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authorRoger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>2025-10-15 04:38:15 -0700
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11868 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+ file which includes the original illustrations.
+ See 11868-h.htm or 11868-h.zip:
+ (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/8/6/11868/11868-h/11868-h.htm)
+ or
+ (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/8/6/11868/11868-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 156
+
+FEBRUARY 5, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The Germans refer to the Armistice negotiations as
+_Waffenstillstandeverhandlungen_. We hope it will be worse even than
+they think.
+
+ ***
+
+There is no truth in the rumour that among the many new performances
+of _Hamlet_ which are promised there will be one in aid of the fund
+for brightening the lives of the clergy, with the Gloomy Dean as the
+Gloomy Dane.
+
+ ***
+
+"We Americans do not consider ourselves the salt of the earth," says
+Senator HENRY. No, but their bacon certainly is.
+
+ ***
+
+In view of the fact that there is a large quantity of marmalade
+in the country, it has been decided to release it. This is such a
+satisfactory solution of the problem that people are wondering whether
+the Food Ministry thought of that one themselves.
+
+ ***
+
+Our heart goes out to the soldier who, when offered, on
+demobilisation, the option of fifty-two shillings and sixpence or a
+standard suit, replied that he would rather pay the fine.
+
+ ***
+
+The only surprising thing about Mr. C.B. COCHRAN'S proposal for a
+Peace Fair in Hyde Park, to be arranged largely by himself, is that
+there is no mention of a Serpentine dance for DELYSIA.
+
+ ***
+
+The Australian Government proposes to send returned Australian
+soldiers to prospect for minerals in the Northern Territories. Whether
+they will be interested in them after their experience in England in
+failing to locate quarts is another matter.
+
+ ***
+
+Sir EDWARD ELGAR has dedicated his new orchestral work, "Polonia," to
+M. PADEREWSKI. The report that the distinguished pianist-politician is
+thinking of retorting with a fugue, "Stiltonia," is not confirmed.
+
+ ***
+
+The Aircraft Salvage branch announces that not less than one thousand
+five hundred yards of the aeroplane linen which is being disposed
+of to the public will be sold to one purchaser. In the event of the
+purchaser deciding to use it as a pocket-handkerchief he can have it
+hemstitched for a trifling sum.
+
+ ***
+
+Improvement is reported in the condition of the taxi-cab driver who
+had a seizure in Piccadilly Circus while attempting to say "Thank you"
+to a fare.
+
+ ***
+
+We are pleased to be able to announce that the Kensington man who last
+week managed to board a tube train has consented to write a book about
+it.
+
+ ***
+
+Writing to a contemporary a Leeds correspondent says that he does not
+think much of an inactive corporation. As a matter of fact, since the
+introduction of rationing we didn't think active ones were being worn.
+
+ ***
+
+As a result of munition work, says a health journal, quite a number of
+men have given up smoking tobacco. We suppose the theory is that they
+have now taken to smoking threepenny cigars.
+
+ ***
+
+Mrs. MAGGIE HATHWAY of Montana is to be congratulated upon running a
+six-hundred-acre farm without the help of men's labour. After all we
+men must admit that her sporting effort is a distinct score for the
+second oldest sex in the world.
+
+ ***
+
+Anglesea Police Commission are offering one shilling and sixpence a
+dozen for rats' tails to residents of the county. Some difficulty is
+expected in distinguishing local from imported tails once they are
+separated from the rat.
+
+ ***
+
+In connection with the offers for Drury Lane Theatre it appears that
+one of the would-be purchasers declares that he was more syndicate
+than sinning.
+
+ ***
+
+In connection with the epidemic of burglaries in London, _The Daily
+Express_ has now published a leader note saying there have been too
+many of late. It is hoped that this will have the desired effect.
+
+ ***
+
+We are glad to report that the gentleman who, at the BURNS festival,
+upon being asked if he would take a little haggis replied that he
+wouldn't mind trying a wing, managed to escape with his life.
+
+ ***
+
+A West Hampstead architect has designed a cottage in which there will
+be no bricks in the walls, no timber in the roof, no slates or tiles
+and no register grates. Too late. Jerry-builders accomplished that
+trick years ago.
+
+ ***
+
+While walking in Highams Park, Chingford, says a contemporary, a
+postman picked up a package containing one ounce of butter. To his
+eternal credit let it be said that he at once took it to the nearest
+police station.
