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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156,
+April 30, 1919, 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. 156, April 30, 1919
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2004  [eBook #11429]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 156, APRIL 30, 1919***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, Carla Kruger, 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 11429-h.htm or 11429-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/4/2/11429/11429-h/11429-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/4/2/11429/11429-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 156.
+
+APRIL 30, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+An alarming rumour is going the rounds to the effect that Printing House
+Square refuses to accept any responsibility for the findings of the
+Peace Conference.
+
+       ***
+
+"Mystery," says a news item, "surrounds the purchase of fifty retail
+fish shops in and about London." The Athenaeum Club is full of the
+wildest rumours.
+
+       ***
+
+The statement of the Allied Food Commission, that there are more sheep
+in Germany to-day than in 1914, has come as a surprise to those who
+imagined that the loud bleating noise was chiefly Herr SCHEIDEMANN.
+
+       ***
+
+"Get your muzzle now!" says _The Daily Mail_. It is felt, however, that
+the PRIME MINISTER scored a distinct hit by saying it first.
+
+       ***
+
+"There is absolutely no reason," says a Health Culture writer, "why
+Members of Parliament should not live to be one hundred." We think we
+could find a reason if we were pressed.
+
+       ***
+
+To-morrow a man in the North of England is to celebrate his hundredth
+birthday. He will be the youngest centenarian in the country.
+
+       ***
+
+At Ealing it appears that a rabid dog dashed into a pork butcher's shop
+and snapped at a sausage. The sausage was immediately shot.
+
+       ***
+
+The War Office, says a contemporary, is to have another storey built.
+In order that the work shall not cause any sleepless days it is to be
+undertaken by night.
+
+       ***
+
+It is reported that a burglar who has been drawing unemployment pay has
+decided to return to work.
+
+       ***
+
+The New Zealand Government has decided to check the introduction of
+influenza, and every passenger arriving there is to be examined. All
+germs not declared are liable to be confiscated by the Customs.
+
+       ***
+
+Nearly all the Bank Holiday visitors to Hampstead Heath, it is stated,
+chose a silver-mounted bridge-marker in preference to nuts.
+
+       ***
+
+Two days before his wedding a man at Uxbridge was summoned to Wales by
+his wife for desertion. It is said that his second wedding went off
+quietly.
+
+       ***
+
+It is understood that the Home Office does not propose to re-arrest DE
+VALERA. The official view is that in future the Irish must provide their
+own entertainment.
+
+       ***
+
+We hear that all imprisoned Sinn Feiners have been instructed to give a
+day's notice in future before escaping, so that nobody shall do it out
+of his proper turn.
+
+       ***
+
+Citizens of Clarkson, Washington, U.S.A., have appealed to the
+Government to protect them against a plague of frogs. The Federal
+authorities have informed the Press that these insidious attempts to
+distract the Government from its Prohibition programme must not be taken
+seriously.
+
+       ***
+
+From an American newspaper we gather that a New York plutocrat has by
+his will cut his wife off with twelve million dollars.
+
+       ***
+
+"Is the Kaiser Highly Strung?" asks a weekly paper headline. We shall be
+able to answer this question a little later.
+
+       ***
+
+The report that an early bather was seen executing the Jazz-dance on
+the beach at Ventnor on Easter Monday seems to have some foundation. It
+appears that his partner was a large crab with well-developed claws.
+
+       ***
+
+We hear that visitors at a well-known London hotel, who have patiently
+borne the extension of the gratuity nuisance for a considerable time,
+now take exception to the notice, "Please tip the basin," which has been
+prominently placed in the lavatory.
+
+       ***
+
+On many golf-links nowadays the caddies are expected to keep count of
+the number of strokes taken for each hole. One beginner whom we know is
+seriously thinking of employing a chartered accountant for this purpose.
+
+       ***
+
+What cricket needs, says a sporting contemporary, is bright breezy
+batting. The game should no longer depend for its sparkle on impromptu
+badinage between the umpire and the wicket-keeper.
+
+       ***
+
+People who think they have heard the cuckoo before the first of May,
+declares a well-known ornithologist, are usually the victims of young
+practical jokers. The conspicuous barring of the bird's plumage should,
+however, make any real confusion impossible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ABSENT-MINDED PHYSICIAN SENT BY HIS WIFE TO BUY "TWO GOOD
+SOUND BIRDS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+    "Striking testimony as to the popularity of the Cataract Cliff
+    Grounds--when it is remembered that the period embraces the complete
+    term of the war--is the fact that during the past five years an
+    aggregate of 428,390 persons was bitten by a snake."
+
+    _Tasmanian Paper._
+
+The snake may be fairly said to have done his bit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PEACE AT THE SEASIDE.
+
+    [The public are being passionately warned against the threatened
+    crush at watering-places in August of this year of Peace.]
+
+  Stoutly we bore with April's icy blizzards;
+    "The worst of Spring," we said, "will soon be through;
+  Summer is bound to come and warm our gizzards
+    And we shall gambol by the briny blue."
+
+  But even as we put the annual question,
+    "Where shall we water? on what golden strand?"
+  Warnings appear of terrible congestion,
+    Of lodgers countless as the local sand.
+
+  Lucky the man, the hardened strap-suspender,
+    Who with a first-class ticket, there and back,
+  Finds a precarious seat upon the tender,
+    A rocky berth upon the baggage-rack.
+
+  Should he arrive, the breath of life still in him,
+    His face will be repulsed from door to door;
+  He'll get no lodging, not the very minim,
+    Save under heaven on the pebbly shore.
+
+  In vain he pleads for stall-room in the stable;
+    The cellars are engaged; 'tis idle talk
+  To ask for bedding on the billiard-table--
+    Two families are there, each side of baulk.
+
+  Next morn he fain would wash in ocean's spray (there's
+    Balm in the waves that helps you to forget),
+  And lo! the deep is simply stiff with bathers;
+    He has no chance of even getting wet.
+
+  He starves as never in the age of rations;
+    The fishy produce of the boundless sea
+  Fails to appease the hungry trippers' passions
+    Who barely pouch one shrimp apiece for tea.
+
+  "I came," he says, "to swallow priceless ozone
+    Under Britannia's elemental spell;
+  She rules the waves, as all her conquered foes own;
+    I wish she ruled her seasides half as well.
+
+  "I don't know what the beaten Bosch may suffer
+    Compared with us who won the late dispute,
+  But if it equals this (it can't be tougher),
+    Why, then I feel some pity for the brute."
+
+  So by the London train upon the morrow
+    From holiday delights he gets release,
+  Conspuing, more in anger than in sorrow,
+    The pestilent amenities of Peace.
+
+O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GREAT BEARD MYSTERY.
+
+Where do men go when, they want to grow beards? This is a question
+as yet unanswered, and the whole subject is shrouded in impenetrable
+mystery.
+
+One sees thousands of men with beards, but one never sees anyone growing
+a beard. I cannot recall, in a life of varied travel, having ever
+encountered a man actually engaged in the process of beard-cultivation.
+The secret is well kept, doubtless by a kind of freemasonry amongst
+bearded men, but there can be little doubt that somewhere there are
+nurseries where a _bonâ-fide_ beard-grower who is in the secret can
+retire until he is presentable.
+
+I have frequently been annoyed by the way in which these men flaunt
+their beards at one; their whole manner seems to convey an air of
+superiority; they seem to say, "Look at my beard. You can't grow a beard
+because you haven't the moral courage to appear in public while it's
+growing. Wouldn't you like to know the secret? Well, I won't tell you."
+
+Determined to suffer these contemptuous glances no longer, I set out
+on a voyage of discovery to unravel the mystery of England's
+beard-nurseries.
+
+I asked bearded men if they knew of anywhere in the country where one
+could slip away in order to grow a beard, but they always gave me
+evasive replies, such as: "Why not have an illness and stay in bed for
+three months?" But when I went on to ask where they had grown theirs,
+they either made an excuse to leave me or said evasively, "Oh, I've
+always had mine."
+
+I once went to the enormous expense of making a bearded Scotch
+acquaintance intoxicated in order to drag the secret from him, but
+the question as to where he grew his beard instantly sobered him, and
+nothing would induce him to touch another drop.
+
+I have bribed barbers without success. I have vainly shadowed men for
+a month who looked as if they intended growing beards. I even took
+advantage of Armageddon to join the Navy, where beards are permitted;
+but when I tried to start growing one I was instantly reprimanded for
+not shaving by a bearded Commander, who had the same triumphant gleam of
+superiority which I had noticed ashore.
+
+In the Old Testament there was no secrecy on the subject. Somebody said,
+"Tarry in Jericho until your beards be grown." But I am quite satisfied
+in my own mind that modern beard-growers do not go to Jericho; I have
+established this fact. No, there are in England properly organised
+beard-nurseries, and the secret of their whereabouts is jealously
+guarded; but I have by no means relaxed my determination to discover
+them, and to give to the world the results of my research.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GRAND REFUSALS.
+
+At the private reception the night before Miss CARNEGIE'S wedding, "the
+ironmaster," so we read in our _Daily Mail_, "entertained his guests
+with numerous reminiscences of his life, and it was observed that
+he interrupted a story concerning King EDWARD and Skibo to whisper
+something in his daughter's ear concerning her dowry. He was telling the
+guests how the King offered to make him a Duke if he would bring about a
+coalition between England and the United States. 'I told King EDWARD,'
+said Mr. CARNEGIE, 'that in these United States every man is King. Why
+should I be a Duke?'"
