, as one could foresee, of historic importance,
+but they are moreover capital reading. There is a world of unaffected
+geniality and humour about them that forms a most admirable complement
+to such serious matters as the protracted negotiations over the U-boat
+campaign, or the now famous incriminating telegram addressed by the
+ALL-HIGHEST to President WILSON in the days before the Huns had quite
+decided with what lies to defend the indefensible. This document is
+reproduced in facsimile as the egregious sender of telegrams wrote it
+for Mr. GERARD to transmit, and is one link more in the thrice-forged
+chain of evidence. But even stronger witness to German guilt is to be
+found in the series of minor corroborations appearing incidentally in
+the course of Mr. GERARD'S narrative, whether the author is pretending
+to be in awe of Prussian Court Etiquette, or openly laughing at the
+Orders of the Many Coloured Eagles, or simply detailing his work at
+Ruhleben and the other prison camps. His devotion there has earned a
+gratitude throughout this country that it would be mere presumption to
+try to put into words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Those of us who have loitered with Mr. DE VERE STACPOOLE by blue
+lagoons and silent pools know that he is a master of atmosphere, and
+so he proves himself again in _The Starlit Garden_ (HUTCHINSON),
+though it takes him some time to get there. When a young American
+finds himself the guardian of an Irish flapper--a distant
+relation--and comes over to take her back with him to the States, it
+does not require much perspicacity to guess what will happen. _Phyl
+Berknowles_ strongly objects to the intrusion of _Richard Pinckney_
+into the glorious muddle of her Irish menage, and irritates him so
+successfully that he returns in a considerable tantrum to America,
+leaving her with some friends in Dublin. So far the tale is lively
+enough, but not until _Phyl_ feels the call of her blood and goes to
+stay with her relatives in Charleston does the author find scope for
+his peculiar charm. Then we get a most delightful picture of a starlit
+garden in the south of America, where _Phyl's_ experiences, without
+placing a tiresome strain upon our powers of belief, produce a
+sensation at once romantic and unusual. Memories of the past hang
+over this garden, and although Mr. STACPOOLE'S attempt to reconcile
+the period of which he writes with the years that are gone is not
+uniformly successful I am cordially glad that he made it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The publishers of Mrs. ALICE PERRIN'S new volume, _Tales that are
+Told_ (SKEFFINGTON), appear to be anxious that the public should have
+no hesitations on the score of measure supplied, as they explain that
+the chief of the tales is "a short novel of over 20,000 words." I am
+content to take their word for the figure, but I agree that they were
+well advised to focus attention upon "Gift of God," which, whatever
+its length, is an admirable and distinguished piece of writing. The
+subject of it is the old question of mixed-marriage, but treated from
+a new aspect. _Kudah Bux_ (the Gift in question) is the son of an
+adoring Mohamedan father; he goes to England for education in the law,
+and there falls in love with and marries the brainless daughter of a
+London landlady. He is a very human and appealing figure. The debacle
+that follows his return to India with so impossible a bride is told
+in a way that convinces. Here Mrs. PERRIN is at her best. Some of the
+shorter tales also succeed very happily in conveying that peculiar
+Simla-by-South-Kensington atmosphere of retired Anglo-Indian society
+which she suggests with such intimate understanding. But, to be
+honest, the others (with the exception of one quaint little comedy
+of a canine ghost) are but indifferent stuff, too full of snakes and
+hidden treasure and general tawdriness--the kind of Orientalism,
+in fact, that one used to associate chiefly with the Earl's Court
+Exhibition. Mrs. PERRIN must not mingle her genuine native goods with
+such Brummagem ware.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My idea is that when Mr. H.C. BAILEY called his latest story _The
+Young Lovers_ (METHUEN) he was doing it something less than justice.
+For the width and variety of the plot make it far more than a mere
+love-tale. _Arma virique_ are quite as much Mr. BAILEY'S theme as
+Cupid, who indeed makes a rather belated appearance at the tag end.
+Before that we have a vast deal of agreeable adventuring. The scene is
+set in the period of the Peninsular War; all the characters, lovers,
+parents and hangers-on, are more or less involved in the fluctuating
+fortunes of my Lord WELLINGTON. There are spies of both sides,
+intrigues, abductions and what not. Mr. BAILEY has a pretty touch
+for such matters; his people move with an air; and, if at times their
+speech seems a trifle over-burnished, dulness is far from them.
+Moreover, the incidents of the campaign give scope for some vivid
+descriptions of war and battles, as such were in the old days before
+Mars put off his gold lace and sacrificed the picturesque. Sometimes,
+on the other hand, it is the similarity of conditions then and now
+that will strike you. For example, the passage telling how, despite
+apparent inactivity and home prognostications of stalemate, the
+confidence of the Army grew from day to day--impossible not to see the
+very obvious parallel there. In fine, Mr. BAILEY has given us another
+brisk and engaging romance, which, if it is not quite the kind you
+might expect from its title, is something a good deal better worth
+reading.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Fort Worth, Texas.--Poolville, Parker county, near here, has
+    raised $1,246.50 as a reward for the delivery of the German
+    emperor into the hands of the American authorities."--_Buffalo
+    Courier_.
+
+On reading this item HINDENBURG is reported to have said that if
+Poolville would make it even money he would think about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED INCIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF
+ANCIENT ROME. SEQUEL TO THE WARNING GIVEN BY THE PATRIOTIC GEESE.]
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+153, DEC. 5, 1917***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 11425.txt or 11425.zip *******
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