+
+ ***
+
+The best brains of the country are still exercised by the alleged need
+of brightening cricket. One of our own suggestions is that the bowler
+should be compelled to do three Jazz-steps and two Fox-trots before
+delivering the ball.
+
+ ***
+
+A typist recently fell from a moving train on the Isle of Wight
+railway, but was able to get up and walk towards her destination.
+We hear she had a good deal to say to the guard when she overtook
+the train.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: DEPARTURE FROM DOWNING STREET 10 A.M.
+
+ARRIVAL AT THE QUAI D'ORSAY 10.5 A.M.
+
+THE NEW AERO-GUN SERVICE BETWEEN LONDON AND PARIS.
+
+SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF HOW MR. LLOYD GEORGE CAN BE IN BOTH PLACES
+MORE OR LESS AT ONCE.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From a _feuilleton_:--
+
+ "He had a cleft in his chain which Rosemarie thought most
+ attractive."--_Evening News_.
+
+There is no accounting for tastes. _We_ should have thought it
+suggested the Missing Link.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+EVICTED.
+
+(_A COMMON SCANDAL, INVITING THE ATTENTION OF THE GOVERNMENT._)
+
+I was amazed the other day to hear that my landlord had called to
+see me. Hitherto our intercourse had been by letter and we had had
+heated differences on the subject of repairs. His standpoint seemed
+to be that landlords were responsible for repairs only to lightning
+conductors and weathercocks. My house possesses neither of these
+desirable adjuncts.
+
+I moved an armchair so that no one sitting in it could fail to see the
+dampest wall and ordered him to be shown in.
+
+He was a most benevolent-looking old gentleman, and I felt I had done
+him an injustice in regarding him as a property shark.
+
+"Glad to see you," he said, shaking me warmly by the hand.
+
+"Do sit down," I said. "That chair is the most comfortable. Don't be
+afraid. At that distance from the wall the damp won't affect you."
+
+"So glad to see how comfortable you are here," said the benevolent
+one.
+
+"If we could occasionally have a hot bath we should be more
+comfortable, but the kitchen range is impossible."
+
+"What you need, my friend, is a house of your own so that you can
+adapt it to your own ideas. How would you like this house?"
+
+My breath was taken away. Had the kindly one come to present me with a
+house? Was I to be the object of an amiable plutocrat's benevolence?
+
+"I should like it very much," I said.
+
+"You shall have it," he said, slapping me amiably on the knee.
+
+I gasped for breath. In my time I had had boxes of cigars given me,
+but never houses.
+
+"For fifteen hundred pounds, as you are the tenant," continued the
+benevolent one.
+
+I gasped for breath again.
+
+"But you bought it for five hundred and fifty pounds just before the
+War," I said when I had recovered.
+
+"Ah, before the War," chuckled the philanthropist.
+
+"I don't think I can afford fifteen hundred pounds."
+
+The benevolent one looked disappointed in me. "Dear me," he said,
+"and I wanted so much to sell it to you. Well, I shall have to give
+you notice to quit in June. This house must be sold."
+
+"But I can't get another house."
+
+"You can have this house. But surely you have some friend who will
+advance you fifteen hundred pounds?"
+
+"You don't know my friends. It would be very awkward to be turned
+into the street."
+
+"You should have a house of your own and be independent. Every man
+should own his home. Now can't you think of some friend who could
+assist you?"
+
+"Could you lend me fifteen hundred pounds for a rather speculative
+investment?" I inquired.
+
+"Since my kindly consideration for a tenant is treated with mockery I
+give you written notice to leave. A 'For Sale' board will be placed
+in your garden. A clause in the lease authorises me to do that. I wish
+you good morning."
+
+Well, I am to be evicted, and, as I'm not an Irishman, no one will
+care. I shall not lie in wait with a shot-gun for my landlord. But
+there is no clause in the lease forbidding me from putting up my sale
+announcement beside the landlord's. It will run:--
+
+ _FOR SALE_
+ THIS UNDESIRABLE PROPERTY
+ COST £550 IN 1913.
+ Never been repaired since.
+ Damp guaranteed to come through every wall.
+ Mice can run under the doors but there is
+ not sufficient space for cats to follow them.
+ The Kitchen Range is unusable.
+ All hope of baths abandon ye who enter here.
+ One half of the windows won't
+ open--the others won't shut.
+ All chimneys smoke in all winds.
+ A unique chance for the War-rich.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE PUFF ERRATIC.