+
+It is pleasant to read of the heroic refusal of the staunch Republican
+to compromise the principles which he so eloquently vindicated in his
+_Triumphant Democracy_; but it is only right to add that this is not an
+isolated case.
+
+Thus it is a literally open secret that when a famous ventriloquist was
+offered the O.B.E. for his services in popularising the Navy, he refused
+the coveted distinction on the ground that it would be derogatory to a
+Prince to accept it.
+
+When Sir HENRY DUKE retired from the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland he
+was offered a Viscounty, but declined the proffered distinction, wittily
+observing that as he was born a Duke he did not see why he should
+descend to a lower grade of the peerage.
+
+Then there is the notorious case of Mr. KING who, on being offered a
+peerage if he would desist from his criticisms of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE and
+his Ministry, pointed out that other monarchs might abdicate, but that
+those who thought _he_ would do so clearly knew not JOSEPH.
+
+As for the titles, decorations and distinctions offered by the EX-KAISER
+to Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE if he would bring about a _rapprochement_ between
+England and Germany, and patriotically declined by the eminent
+publicist, their name is legion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE MENACE OF MAY.
+
+AUSTEN CHAMBERMAID _(to John Bull)._ "YOUR TEA AND THE MORNING PAPER,
+SIR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Charlady (on the subject of appearance)._ "OF COURSE I
+DON'T BOTHER NOW--BUT I USED TO BE ABLE TO TREAD ON MY 'AIR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CIVILIAN FLYING, 1930.
+
+"You're late," said Millie, as John entered the hall and shook himself
+free of his flying coat.
+
+"Yes, dear; missed the 5.40 D.H. from the Battersea Park Take-off by a
+minute to-night. Jones brought me home on that neat little knock-about
+spad he's just bought. Small two-seater arrangement, you know. Then I
+walked from the 'drome just to stretch myself. They don't give you too
+much move space in those planettes."
+
+"Oh, I'd just love to have an aeroplanette like that!" exclaimed Millie.
+"Mrs. Smith says she simply couldn't do without hers now; it makes her
+so independent. She can pop up to town, do her shopping and get back in
+a short afternoon."
+
+"Um--yes," calculated John. "Less than seventy miles the double
+journey--she'd manage that all right."
+
+"And that pilot of theirs," went on Millie, "seems just as safe with the
+'pup' as he is with that great twin-engined bus her husband is so keen
+on."
+
+"Yes," said John; "must be quite an undertaking getting Smith's
+tri-plane on the sky-way. It's useful for a family party, though. I
+hear he packed twenty or thirty on to it for the picnic they had
+at John-o'-Groat's last week. By the way," added John, as he moved
+upstairs, "aren't the Robinsons coming to dinner?"
+
+"Yes, you'd better hurry up and change," advised Millie.
+
+The Robinsons were very up-to-date people, John decided as they sat
+down to the meal a little later. He hadn't met them before. They were
+Millie's friends.
+
+"Very glad to know such near neighbours," he said cordially. "Why, it's
+under forty miles to your place, I should think."
+
+"Forty-seven kilos, to be exact," Robinson volunteered, "and I should
+say we did it under twenty minutes."
+
+"Quite good flying," said John.
+
+"We came by the valley route, too," put in Mrs. Robinson. "John was
+good enough to consider my wretched air-pocket nerves rather than his
+petrol."
+
+"It's a couple of miles further," explained Robinson, "but my wife isn't
+such a stout flier as her mother, though the old lady is over seventy.
+My pilot was bringing her from Town one afternoon last week--took the
+Dorking-Leith Hill air-way, you know, always bumpy over there--and I
+suppose from all accounts he must have dropped her a hundred feet plumb,
+side-slipped and got into a spinning dive and only pulled the old bus
+out again when the furrows in a ploughed field below them had grown
+easily countable."
+
+"Yes, it makes me shivery to think of," ejaculated Mrs. Robinson; "but
+mother really has extraordinary nerve. She wasn't in the least upset."
+
+"No, not a little bit, by Jove!" added Robinson. "The old sport just
+leaned forward in her seat and, when James had adjusted his head-piece,
+she coolly reprimanded him for stunting without orders. Of course she
+doesn't know anything about the theory of the thing, you see."
+
+With the dessert came letters by the late air post.
+
+"Oh, please excuse me," said Millie, as she took them from the maid,
+"I see there's a reply from Auntie--the Edinburgh aunt, you know,"
+she explained. "I wrote her this morning, imploring her to come over
+to-morrow for the bazaar. She's so splendid at that sort of thing."
+
+"What my wife's aunt doesn't know about flying isn't worth knowing,"
+remarked John with finality. "Why, she qualified for her ticket last
+year, and she'll never see forty again. How's that for an up-to-date
+aunt?"
+
+"I doubt if she'll fly solo that distance, though," said Millie; "I
+don't think she ought to, either."
+
+"Of course," said Robinson, "it's a bit of a strain for a woman of
+middle age to negotiate three hundred odd miles, even with a couple of
+landings for a cup of tea _en route_."
+
+Millie rose. "Now, don't you men sit here for an hour discussing 'flying
+speeds,' 'gliding angles,' and all that sort of thing. I object to
+aero-maniacs on principle. I--" At that moment a peculiar noise,
+evidently in the near vicinity of the house, arrested the attention of
+the party.
+
+"Sounded like something breaking," said Millie, going to the window,
+which overlooked the garden and a good-sized paddock beyond. John had
+already gone out to investigate.
+
+In a minute or two he reappeared ushering in a very jolly-looking old
+gentleman in a flying suit.
+
+"A thousand pardons, Mrs. Smith," said the new arrival; "John collected
+me in the paddock. Ha! ha! You know my theory about the paddock."
+
+The guests having been introduced, explanations followed.
+
+"You know my theory," began old Mr, Brown.
+
+"Yes, rather; I should think we do," interrupted Millie, leading him
+to the most comfortable armchair "But," she quoted, "you are old, Mr.
+Brown; do you think at your age it is right?"
+
+"Well, the theory's smashed, anyhow," said John decisively, "and so's my
+fence."
+
+"No! no! I won't hear of it," laughed Brown; "I admit the fence, but not
+the theory. You see," he went on, turning to Mrs. Robinson, "I've always
+insisted, as Smith knows, that there's plenty of landing space in his
+paddock, provided you do it up wind. The fact is I glided in to-night
+from east to west. Thought I should be dead head on; but I believe I was
+a couple of points out in my reckoning and so failed to bring the old
+'bus to a stand short of the fence. You know, Smith," he added, with an
+injured air, "you ought to have a wind-pointer rigged up so's there'd be
+no doubt about it."
+
+"Just to encourage reckless old gentlemen to smash up my premises, I
+suppose," retorted John. "But I admit I found some consolation for my
+smashed fence when I observed the pathetic appearance of your under
+carriage, after your famous landing."
+
+"And now," said Millie to Mr. Brown, "all will be forgotten and forgiven
+if you'll come into the drawing-room and let Mr. and Mrs. Robinson hear
+you sing that jolly song about
+
+  "'Come and have a flip
+  In a big H Pip,' etc.
+
+"You know."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The egg shortage notwithstand, the Easter egg rolling carnival at
+    Preston, which dates back to mediaeval times, was, after a lapse of
+    four years, celebrated with great musto."
+
+    _Midland Paper._
+
+Pre-war eggs, apparently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANOTHER CANDID CANDIDATE.
+
+"---- BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
+
+"Mrs. ---- desires to thank all who voted so splendidly, placing her at
+the top of the pole."
+
+_Provincial Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The queue at one part of the morning extended from the booking
+    office, past the Midland Station entrance, into City Square,
+    along the front of the Queen's Hotel, to the top of
+    yesterday."--_Yorkshire Paper_.
+
+Better than the middle of next week, anyhow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Voice_. "IS THAT THE GREAT SOUTHERN RAILWAY?"
+
+_Flapper_. "YES."
+
+_Voice_. "ARE YOU THE PASSENGER DEPARTMENT?"
+
+_Flapper_. "NO, I'M THE GOODS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Village Oracle._ "YOU MARK MY WORDS--THESE 'ERE
+GERMANS 'LL DO US DOWN AT THIS FINISH. THEY'LL PAY THE BLOOMIN' SIX
+THOUSAND MILLIONS, OR WOTEVER IT IS, IN THREEPENNY BITS; AND THEN 'OO
+THE 'ELL'S GOING TO COUNT IT?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"AS YOU WERE."
+
+A MEMORY OF MI-CARÊME.
+
+Chippo Munks is a regular time-serving soldier, as distinguished from
+the amateurs who only joined the Army for the sake of a war. His company
+conduct-sheet runs into volumes, and in peace-time they fix a special
+peg outside the orderly-room for him to hang his cap on. At present he
+systematically neglects the functions of billet-orderly at a Base town
+in France.
+
+A month or two ago he came across Chris Jones.
+
+"Fined fourteen days' pay," said Chippo; "an' cheap it was at the price.
+But the financial embarrassment thereby followin' puts me under the
+necessity of borrowing the loan of a five-spotter."
+
+"How did it happen?" said Chris, playing for time.