+
+_The New Statesman_ contains a letter from Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT,
+disclaiming all responsibility for the publisher's official
+description of his new novel printed on the "jacket" or paper cover
+thereof. It had not been submitted to him for approval and he knew
+nothing of it. Mr. BENNETT is, of course, entitled to his protest,
+but we greatly hope that publishers will not be induced thereby to
+abstain from supplying these interesting summaries. If only the method
+could be applied to standard works the results would be even more
+illuminating. As for example:
+
+"HAMLET."
+
+This delicious comedy is the romance of the _Prince of Denmark_,
+which, unlike other romances, begins after his marriage: with
+_Polonia_, daughter of _Horatio_, who had been previously engaged to
+both _Rosenstern_ and _Guildencranz_. _Hamlet_, by joining a troupe of
+strolling players, offends his uncle, the reigning sovereign, and is
+confined in a lunatic asylum.
+
+Brilliant pictures of society in Copenhagen, Denmark Hill and
+Heligoland alternate with sparkling studies of the inner life of a
+touring company on the Continent.
+
+"Can a woman love three men?" is the theme of this engrossing
+extravaganza.
+
+"IDYLLS OF THE KING."
+
+In a series of exciting episodes, written in fluent heroic couplets,
+the author gives us a thrilling picture of the manners and customs of
+the Court of _King Arthur_, an early British sovereign, whose stately
+home was situated on the Cornish Riviera.
+
+Owing to the compromising attentions which he pays to _Elaine_,
+the Lady of Shalott, the _King_ alienates the affections of _Queen
+Guinevere_ and is slain by one of his knights, _Lancelot_ by name.
+
+Winsome women, gallant paladins and mysterious magicians throng
+these fascinating pages, which incidentally throw much light on the
+theological problems discussed by the Knights of the Round Table,
+among whom _Merlin_, _Vivien_ and _Enid_ are especially, prominent.
+
+"VANITY FAIR."
+
+_Major Dobbin_, a _beau sabreur_ of irresistible charm, is on the
+point of eloping with _Amelia Osborne_, the wife of a brother-officer,
+when the Battle of Waterloo breaks out and _Dobbin_ is slain. _Captain
+Osborne_, in the mistaken impression that _Amelia_ has shared her
+betrayer's fate, marries the beautiful _Becky Sharp_ and is tried
+for bigamy, but is acquitted, as _Becky Sharp_ is proved to have been
+already married to an Indian Nabob of the name of _Crawley_. On the
+death of _Crawley_, _Becky_ marries the _Marquis of Steyne_, becomes
+deeply religious and dies in the odour of sanctity.
+
+"Is marriage a failure?" is the problem of this kaleidoscopic drama,
+which is handled with all the author's well-known soulful _verve_.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"SMITH MINOR" AGAIN.
+
+ "_Apelles fuit carus Alexandro propter comitate._"
+ "Apples were dear in the days of Alexander on account
+ of the Committee." (? Food Controller.)
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "A resolution was passed requesting the responsible local
+ authority to provide thirty new houses in accordance
+ with the Local Government Board's scheme. The houses
+ required were--first, those which were unfit for human
+ habitation."--_Sussex Paper_.
+
+And, to judge by some of the fantastic designs for rural cottages
+published in the newspapers, those are what they will probably get.
+
+ * * * * *
+[Illustration: THE ORDER OF RELEASE.
+
+PIVOTAL PIG (_demobilised_). "SO LONG, LEAGUE OF RATIONS, SEE YOU
+LATER."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE REAL DALRYMPLE.
+
+You would feel quite uncomfortable if you heard Dalrymple talk. He
+conveys the impression that everything is badly in the way and ought
+to be removed at once. That's his view. Dalrymple has no patience with
+the social system. This includes everything, from the washing bill to
+the House of Commons.
+
+Dalrymple said the General Election made him impatient. By the way,
+Dalrymple is a fine upstanding personage, with just the coloured
+hair the lady novelists dote on, and eyes in harmony; but despite his
+handsome placid bearing Dalrymple is a fire-eater of the hungriest.
+
+"What you want to do is to make a clean sweep of everything," he said.
+"Money is an anachronism, and in a perfectly ordered State would not
+be required."
+
+Of course it is no more use arguing with Dalrymple than it would be
+to attempt a controversy on naval affairs with Lord Nelson on his
+pedestal.
+
+And then there is this about Dalrymple--you remember what some Court
+poet said concerning Louis THE FOURTEENTH; it was to the effect that
+_quand le Roi parle_--well, apparently everything and everybody else
+had to put up the shutters. I forget exactly how the thing ran. It
+is just so with Dalrymple. He comes into my room in the City and
+warms himself, though no fire is needed to fan his enthusiasm for
+destruction. The Bolsheviks are peaceable Sunday folk compared with
+him. A Nihilist on a war footing would be considered Quaker-like in
+his symptoms.
+
+Dalrymple is neck or nothing. He is a whole-hogger even to the most
+indigestible bit of crackling.
+
+"What we want is a fresh start," he said. "Then you could begin anew
+and everybody would have a chance. Burn things, blow them up, leave
+nothing; then we should see something. Your whole scheme is faulty.
+Your Underground--" Dalrymple has an irritating habit of fathering
+things on me, which is unfair, for, as regards the Tubes, for
+instance, I am sorry to say I have not even a share, and often not
+as much as a strap.
+
+"But the Underground is only a bit overcrowded," I ventured to say.
+"It can't help that, you know."
+
+"It is all wrong," said Dalrymple. "The entire gadget is defective.
+Look at France, look at America, look at Germany and Russia and the
+Jugo-Slavs."
+
+It was rather breathless work looking at all these nations and
+peoples, but I did my best. Dalrymple is particularly strong when it
+is a question of the Jugo-Slavs, and he always gave me the idea that
+he spent his Saturday afternoons enunciating chatty pleasantries in
+Trafalgar Square and on Tower Hill.
+
+But--you might just see the finish--Dalrymple was not doing anything
+of the sort the afternoon that I was out house-hunting. Yes, it is
+true. You will scarcely credit the fact that I found any difficulty
+in tracking down an eligible villa, but that is the case.
+
+The quest took me to a pleasant semi-rural neighbourhood where
+there was room for gardens with the borders edged with the nice soft
+yellow-tinted box, and rose walks, and dainty little arbours, and
+fandangled appurtenances which amateur gardeners love with perfect
+justification.
+
+And there was Dalrymple. I won't deceive you. I recognised him on
+the other side of a low oak fence. He was wearing an old hat of the
+texture of the bit of headgear which the man who impersonates Napoleon
+at the music-hall doubles up and plays tricks with, only Dalrymple's
+hat had obviously been white and was now going green and other colours
+with wear and tear.
+
+And wherever Dalrymple went a small cherub in a holland frock went
+too. The cherub would be about five. Dalrymple was fashioning a
+hen-coop out of two or three soap-boxes. Both he and the cherub ceased
+activities when I hailed and approached; and I stopped to dinner.
+Dalrymple told me he rather fancied he could wangle me a bungalow.
+
+"I know the agent chap," he said, as we sampled a very pleasant glass
+of port. "Of course they want to keep it fairly dark or we should be
+swamped. I have taken a lot of trouble myself, you know, and am just
+starting gardening lectures at our club."
+
+So he went on--the house, his new roses, the hens, the jam his wife
+made, the idea he had for a winter garden in the interests of his
+wife's mother, who could then take the air in her Bath-chair.
+
+"But," I said, "you want to sweep everything away. You aim at sending
+villages like this to pot--your own word, you remember. And then there
+are the Jugo-Slavs--"
+
+Dalrymple winked and handed me the cigars.
+
+I fancy he is a fraud.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "AEROPLANE FLIGHT TO INDIA.
+
+ "PREPARATIONS FOR DECEPTION IN DELHI."--_Englishman_
+ (_Calcutta_).
+
+But the aviators, in order that there might be no doubt about their
+_bona fides_, wisely landed at Karachi.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+MY SERGEANT-MAJOR-DOMO.
+
+ When WILSON has abolished War
+ And grim Bellona claims no more
+ The greatest of her sons,
+ What job has Peace to offer thee
+ That shall fulfil thy destiny,
+ O Sergeant-Major Buns?
+
+ Shall thy great voice, at whose behests
+ Trembled a hundred martial breasts,
+ Be heard without a smile
+ Urging astonished Cingalese
+ To tap the tapering rubber trees
+ Upon their distant isle?
+
+ Shall thy dread presence clothed in tweed
+ Be seen, O Buns, without the meed
+ Of some regretful sigh,
+ Fresh from the triumphs of the trench
+ Upon the Opposition Bench
+ Begging the SPEAKER'S eye?