+
+"'Twas this way," said Chippo. "The other night I was walking down the
+Roo Roobray, thinking out ways of making you chaps more comfortable in
+the billet, as is my custom. Suddenly out of the gloom there looms a Red
+Indian in full war-paint.
+
+"'Strange,' thinks I. 'Chinks an' Portugoose we expects here, likewise
+Annamites and Senegalese an' doughboys; but I never heard that the
+BUFFALO BILL aggregation had taken the war-path.'
+
+"He passes, and a little Geisha comes tripping by. I rubs my eyes an'
+says, 'British Constitootian' correctly; but she was followed by a Gipsy
+King and a Welsh Witch. Then I sees a masked Toreador coming along, and
+I decides to arsk him all about it. The language question didn't worry
+me any. I can pitch the cuffer in any bat from Tamil to Arabic, an' the
+only chap I couldn't compree was a deaf-an'-dumb man who suffered from
+St. Vitus' Dance, which made 'im stutter with his fingers.
+
+"'Hi, caballero,' says I, 'where's the bull-fight?'
+
+"'It isn't a bull-fight, M'sieur,' he replies. 'It's Mi-Carême.'
+
+"'If he's an Irishman,' I says, 'I never met him; but if it's a kind of
+pastry I'll try some.'
+
+"Then he shows me a doorway through which they was all entering, and
+beside it was a big yellow poster which said, '_Mi-Carême. Grand Bal
+Costume. Cavaliers, 2 francs. Dames, 1 franc 50 centimes.'_
+
+"'I'd love to be a cavalier at two francs a time,' I remarks. 'Besides,
+I want to make the farther acquaintance of little Perfume of Pineapple
+Essence who passed by just now.'
+
+"'It will be necessary to 'ave a costume, M'sieur,' says Don Rodrigo.
+
+"'Trust me,' I answers with dignity; 'I've won diplomas as a fancy-dress
+architect.'
+
+"I goes to my billet and investigates the personal effects of my
+colleagues. My choice fell on a Cameron kilt, a football jersey and a
+shrapnel helmet. These I puts into a bundle an' hikes back to the Hall
+of Dance.
+
+"'May I ask what M'sieur represents?' said the doorkeeper as I paid my
+two francs.
+
+"'I haven't started yet,' I answers asperiously. 'I assumes my costume
+as APPIUS CLAUDIUS in the dressing-room.'
+
+"Well, when I'd finished my toilette--regrettin' the while that I
+hadn't brought a pair of spurs to complete the costume--I entered the
+ball-room. It was a scene of East-end--I mean Eastern--splendour.
+Carmens an' Father Timeses, Pierrots an' Pierrettes, Pompadours an'
+Apaches was gyrating to the soft strains of the orchestra, who perspired
+at the piano in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+"All of a sudden I saw my little Geisha, my Stick of Scented
+Brilliantine, waltzing with the Toreador, an' my heart started beating
+holes in my football jersey. When the orchestra stopped playing to light
+a cigarette I sought her out.
+
+"'O Choicest of the Fifty-seven Varieties,' I says, 'deign to give me
+your honourable hand for the next gladiatorial jazz.'
+
+"The Bull-fighter looked black, but she put her little hand in mine an'
+we trod a stately measure. Every now an' then a shadow passed o'er the
+ballroom, an' I knew it was the Toreador scowling. But I took no notice
+of him, an' we danced nearly everything on the menu, Don Rodrigo only
+getting an odd item now an' then to prevent him dying of grief.
+
+"By-an'-by the Geisha said she must be going, so I offered to escort her
+home. Don Roddy tried to butt in, and when he got the frozen face he
+used langwidge more like a cow-puncher than a bull-fighter. I didn't
+trouble to change my clothes, because it seemed to be the custom to walk
+about like freaks at Mi-Carême, and we had a lovely promenade in the
+pale moonlight.
+
+"When I returned the revelry was nearly over an' the orchestra was
+getting limp. I went into the cloak-room to change my clothes, but I
+couldn't find 'em anywhere. What annoyed me most about it was that there
+was five francs in my trouser pockets which I was saving to pay you back
+the loan I borrered last week."
+
+"I wondered when you were going to say something about that," said Chris
+Jones.
+
+"It fair upset me," continued Chippo. "And then all at once I saw my old
+pal the Toreador sneaking out of the door with a bundle an' the leg of
+a pair of khaki trousers hanging out of it. I gave a wild whoop an' was
+after him like the wind.
+
+"Don Roddy was some runner. He doubled down the Roo Roubray, dodged
+round a corner an' made for the Grand Pont. I was gaining on him fast
+when I plunked into the arms of two Military Police.
+
+"'What particular specie of night-bird do you call yourself?' said one
+of 'em, holding my arm in a grip of iron.
+
+"'I'm a Sergeant-drummer in the Roman-Legion,' says I, trying to get
+away. 'An' I'm in a hurry.'
+
+"'Well, where's your pass?'
+
+"'We don't wear 'em in our battalion,' I says. 'For heving's sake let me
+go. There's a chap over there trying to pinch my wardrobe.'
+
+"It was no use. They held me tight, notwithstandin' me struggles, till
+the Toreador disappeared from view over the bridge.
+
+"'That's done it. I'll go quietly,' I groans to the M.P.'s in
+despair. 'That's Chris Jones's five francs gone west, and nuthen else
+matters.'"...
+
+"Well," said Chris Jones, "what then?"
+
+"The rest you knows," said Chippo plaintively, "exceptin' that later my
+clothes was mysteriously dumped at th' billet with the pockets empty.
+But I think the distressing circumstances are such as warrants me in
+arsking fer the loan of another five francs."
+
+"They would be," said Chris Jones, fumbling with his wallet, "only I
+happened to be the Toreador myself. But you can have the same old five
+francs back, an' be 'as you were'!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "CAN I 'AVE THE AFTERNOON OFF TO SEE A BLOKE ABAHT A JOB
+FER MY MISSIS?"
+
+"YOU'LL BE BACK IN THE MORNING, I SUPPOSE?"
+
+"YUS--IF SHE DON'T GET IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW TO PLAY GOLF WITH YOUR HEAD.
+
+    "He cocked his head up when playing his approach and hit it all
+    along the carpet."
+
+    _Evening Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AS YOU LIKE IT OR DON'T.
+
+SCENE.--_Bois do Boulogne_.
+
+_Enter_ Orlando.
+
+  _Orlando (reading from sheet of paper)._
+
+  I should be extremely gloomy
+  If they pinched from me my Fiume.
+
+[_Pins composition on tree._
+
+Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love. [_Exit_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.
+
+    "If this pianist is not heard again in Shanghai, he will carry away
+    with him the grateful thanks of our music-lovers."
+
+    _Shanghai Mercury_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "This debate will immediately precede the introduction of the
+    Budget, and will, let us hope, inaugurate a campaign for national
+    entrenchment."--_Provincial Paper._
+
+Ah! if only, as taxpayers, we could dig ourselves in!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE HOUSING QUESTION.
+
+Someone estimated the other day that England is short just now of five
+hundred thousand houses. This is a miscalculation. She is really short
+of five hundred thousand and one, the odd one being the house that we
+are looking for and cannot find.
+
+We have discovered many houses in our tour of London, but none that
+gives complete satisfaction. Either the locality or the shape or the
+price is all wrong; or, as more often happens, the fixtures. By the
+fixtures I mean, of course, the people who are already in the place and
+refuse to come out of it; London is full of houses with the wrong people
+in them.
+
+"I wonder," says Celia, standing outside some particularly desirable
+residence, "if we dare go in and ask them if they wouldn't like to
+move."
+
+"We can't live there unless they do," I agreed. "It would be so
+crowded."
+
+"After all, I suppose they took it from somebody else some time or
+other. I don't see why we shouldn't take it from _them_."
+
+"As soon as they put a 'TO LET' board outside we will."
+
+Celia hangs about hopefully for some days after this, waiting for a man
+to come along with a "TO LET" board over his shoulder. As soon as he
+plants it in the front garden she means to rush forward, strike out the
+"TO," and present herself to the occupier with her cheque-book in her
+hand. It is thus, she assures me, that the best houses are snapped up;
+but it is weary waiting, and I cannot take my turn on guard, for I must
+stay at home and earn the money which the landlord (sordid fellow) will
+want.
+
+Sometimes we search the advertisement columns in the papers in the hope
+of finding something that may do.
+
+"Here's one," I announced one morning; "'For American millionaires and
+others. Fifteen bathrooms--' Oh, no, that's too big."
+
+"Isn't there anything for English hundredaires?" said Celia.
+
+"Here's one that says 'reasonable offer taken.'"
+
+"Yes, but I don't suppose we reason the same way as he does."
+
+"Well, here's one for four thousand pounds. That's not so bad. I mean as
+a price, not as a house."
+
+"Have you got four thousand pounds?"
+
+"No; I was hoping _you_ had."
+
+"Couldn't you mortgage something--up to the hilt?"
+
+"We'll have a look," I said.
+
+We spent the rest of that day looking for something to mortgage, but
+found nothing with a hilt at all high up.
+
+"Anyhow," I said, "it was a rotten house."
+
+"Wouldn't it be simpler," said Celia, "to put in an advertisement
+ourselves, describing exactly the sort of house we want? That's the way
+I always get servants."
+
+"A house is so much more difficult to describe than a cook."
+
+"Oh, but I'm sure _you_ could do it. You describe things so well."
+
+Feeling highly flattered, I retired to the library and composed.
+
+For the first hour or so I tried to do it in the _staccato_ language of
+house-agents. They say all they want to say in five lines; I tried to
+say all we wanted to say in ten. The result was hopeless. We both agreed
+that we should hate to live in that sort of house. Celia indeed seemed
+to feel that if I couldn't write better than that we couldn't afford to
+live in a house at all.
+
+"You don't seem to realise," I said, "that in the ordinary way people
+pay _me_ for writing. This time, so far from receiving any money, I have
+actually got to hand it out in order to get into print at all. You can
+hardly expect me to give my best to an editor of that kind."
+
+"I thought that the artist in you would insist on putting your best into
+_everything_ that you wrote, quite apart from the money."
+
+Of course after that the artist in me had to pull himself together. An
+hour later it had delivered itself as follows:--
+
+"WANTED, an unusual house. When I say unusual I mean that it mustn't
+look like anybody's old house. Actually it should contain three
+living-rooms and five bedrooms. One of the bedrooms may be a
+dressing-room, if it is quite understood that a dressing-room does not
+mean a cupboard in which the last tenant's housemaid kept her brushes.
+The other four bedrooms must be a decent size and should get plenty of
+sun. The exigencies of the solar system may make it impossible for the
+sun to be always there, but it should be around when wanted. With regard
+to the living-rooms, it is essential that they should not be square
+but squiggly. The drawing-room should be particularly squiggly; the
+dining-room should have at least an air of squiggliness; and the third
+room, in which I propose to work, may be the least squiggly of the
+three, but it _must_ be inspiring, otherwise the landlord may not obtain
+his rent. The kitchen arrangements do not interest me greatly, but they
+will interest the cook, and for this reason should be as delightful as
+possible; after which warning anybody with a really bad basement on his
+hands will see the wisdom of retiring from the _queue_ and letting the
+next man move up one. The bathroom should have plenty of space, not only
+for the porcelain bath which it will be expected to contain, but also
+(as is sometimes forgotten) for the bather after he or she has stepped
+out of the bath. The fireplaces should not be, as they generally are,
+utterly beastly. Owners of utterly beastly fireplaces may also move out
+of the queue, but they should take their places up at the end again in
+case they are wanted; for, if things were satisfactory otherwise, their
+claims might be considered, since even the beastliest fireplace can be
+dug out at the owner's expense and replaced with something tolerable.
+
+"A little garden would be liked. At any rate there must be a view of
+trees, whether one's own or somebody else's.
+
+"As regards position, the house must be in London. I mean really in
+London. I mean really in central London. The outlying portions of
+Kensington, such as Ealing, Hanwell and Uxbridge, are no good.
+Cricklewood, Highgate, New Barnet and similar places near Portman Square
+are useless. It must be in London--in the middle of London.
+
+"Now we come to rather an important matter. Rent. It is up to you to say
+how much you want; but let me give you one word of warning. Don't be
+absurd. You aren't dealing now with one of those profiteers who remained
+(with honour) in his own country. And you can have our flat in exchange,
+if you like--well, it isn't ours really, it's the landlord's, but we
+will introduce you to him without commission. Anyway, don't be afraid of
+saying what you want; if it is absurd (and I expect it will be) we will
+tell you so. And if you _must_ have a lump sum instead of an annual one,
+well, perhaps we could manage to borrow it (from you or somebody); but
+smaller annual lumps would be preferred."
+
+When I had written it out I handed it to Celia.
+
+"There you are," I said, "and, speaking as an artist, I don't see how I
+can make it a word shorter."
+
+She read it carefully through.
+
+"It does sound a jolly house," she said wistfully. "Would it cost a lot
+as an advertisement?"
+
+"About the first year's rent. And even then nobody would take it
+seriously."
+
+"Oh, well, perhaps I'd better go and see another agent." She fingered
+the advertisement regretfully. "It seems a pity to waste this," she
+added with a smile.
+
+But the artist in me was already quite resolved that it should not be
+wasted.
+
+A.A.M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Lady_. "POOR DEAR! AND SO THEY REJECTED IT? IT'S A
+SHAME--THEY OUGHT TO SET YOU SIMPLER SUBJECTS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A THREATENED SOURCE OF REVENUE.
+
+The POSTMASTER-GENERAL and the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER are at this
+moment the most melancholy of men. For the last few months they had been
+quietly chuckling to themselves over one of the most brilliant ideas
+that ever adorned the annals of Government. But the best laid schemes
+gang aft agley.
+
+While publicists and economic experts were shaking their grey hairs over
+the prospect of national bankruptcy, the P.M.G. and the C. of E. were
+weeping jazz tears of joy as the national debt lifted before their
+eyes "like mist unrolled on the morning wind." And then certain
+unsophisticated Members of a new, a very new, House of Commons began
+their deadly work. As a result the main scheme of national solvency is
+in danger.
+
+There are those who still think that the franchise was extended to women
+merely as an objective piece of political justice. I hate cynicism, and
+I should be the last to throw cold water on an ideal, but, as I said,
+the real fruits of that political master-stroke are in danger.
+
+While millions of enfranchised women were quietly engaged in writing
+twice a week to their particular Member, at three half-pence a time (or
+more), they were unconsciously assisting the considered policy of His
+Majesty's Government, which was that such letters should be written and
+remain unanswered; that more letters and still more should be written,
+stamped and posted to demand an answer, and that still more should be
+written to friends and relations exposing the grave lack of courtesy at
+Westminster.
+
+But, alas! certain Members, with monumental naïveté, have thought fit
+to take their correspondence seriously. They have put questions to
+Ministers. They have in so many crude words openly on the floor of the
+House referred to "the increase in the number of letters which Members
+now receive from their constituents on parliamentary matters, owing to
+the recent additions to the franchise and its extension to women."
+They have pleaded for the privilege of "franking" their answers. Could
+perversity go further? What woman will continue to write to a Member who
+satisfies her curiosity? And what of the unwritten, unstamped, unposted
+letters of just indignation to friends and relations?
+
+The P.M.G.'s laconic answer to this monstrous request, "I do not think
+it would be expedient," was highly commendable as a feat of Ministerial
+restraint. But the gloom that has settled on him is only too solidly
+grounded. These afflicted Members are out to raise a sentimental
+public opinion in support of their silly demand. Then, of course, the
+Government will capitulate, and the country will go Bolshevik from
+excessive taxation.
+
+Will not all patriotic women constituents write at once to their Members
+and point out the folly of this agitation?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "I SHALL NEVER FIND ANYONE ELSE LIKE YOU. YOU SEE, YOU'RE
+SO DIFFERENT FROM OTHER GIRLS."
+
+"OH, BUT YOU'LL FIND LOTS OF OTHER GIRLS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER GIRLS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OLD SOLDIERS.
+
+  They dug us down and earthed us in, their hasty shovels plying,
+    Us the poor dead of Oudenarde, Ramillies, Waterloo;
+  We heard their drum-taps fading and their trumpet fanfares dying
+  As they marched away and left us, in the dark and silence lying,
+    Home-bound for happy England and the green fields that we knew.
+
+  We slept. The seasons went their round. We did not hear the rover
+    Winds in our coverlets of grass, the plough-shares tear the mould;
+  We did not feel the bridal earth thrill to her April lover
+  Nor hear the song of bees among the poppies and the clover;
+    Snow-fall or sun to us were one and time went by untold.
+
+  We woke. The soil about us shook to the long boom of thunder--
+    War loose and making music on his crashing brazen gongs--
+  The sharp hoof-beat, the thresh of feet stirred our old bones down under;
+  Wheels upon wheels ground overhead; then with a glow of wonder
+    We heard the chant of Englishmen singing their marching songs.
+
+  Blood of our blood! We heard them swing a-down the teeming highways,
+    As we swung once. We heard them shout; we heard the jests they cast.
+  And we dead men remembered then blue Junes in Devon by-ways,
+  Star-dusted skies and women's eyes, women with sweet and shy ways.
+    These were their race! We strove to rise, but the strong clay held us fast.
+
+  Year in, year out, along the roads the ceaseless wagons clattered;
+    Listened we for an English voice ever, ever in vain;
+  Far in the west, year out, year in, terrible thunders battered,
+  Drumming the doom of whom--of whom? Hope in our hearts lay shattered....
+    Then we heard the lilt of Highland pipes and English songs again.
+
+  On, ever on, we heard them press; their jaunty bugles blended
+    Proudly and clear that we might hear, we dead men of old wars,
+  How the red agony was passed and the long vigil ended.
+  Now may we sleep in peace again lapped in a vision splendid
+    Of England's banners marching onwards, upwards to the stars.
+
+PATLANDER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE MILITARY MUZZLE.
+
+FRITZ. "AFTER ALL, IT'S NOT MUCH GOOD BARKING WHEN THEY'VE STOPPED MY
+BITE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OUR SENSITIVE YOUTH.
+
+_Cadet_. "'SCUSE ME, SIR--ARE YOU A DOCTOR? THERE'S A BOY FAINTED."
+
+_Doctor_. "AH--FATIGUE, I SUPPOSE?"
+
+_Cadet_. "No, SIR. THE SERGEANT SPLIT AN INFINITIVE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRAINS AND BALDNESS.
+
+BY OUR MEDICAL EXPERT.
+
+(_With acknowledgments to "The Times"_).
+
+Baldness among men is undoubtedly on the increase, and various reasons
+have been assigned for its appearance in an exacerbated form. In
+particular the stress and strain of the War have been mooted, and the
+argument is reinforced by such words as Chauvinism, which, Mr. LLOYD
+GEORGE is probably not aware, is derived from _chauve_. War is a solvent
+of equanimity; in the cant but expressive phrase it becomes harder to
+keep one's hair on. Again, _inter arma silent Musae_. Fewer people have
+been playing the pianoforte, an exercise which has always exerted a
+stimulating effect on the follicles. Our political correspondent at
+Paris writes that M. PADEREWSKI'S once luxuriant _chevelure_ has
+suffered sadly since he has taken to politics, but that after playing
+for a couple of hours to Mr. BALFOUR a distinct improvement was
+noticeable.
+
+But no very clear exposition of the subject has yet been forthcoming,
+and this is all the more extraordinary when it is considered that
+baldness is really a very unsightly and distressing condition.
+
+The sensitiveness of JULIUS CAESAR on this score is notorious. CIMABUE,
+of whom Mr. LLOYD GEORGE has probably never heard, was a martyr to
+_alopecia seborrhoica_, and the case of the Highland chieftain MacAssar
+is too well known to call for detailed survey. Yet the strange fact
+remains that hitherto sustained scientific investigation has been
+lacking, though there is assuredly a great, if not perhaps a vital, need
+for it. No one can afford to say that, if this apparently, simple
+malady were studied, facts of the utmost value to hatters would not
+be forthcoming. One can only express regret that those fortunate
+interviewers who have been allowed to describe the cranial developments
+of eminent men should have failed to profit by their opportunities for
+examining the "area of baldness," which corresponds to the distribution
+of the Vth nerve, the branches of which come out from the brain by the
+eye-sockets. Such investigations will never be properly carried out and
+co-ordinated without the establishment of a Hair Ministry, which is one
+of the clamant needs of reconstruction. It is an open secret that the
+question was discussed a year ago and set aside for the curious reason
+that of the three persons whose candidature was most powerfully
+supported two were bald, and the third was the Member for Wigan.
+
+Meanwhile a start has been made by the unofficial activities of a small
+committee of experts in trichology, and their conclusions, published in
+an interim report, are worth recording. They are as follows: "That the
+'area of baldness,' should an illness supervene, will certainly suffer
+to a greater extent than the more vigorous ones. Illness, as is well
+known, tends to interfere with the nourishment of the skin and to
+establish an atrophic diathesis of the follicular ganglia. The patient's
+hair may all come out, or, and this often happens, it may come out only
+in one area--the area of baldness."
+
+In a minority report, signed by only one of the committee, the strange
+theory was expounded that genius developed in a direct ratio with the
+loss of hair between the temporal regions and the crown of the head.
+It was also pointed out that in a great number of TURNER'S pictures a
+special feature was the prominence given to bald-headed fishermen in
+high lights. This observation does not seem to represent a scientific
+attempt to handle the problem; but it should not be rashly dismissed on
+that account.
+
+In a further article we hope to deal with the effect of hard hats on
+the conductivity of the branches of the Vth nerve, the mentality of the
+Hairy Ainus and other cognate questions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mr. 'Iggins (describing his first experience in
+lawsuit)._ "'IS LORDSHIP SEZ, 'YOU CAN GO. THE CASE IS ADJOURNED
+_SINE DIE_. WELL, I WASN'T GOING TO LET 'IM THINK I DIDN'T RUMBLE 'IS
+LAW-TALK, SO I JUS' GIVES 'IM A WINK AN' SEZ, 'RIGHT-O! GOOD BYE-EE!'"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOLSHEVISMUS.
+
+_Valparaiso, April 18th_. (By special cable to _The Daily
+Thrill_.)--Three men, named Fedor Popemoff, Leon Strunski and Igor
+Wunderbaum, were arrested here this morning on suspicion of being
+Bolshevist agents. Their lodging was searched and a quantity of
+seditious literature, a portmanteau full of Browning pistols and some
+hanks of dried caviare removed. At a preliminary examination they
+claimed that they had been sent to Chile by the Siberian Red Cross to
+establish a co-operative guinea-pig ranch for indigent Grand Dukes. The
+police believe that Wunderbaum is no other than the notorious McDuff,
+the Peebles anarchist, who, when not actively engaged in preaching
+revolution, used to earn a precarious livelihood contributing to the
+Scottish comic papers.
+
+_Moscow, April 17th_ (delayed). (By the Special Correspondent of _The
+Morning Roast_.)--By intervening in Russia at once the Allies can
+destroy Bolshevism at a blow. Three days hence the Red hordes may be
+sweeping across Western Europe in an irresistible flood. At the present
+moment Trotsky has less than one thousand one hundred and thirty-five
+trustworthy troops all told, mostly Chinese, with a smattering of Army
+Service Corps. In a month's time he will have a million and a half of
+well-trained soldiers at his beck. Don't ask me how he does it. He
+has plenty of money and his Army is well paid. Only yesterday I saw a
+private of the Red Guards pay five roubles for a hair-cut. Will it be
+another case of "Too late"?
+
+_New York, April 18th._ (By special cable to _The Daily Thrill_.)--While
+truffle-tracking in the Saratoga forest a corporal and three men of the
+United States Marines came upon what is believed to be a _cache_ of
+Bolshevist arms. The _cache_ contained six 9-inch howitzers, two hundred
+thousand rifles and a million rounds of ammunition, and was skilfully
+concealed under the bole of a tree. Secret service men claim that this
+is part of a gigantic plot for the disorganization of traffic, the
+nationalization of cocktails and the wresting of Ireland from the
+strangulating grip of the Anglo-Saxon party. Two men have been arrested
+in Seattle in connection with the affair. On one of them was found
+Bolshevist literature and two hundred million francs in notes of the
+Deutsche Bank. He admitted that his name was not Devlin and said that
+the money had been given to him to hold by an Australian soldier who had
+not returned for it.
+
+_Moscow, April 19th._ (From the Special Correspondent of _The Daily
+Blues_.)--I have just had a chat with Hackoff, the confidant of Trotsky.
+He indignantly denied that Russia was in a state of anarchy and pointed
+out that one hundred and twenty-three thousand one hundred and nine
+persons had already been executed for conduct likely to cause a breach
+of the peace. There can be no question that the man is sincere. He was
+very despondent, and stated that, owing to false reports spread by the
+Allies, the Bolshevist paper money had become worthless, except in
+Paris, where they would take anything you had on you. He urged that
+unless an arrangement could be made with the United States for a loan
+or Colonel Wedgwood would consent to take command of the Red Army the
+counter-revolution could no longer be resisted. Hackoff is a shrewd
+fellow, but neither he nor Trotsky can cope with the situation much
+longer. Only last week I telegraphed Mr. Lloyd George that England must
+act at once if we are to save Bolshevism from being nothing better than
+a Utopian dream.
+
+_Wilna, April 20th._ (By special cable to _The Morning Roast_.)--Five
+hundred thousand Red Guards, well supplied with heavy artillery and
+German engineers (_Wurmtruppen_), are advancing on the town. The Church
+Lads Brigade are parading the streets day and night to prevent looting.
+Outwardly the Burgomaster remains calm, but this morning he told me,
+with tears in his eyes, that unless three carloads of potatoes reached
+the doomed city before next Friday nothing could save it. "Ah," he
+cried, "if only rich England would send us some of her tinned milk!"
+
+_Stockholm, April 21st._ (From the Special Correspondent of _The Daily
+Thrill_.)--An extraordinary incident has come to light here. While the
+baggage of Mlle. Orloff, the famous _danseuse_, was being unloaded at
+the pier a heavy trunk dropped from the sling and crashed on to the
+wharf. Rendered suspicious by the lady's unaccountable agitation,
+Customs officers searched the trunk and found at the bottom of it six
+hundred million pounds in bank-notes and a Russian named Oilivitch, who
+at first claimed to be a scenic artist, but finally admitted that he had
+been appointed by Lenin ambassador to the Netherlands. Communication
+with Scotland Yard has now established the astounding fact that he is
+the Abram Oilivitch who in 1914 kept a fish-and-chips shop in Lower
+Tittlebat Street, Houndsditch. Oilivitch first came under suspicion when
+it was discovered that Litvinoff had been seen to purchase a haddock at
+his shop. He was also known to have contributed eighteen-pence to the
+funds of the Union of Democratic Control, but afterwards recovered the
+sum, claiming that he had paid it under the erroneous belief that
+the Union of Democratic Control was an institution for extending
+philanthropy to decaying fishmongers. After disappearing from sight for
+a while Oilivitch was next heard of in the Censor's Department, from
+which he was removed for suppressing a number of postal orders, but
+afterwards reinstated and transferred to the Foreign Office. He left the
+Foreign Office in June, 1918, as the result of ill-health, and was given
+a passport to Russia, where his medical adviser resided.
+
+_Later_.--It now transpires that Oilivitch was also employed at the
+Admiralty, the War Office and the National Liberal Club. It has also
+been established that he was born in Düsseldorf and that his real name
+is Gustaf Schnapps. He is being detained on suspicion.
+
+_Moscow, April 23rd._ (By special cable to _The Daily Blues_.)--The
+situation here, thanks to the preposterous conduct of the Allies,
+is desperate. Food is unobtainable and Trotsky has only one pair
+of trousers. Unless something is done the Soviet Committee will
+disintegrate and chaos ensue. Already grave unrest is manifesting itself
+in various parts of the country. Hackoff, the able Minister of Justice
+and Sociology, tells me that he has already raised the weekly executions
+of bourgeoisie from six to ten thousand, in a desperate endeavour to
+prevent disorder on the part of the populace. It is not too late for
+the Peace Conference to act. Trotsky admitted to me yesterday that,
+on receipt of fifty thousand pounds and a new pair of trousers as a
+guarantee of good faith, he would allow the Big Four to present their
+case to him. He is firm on the subject of an indemnity and the execution
+of Mr. Bottomley. Otherwise he is moderation itself. But the Allies must
+act at once. To-morrow will be too late.
+
+ALGOL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pupil_. "WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS, AM I A BASS OR A
+BARITONE?"
+
+_Teacher_. "NO--YOU'RE NOT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+INTELLIGENT ANTICIPATION.
+
+    "If births can be arranged would not mind taking charge of children
+    in lieu of passage."
+
+    _Advt. in "Statesman." (Calcutta)._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "It is unsafe even to curry favour with the French just to spite
+    your own Prim Minister."
+
+    _Sunday Paper_.
+
+Mr. LLOYD GEORGE has been called a lot of things in his time, but--prim!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a concert programme:--
+
+    "Recitatif et Grand air D'oedipe à Cologne."
+
+It was after the long march to the Rhine, no doubt, that the hero
+acquired the nickname of "Swellfoot."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE DREAM TELEPHONE.
+
+  I go to bed at half-past six
+  And Nurse says, "No more funny tricks;"
+  She takes the light and goes away
+  And all alone up there I stay.
+
+  And, as I lie there all alone,
+  Sometimes I hear the telephone;
+  I hear them say, "Yes, that's all right,"
+  Then, "Buzz, buzz, buzz," and then "Good-night."
+
+  And sometimes as I lie it seems
+  That people come into my dreams;
+  I hear a bell ring far away,
+  And then I hear the people say:
+
+  "Have you a little girl up there,
+  The room that's by the Nursery stair?
+  We are the people that she knew
+  Before she came to live with you.
+
+  "Tell her we know she bruised her knee
+  In falling from the apple-tree;
+  Tell her that we'll come very soon
+  And find the missing tea-set spoon.
+
+  "She knows we often come and peep
+  And kiss her when she's fast asleep;
+  We think you'll suit her soon all right."
+  Then, "Buzz, buzz, buzz," and then, "Good-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANOTHER KNOCK FOR "THE TIMES."
+
+    "_WE_ ARE BACKING NORTHCLIFFE."
+
+    _Poster of "John Bull."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "I SUPPOSE YOUR LANDLORD ASKS A LOT FOR THE RENT OF THIS
+PLACE?"
+
+"A LOT! HE ASKS ME FOR IT NEARLY EVERY WEEK."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DOGS' DELIGHT.
+
+SCENE.--_Interior of shop devoted to the sale of cutlery, leatherware
+and dogs' collars, leads, etc. Customers discovered lining the counter,
+others in background leading puzzled and suspicious dogs. The proprietor
+is endeavouring to serve ordinary purchasers, answer questions, punch
+holes in straps and give change simultaneously. A harried assistant in a
+white coat is dealing, as well as he can, with overwhelming demands for
+muzzles._
+
+_Proprietor_. Yes, Sir, you'll find that razor-strop quite... Six holes
+wanted in that strap? (_To Assistant_) Right--leave it here and--Sorry,
+Madam, I can't attend to you just now.... Don't happen to have a
+_ten_-shilling note, do you, Sir? No? Well, I may be able to manage it
+for you.... If you'll speak to my assistant, Madam; _he_'s attending to
+the muzzling.
+
+_The Owner of a subdued nondescript (calling Assistant)._ Will you ask
+this lady to kindly keep her dog from trying to kill mine, please?
+
+_The Other Lady (whose dog, a powerful and truculent Airedale, seems to
+have conceived a sudden and violent dislike for the nondescript)._
+Yours must have done _something_ to irritate him--he's generally such a
+good-tempered dog.
+
+_Assistant (to the Airedale, which is barking furiously and straining at
+his lead)._ 'Ere, sherrup, will you? Allow me, Mum. I'll put 'im where
+he can 'ave 'is good temper out to 'imself. _(He hustles the Airedale to
+a small office, where he shuts him in--to his and his owner's intense
+disapproval. A fox-terrier in another customer's arms becomes hysterical
+with sympathy and utters ear-rending barks.)_ Oh, kindly get that dawg
+to sherrup, Mum, or we'll 'ave the lot of 'em orf; or could you look in
+some day when he's more collected?
+
+_Another Lady_. I say, I want a muzzle for my dog.
+
+_Assistant (sardonically)._ You surprise me, Mum! We're very near sold
+out, but if you'll let me 'ave a look at your dawg, p'r'aps--
+
+_The Lady_. Oh, I haven't _brought_ him. Left him at Barnes.
+
+_Assistant. 'Ave_ yer, Mum? Well, yer see, I can't run down to
+Barnes--not just now I can't.
+
+_The Lady_. No, but I thought--he's rather a large dog, a Pekinese
+spaniel.
+
+_Assistant_. Then I couldn't fit 'im if 'e was 'ere, cos 'e'd want a
+short muzzle and we've run out o' them.
+
+_A Customer with a Pekinese_. Then will you find me a muzzle for _this_
+one?
+
+_Assistant (with resigned despair)._ You jest 'eard me say we 'ad no
+short muzzles, Mum. If you don't mind waiting 'ere an hour or two I'll
+send a man to the factory in a taxi to bring back a fresh stock--if
+they've got any, which I don't guarantee.
+
+_The Customer with the Pekinese._ But I saw some leather muzzles in the
+window; one of those would do beautifully.
+
+_Assistant._ I shall 'ave great pleasure in selling you one, Mum, on'y
+Gover'ment says they've got to be wire. 'Owever, it's _your_ risk, not
+mine. Well, since you ask me, I think you _'ad_ better wait.
+
+_A Customer (carrying a large brown-and-white dog with lop ears and
+soulful eyes)._ I've been kept waiting here two hours, and I think it's
+high time--
+
+_Assistant._ If you'll bring 'im along to the back shop, Mum, I _may_
+have one left his size.
+
+_A Lady with a lovely complexion and an unlovely griffon (to her
+companion)._ So fussy and tiresome of the Government bringing in muzzles
+again after all these years!
+
+_Her Companion._ Oh, I don't _know_. We've had a mysterious dog running
+about snapping in our district for days.
+
+_The Lady with the complexion._ Ah, but _this_ poor darling _never_
+snaps, and, besides, he hasn't been used to muzzles in Belgium. You
+needn't _mention_ it, but I got a friend of mine to smuggle him over for
+me--such a _dear_ boy, he'll do anything I ask him to.
+
+_Assistant (after attempting to fit the soulful-eyed dog with a muzzle
+and narrowly escaping being bitten)._ There, that's enough for _me_,
+Mum. Jest take that dawg out at once, please.
+
+_Owner of the dog (which, having gained its point, affects an air of
+innocent detachment)._ I shall do nothing of the kind. It was the brutal
+way you took hold of her. The _gentlest_ creature! Why, I've _had_ her
+three years!
+
+_Assistant._ I don't care if you've 'ad her a century. They're all
+angels as come 'ere; but I ain't going to 'ave _my_ thumb bit by no
+angels, so will you kindly walk out?
+
+_Owner._ Without a muzzle? Never!
+
+_Assistant._ Then I shall 'ave to call in a constable to make you. I'm
+not bound to sell you nothing.
+
+_Owner (with spirit). Call_ a constable then! _I_ don't care. Here I
+stay till I get that muzzle.
+
+_Assistant (giving up his idea of calling a constable)._ Then I should
+advise you to take a chair, Mum, as we don't close till seven.
+
+_Owner (retreating with dignity)._ All _I_ can say is that I call it
+perfectly disgraceful. I shall certainly report your conduct; and I only
+hope you won't sell a single other muzzle to-day!
+
+_Assistant._ If I didn't I could bear up. _(To a lady with an elderly
+Blenheim)_ If it's a muzzle, Mum--
+
+_The Owner of the Blenheim_. That's just what I want to know. _Must_ he
+have a muzzle? You see, he's got no teeth, so he couldn't possibly bite
+anyone--now, _could_ he?
+
+_Assistant. I_ dunno, Mum. You take 'im to see the Board of Agriculture.
+_They'll_ give you an opinion on 'im. _(To Staff Officer who
+approaches)_ Sorry, Sir, but our stock of muzzles--
+
+_Staff Officer._ All I want is a new leather band for this wrist-watch.
+Got one?
+
+_Assistant (with joy)._ Thank 'eaven I _'ave_! Gaw bless the Army!
+
+F.A.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Helen's elder Sister._ "YOU KNOW, ALL THE STARS ARE
+WORLDS LIKE OURS."
+
+_Helen._ "WELL, I SHOULDN'T LIKE TO LIVE ON ONE--IT WOULD BE SO HORRID
+WHEN IT TWINKLED."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE REVOLT.
+
+  There is a cupboard underneath the stair
+    Where moth and rust hold undisputed sway,
+  And here is hid my old civilian wear,
+    And my wife sits and plays with it all day,
+  Since Peace is imminent and, I'm advised,
+  Even the bard may be demobilised.
+
+  She is a woman who was clearly born
+    To be the monarch of a helpless male;
+  And when she says, "This overcoat is torn,"
+    "These flannel trousers are beyond the pale,"
+  "You can't be seen in any of those shirts,"
+  I acquiesce, but, goodness, how it hurts.
+
+  For they are rich with memories of Peace,
+    The soiled habiliments my lady loathes.
+  I do not long for trousers with a crease;
+    I _do not want_ another crowd of clothes--
+  Particularly as you have to pay
+  Seventeen guineas for a suit to-day.
+
+  We are but worms, we husbands; yet 'tis said,
+    When the sad worm lies broken and at bay,
+  There comes a moment when the thing sees red,
+    And one such moment has occurred to-day;
+  "Look at this hat," I said, "this old top-hat;
+  I will not wear another one like that.
+
+  "This is the hat I purchased in the High,
+    Still crude and young and ignorant of sin;
+  I wooed you in this hat--I don't know why;
+    This is the hat that I was married in;
+  In it I walked on Sunday through the parks,
+  And even then the people made remarks.
+
+  "Now it is dead--the last of all its line--
+    Nothing like this shall mar the poet's Peace;
+  What have the nations fought for, wet and fine,
+    If not that ancient tyrannies should cease?
+  What use the Crowns of Europe coming croppers
+  If we are still to be the slaves of 'toppers'?
+
+  "It speaks to me of many an ancient sore--
+    Of calls and cards and Sunday afternoon;
+  Of hideous wanderings from door to door
+    And choking necks and patent-leather shoon;
+  'The War is won,' as Mr. ASQUITH said,
+  And all these evils are or should be dead.
+
+  "It moves me not that other men with wives
+    Have fall'n already in the old abyss,
+  Have let their women ruin all their lives
+    And ordered new atrocities like this.
+  President WILSON will have missed success
+  If other men determine how I dress.
+
+  "Yonder there hangs the helmet of a Hun,
+    And I will hang this horror at its side;
+  Twin symbols of an epoch which is done,
+    These shall remind our children----" My wife sighed,
+  "You'll have to get another one, I fear;"
+  And all I said was, "Very well, my dear."
+
+A.P.H.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.
+
+Notice in a cobbler's window:--
+
+    "Will customers please bring their own paper for repairs?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Miss Carnegie wore a gown of white satin and point appliqué lace,
+    with a lace veil falling from a light brown coiffeur almost to the
+    end of the train."--_Daily Mirror_.
+
+It doesn't say whether the light-brown coiffeur was a page or the best
+man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an account of the British sailors' reception in Paris:--
+
+    "Sous les clamations de la foule, les marins gagnent par les
+    Champs-Elysées, la rue Royale et le boulevard Malesherbes, le Lycée
+    Carnot, où M. Breakfast les attend."--_French Local Paper_.
+
+Hospitality personified!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"BUSINESS BEFORE PLEASURE."
+
+The return of _Abe Potash_ and _Mawruss Perlmutter_ to London is not
+an event to be regarded indifferently. The light-hearted pair have
+evidently been through some anxious times. _Rosie Potash_ can never have
+been a very easy woman to live with. She has not improved. And now that
+she has infected _Ruth Perlmutter_ with her morbid jealousies the alert
+and as yet unbroken _Mawruss_ begins to know something of what his
+long-suffering, not to say occasionally abject, partner, _Abe_, has had
+to endure these many years.
+
+It was bad enough in the dress business. But now they have gone into
+films it is indefinitely worse. Every reasonable person must know that
+you can't produce really moving pictures without an immense amount of
+late office hours, dining and supping out and that sort of thing, a
+fact which the _Rosies_ and _Ruths_ of this world can't be expected
+to appreciate. So that it would be as well, think the ingenuous
+_entrepreneurs_, if _The Fatal Murder_ were, so far as the ladies' parts
+are concerned, cast from members of the two households. Besides, what
+an excellent way of keeping the money in the family. However _The Fatal
+Murder_ is a dud; _Rosie_ and _Ruth_ are not the right shape; and film
+acting, with the necessary pep, is not a thing you can just acquire by
+wishing so.
+
+What is wanted, says the voluble young hustler in the firm, who
+alone seems to know anything of the business, is real actresses as
+distinguished from members of the directors' families, and above all a
+good vampire. A vampire is the very immoral and under-dressed type of
+woman that wrecks hearts and homes, and without which no film with a
+high moral purpose is conceivable. You must have shadows to throw up the
+light. And on this principle all the uplift and moral instruction of
+that potent instrument of grace, the cinematograph, is based--a fact
+which will not have escaped the notice of cinema-goers.
+
+When _Rita Sismondi_ appears in an evil Futurist black-and-white gown by
+Viola you can tell at once she is the goods. But naturally _Abe's_ first
+thought is, "What will _Rosie_ say?" His second, shared by _Mawruss_:
+"Hang _Rosie_! We shall both like this lady." Finances are not
+flourishing, but the crooked manager of the very unbusinesslike bank
+that is financing the P. and P. Film Co. harbours designs on the virtue
+of _Rita_, who has this commodity in a measure unusual with film
+vampires (or usual, I forget which), and is just a slightly adventurous
+prude out for a good time. He accordingly advances more money for _The
+Guilty Dollar_ on condition that _Rita_ be engaged, and yet more money
+on condition that she be not fired by any machinations of jealous wives.
+
+_Rosie_, indeed, says a good deal when she turns up at a rehearsal and
+finds the vampire clad in the third of a gown hazardously suspended
+on her gracious shoulders by bead straps, and _Mawruss_ and _Abe_
+demonstrating how in their opinion the kissing scenes should be
+conducted so as to make a really notable production. However, the
+vampire's film vices make the success of the company, and her private
+virtues bring all to a happy ending.
+
+The story need hardly concern us. It is not plausible, which matters
+nothing at all. Mr. YORKE and Mr. LEONARD are the essential outfit, and
+it seems to me they are better than ever. One simply _has_ to laugh,
+louder and oftener than is seemly for a self-respecting Englishman. No
+doubt their authors, Messrs. GLASS and GOODMAN, give them plenty of good
+things to say, but it is the astonishing finish and precision of their
+technique which make their work so pleasant to watch. If it throws into
+awkward relief the amateurishness of some of their associates that can't
+be helped. Miss VERA GORDON'S _Rosie_ is a good performance, and Miss
+JULIA BRUNS, the vampire, seemed to me to make with considerable skill
+and subtlety a real character (within the limits allowed by the farcical
+nature of the scheme) out of what might easily have been uninvitingly
+crude.
+
+T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR FRIEND THE FISH.
+
+"What is a sardine?" was a question much before the Courts some few
+years ago, not unprofitably for certain gentlemen wearing silk, and
+the correct solution I never heard; but I can supply, from personal
+observation, one answer to the query, and that is, "An essential
+ingredient in London humour." For without this small but sapid
+fish--whatever he may really be, whether denizen of the Sardinian sea,
+immature Cornish pilchard, or mere plebeian sprat well oiled--numbers of
+our fellow-men and fellow-women, with all the will in the world, might
+never raise a laugh. As it is, thanks to his habit of lying in excessive
+compression within his tin tabernacle, and the prevalence in these
+congested days of too many passengers on the Tubes, on the Underground
+and in the omnibuses, whoever would publicly remove gravity has but to
+set up the sardine comparison and be rewarded.
+
+Why creatures so remote from man as fishes--cold-blooded inhabitants of
+an element in which man exists only so long as he keeps on the surface;
+mute, incredible and incapable of exchanging any intercourse with
+him--why these should provide the Cockney, the dweller in the citiest
+City of the world, with so much of the material of jocoseness is an
+odd problem. But they do. Herrings, when cured either by smoke or sun,
+notoriously contribute to the low comedian's success. The mere word
+"kipper" has every girl in the gallery in a tittering ecstasy. But
+outside the Halls it is the sardine that conquers.
+
+In one day this week I witnessed the triumph of the sardine on three
+different occasions, and it was always hearty and complete.
+
+The first time was in a lift at Chancery Lane. It is not normally a very
+busy station, but our attendant having, as is now the rule, talked too
+long with the attendant of a neighbouring lift, we were more than full
+before the descent began. We were also cross and impatient, the rumble,
+from below, of trains that we might just us well be in doing nothing to
+steady our nerves.
+
+But help came--and came from that strange quarter the mighty ocean, from
+Chancery Lane so distant! "Might as well," said a burly labourer (or,
+for all I know, burly receiver of unemployment dole)--"might as well be
+sardines in a tin!"
+
+Straightway we all laughed and viewed our lost time with more serenity.
+
+Later I was in a 'bus in Victoria Street, on its way to the Strand.
+As many persons were inside, seated or standing on their own and on
+others' feet, as it should be permitted to hold, but still another two
+were let in by the harassed conductress.
+
+"I say, Miss," said the inevitable wag, who was one of the standing
+passengers, "steady on. We're more than full up already, you know. Do
+you take us for sardines?"
+
+And again mirth rocked us.
+
+Finally, that night I was among the stream of humanity which pours down
+Villiers Street from the theatres for half-an-hour or so between 10.40
+and 11.10, all in some mysterious way to be absorbed into the trains or
+the trams and conveyed home. After some desperate struggles on Charing
+Cross platform I found myself a suffering unit in yet another dense
+throng in a compartment going West; and again, amid delighted merriment,
+some one likened us to sardines.
+
+It is not much of a joke, but you will notice that it so seldom fails
+that one wonders why any effort is ever made to invent a better.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU KNEW THE FUNNY MAN, SIS."
+
+"I DIDN'T. BUT BY THE TIME I DISCOVERED THAT I DIDN'T--WELL, I DID."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
+
+_Madam Constantia_ (LONGMANS) is a war story, but of an earlier and
+more picturesque war. A simple tale, I am bound to call it, revolving
+entirely round a situation not altogether unknown to fiction, in which
+the hero and heroine, being of opposite sides, love and fight one
+another simultaneously. Actually the scene is set during the American
+struggle for independence, thus providing a sufficiency of pomp and
+circumstance in the way of fine uniforms and pretty frocks; and
+the protagonists are _Captain Carter_, of the British service, and
+_Constantia Wilmer_, daughter of the American who had captured him.
+Perhaps you may recall that the identical campaign has already provided
+a very similar position (reversed) in _Miss Elizabeth's Prisoner_. It is
+only a deserved tribute to the skill with which Mr. JEFFERSON CARTER
+has told this adventure of his namesake to admit that I am left with an
+uncertainty, not usual to the reviewing experience, whether it is in
+fact a true or an imagined affair. In any event its development follows
+a well-trodden path. We have the captive, jealous in honour, susceptible
+and exasperatingly Quixotic, doubly enchained by his word and the charms
+of his fair wardress; the lady's conspicuous ill-treatment of him at
+the first, a slight mystery, some escapes and counterplots, and on the
+appointed page the matrimonial finish that hardly the most pessimistic
+reader can ever have felt as other than assured. Fact or fiction, you
+may spend an agreeable hour in watching the course of _Captain Carter's_
+courtship overcoming its rather obvious obstacles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Because I have so great an admiration for their beneficent activities, I
+have always wanted to meet a novel with a lot about dentists in it,
+and now Miss DOROTHY M. RICHARDSON, in _The Tunnel_ (DUCKWORTH), has
+satisfied my desire. Dentists--a houseful of them--spittoons, revolving
+basins; patients going upstairs with sinking feelings; wondering at the
+pattern on the wallpaper; going down triumphant. Teeth. Appointment
+books. Dentists everywhere. This is not a quotation, but very like
+one, for Miss RICHARDSON affects the modern manner. Though one of the
+dentists is quite the most agreeable person in the book, he isn't the
+hero, because the author is much too clever to have anything of the
+sort. Her method, exploited some time ago in that remarkable book,
+_Pointed Roofs_, is to get right inside one _Miriam Henderson_ and
+keep on writing out her thoughts with as little explanation of her
+circumstances as possible, so that _The Tunnel_, to anyone who has
+missed the earlier books, must be very nearly unintelligible. Even the
+sincere admirer of Miss RICHARDSON'S talent will begin to wonder how
+many more books at the present rate of progress must be required to
+bring _Miriam_ to, say, threescore years and ten. My own belief is that
+if her creator is ever so ill-advised as to put her beneath a 'bus or
+drop her down a lift-well, she herself will be gone too; and for that I
+should be sorry, since I agree with almost all the nice things Miss MAY
+SINCLAIR says of the earlier books in an appreciation here reprinted
+from _The Egoist_. Miss RICHARDSON has evolved a way of writing a novel
+which somehow suggests the Futurist way of painting a picture; but _The
+Tunnel_ has left me wondering whether she has not carried her method a
+little too far. It seems to me that some of her heroine's thoughts were
+not worth recording; but perhaps when another four or five books have
+been added to _Miriam's_ life-history I may discover what the scheme may
+be that lies behind them all, and change my mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+More than once before this I have enjoyed the dexterity of Miss VIOLET
+HUNT in a certain type of social satire; but I regret to say that the
+expectation with which I opened _The Last Ditch_ (STANLEY PAUL) was
+doomed to some disappointment. The idea was promising enough--a study of
+our British best people confronting the ordeal of world-war; but somehow
+it failed to capture me. For one reason it is told in a series of
+letters--a dangerous method at any time. As usual, these are far too
+long and literary to be genuine; though they keep up a rather irritating
+pretence of reality by repetitions of the same events in correspondence
+from different writers. Moreover, letters whose concern is the progress
+of recruiting or the novelty of war can hardly at this time avoid an
+effect of having been delayed in the post. But all this would have
+mattered little if Miss HUNT had chosen her aristocrats from persons in
+whom it was possible to take more interest. But the plain fact is that
+you never met so tedious a set. They are not witty; they are not even
+wicked to any significant extent. They simply produce (at least in my
+case) no effect whatever. Perhaps this may all be of intention; the
+author may have meant to harrow us with the spectacle of our old
+nobility expiring as nonentities. But in that case the picture
+is manifestly unfair. And it is certainly dull--dull as the last
+ditch-water.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _America in France_ (MURRAY) Lieut. Col. FREDERICK PALMER, a member
+of the Staff Corps of the United States Army, sets out to tell the story
+of the making of an army. This is the first book by Colonel PALMER that
+has come my way, but I find that he has written four others, all of
+which I judge by their titles to be concerned with the War. Be that as
+it may, I welcome _America in France_ both because it gives a narrative
+of America's tremendous effort, and because the book is written with a
+modesty which is very pleasing. America came to the job of fighting as a
+learner. Her soldiers did not boast of what they were going to do, but
+sat down solidly to learn, in order that she might be useful in the
+fighting-line. How she achieved her purpose the world now knows. If any
+fault is to be found with the author's style, it is that the limpidity
+and evenness of its flow make great events less easy of distinction than
+perhaps they might be; but most people will hail this as a merit rather
+than a fault, and I agree with them. Colonel PALMER records the names of
+the first three Americans who died fighting. The French General to whose
+unit they were attached ordered a ceremonial parade and made a speech
+in which he asked that the mortal remains of these young men be left in
+France. "We will," he continued, "inscribe on their tombs, 'Here lie the
+first soldiers of the United States to fall on the soil of France for
+Justice and Liberty' ... Corporal Gresham, Private Enright, Private Hay,
+in the name of France I thank you." As another matter of historical
+interest it may be stated that the first shot of the War on the American
+side was fired by Battery C of the 6th Field Artillery, "without waiting
+on going into position at the time set. The men dragged a gun forward in
+the early morning of October 23rd, and sent a shell at the enemy. There
+was no particular target. The aim was in the general direction of
+Berlin. The gun has been sent to West Point as a relic."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I must assume that _Such Stuff as Dreams_ (MURRAY) was written by C.E.W.
+LAWRENCE with a purpose, but it remains obscure to me. A smart young
+married clerk in the oil business falls off the top of a bus on to his
+head and, from a confirmed materialist, becomes something not unlike a
+confirmed lunatic, with a faculty for seeing flaming emanations which
+enable him to place the owners of them in the true scale of human and
+spiritual values. He discovers that his wife's uncle, a whimsical but
+essentially tedious drunkard, is a better man than the egregious New
+Religionist pastor--a discovery I made for myself without falling off
+a bus. I was forced to the conclusion that these and equally dull, or
+duller, folk must exist or have existed, and that it could not possibly
+have been necessary to invent them. And if I am right then it obviously
+needs a greater sympathy than I can command to do justice to this type
+of narrative, with its presuppositions and inferences. Sir A. CONAN
+DOYLE has much to answer for.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I do not remember the precise number of murders which occur in _Droonin'
+Watter_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN), but readers of this sensational story can
+accept my assurance that Mr. J.S. FLETCHER has a quick and decisive way
+of meting out justice (or injustice) to his characters. In fact, from
+the very start, when a man with a black patch over his eye walks into
+Berwick-upon-Tweed and takes lodgings with _Mrs. Moneylaws_ (the mother
+of the man who tells the tale), the pace is red-hot. It is easy enough
+to discover improbabilities in such a yarn as this, but the only
+important question is whether one wants to discover what happens in the
+end, and I confess without a blush that I did want to follow Mr. J.S.
+FLETCHER to the last page. Let me however beg him in his next book to
+give the word "yon" a rest; four "yons" in eleven lines is a clear case
+of overcrowding; and I invite the attention of the Limited Labour Party
+to this scandal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Young Sub (a very earnest pilgrim)._ "PLEASE SEND A
+LARGE BUNCH OF ROSES TO THE ADDRESS ON THAT CARD AND CHARGE IT TO ME."
+
+_Florist._ "YES, SIR--AND YOUR NAME?"
+
+_Sub._ "OH, NEVER MIND MY NAME--SHE'LL UNDERSTAND."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Any owner whose dog shows signs of illness should be chained up
+    securely."--_Bradford Daily Argus_.
+
+And every other _Argus_ will say the same.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+156, APRIL 30, 1919***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 11429-8.txt or 11429-8.zip *******
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