+
+ Nay, rather let thy mighty mind
+ At length its true vocation find
+ In the domestic sphere;
+ The trivial round, the common task
+ Shall furnish all thou needst to ask--
+ There shalt thou earn thy beer.
+
+ Yes, thou shalt play a worthy rôle,
+ Thou great unconquerable soul,
+ Within my humble flat;
+ For when thy voice shall thunder, "Where
+ Is master's cream?" what maid shall dare
+ Invoke the mystic cat?
+
+ And what or volatile Miss Gripps?
+ The weekly notice on her lips
+ Shall wither at thy look.
+ And still one triumph waits for thee--
+ And, oh! may I be there to see--
+ When thou shalt face my cook!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "DATE FIXED FOR HANGING RETAILERS."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+And some of them richly deserve it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+ "The League will reconsider traety obligations from time
+ to time.
+
+ "The League will reconsider traeyt obligations from time
+ to time."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+And then the printer gave it up.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "A Handley Page, with two Rolls-Royce engines, was the
+ first and only machine to fly to India, and was the first
+ and only machine to fly to India, and is the second to fly
+ to India."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+Not the third and only, as for the moment we were tempted to believe.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Young Educated Girl Pupil Wanted, help animals; live
+ clergyman's family; pocket-money."--_Newcastle Journal_.
+
+We are glad to hear of a really live clergyman. So many parsons
+nowadays are accused of being dead-alive.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION.
+
+_Maid_. "NO, MUM, I'M NOT GOING TO STAY IN THIS HOUSE TO BE INSULTED
+BY HAVING 'SLAVEY' WRITTEN ON THE MAT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+DAILY AND MAILY.
+
+Mr. Daily burst into the room, slamming the door behind him, to find
+Mr. Maily seated before the fire.
+
+"Maily, you're not getting things done," he shouted as he walked
+swiftly up and down the Turkey carpet.
+
+"Only buttoning my spat, Daily," said Mr. Maily. Then he too,
+springing from his chair, walked rapidly to and fro. But whereas Mr.
+Daily chose the route between the window and the motto, "Do something
+else NOW!" Mr. Maily took the line between the fireplace and "Keep on
+keeping on!" for they seldom felt compelled to stick to one direction.
+
+"Maily, I'm worried," exclaimed Mr. Daily in passing. "Things seem to
+be easing down. Even you are not so nimble as you were. This silence
+of the public troubles me--haven't been saying things about us for a
+long time."
+
+"Some people even praise us," remarked Mr. Maily, disgust mingling
+with the perspiration on his face.
+
+"We'll be damned if we put up with praise," Mr. Daily declared.
+
+"We shall. We'd give praise if they'd damn us," said Mr. Maily.
+
+"Never be funny, Maily, if you can help it," warned Mr. Daily. Then
+he remarked wistfully, "If they'd only burn us again!"
+
+"Couldn't we go for the Archbishop of CANTERBURY?" asked Mr. Maily.
+"To be burnt during morning service in a cathedral--"
+
+"No, these church-people couldn't be roused, Maily. Too much
+dillydally about them. They'd never fall to it."
+
+Mr. Daily jabbed his thumb against a white bell-push, and a clerk
+appeared. "Got enough work to do?" asked Mr. Daily.
+
+"And then some," said the clerk.
+
+"Well, get on with it," shouted Mr. Daily impatiently, and pressed a
+red bell-push.
+
+"Plenty doing?" he asked the compositor who appeared.
+
+"Twice that," said the compositor.
+
+"Then go to it," barked Mr. Daily. Turning to behold Mr. Maily mopping
+his brow, he cried, "For heaven's sake don't let anybody see you
+standing still, Maily."
+
+"I was only thinking," said Mr. Maily.
+
+"Whatever for?" asked Mr. Daily.
+
+"Do you suppose--"
+
+"Suppose nothing. Know!"
+
+"How would it be to--to denounce beer?" asked Mr. Maily.
+
+"Gad, but you've still got pluck," said Mr. Daily with something like
+admiration. "They'd burn us right enough. But there is such a thing as
+too much pluck, Maily. Think again, if you must think."
+
+"No," Mr. Daily went on, "I doubt if a satisfactory burning can be
+worked--it only comes by accident. Meanwhile, if the public won't
+talk about us, we must boom ourselves;" and he sprinted to a yellow
+bell-push to summon the editor.
+
+"This peace business," said Mr. Daily to him--"_Peace must be signed!_
+How's that for a new stunt? Cut out 'The Soldiers' Paper' and call
+ourselves 'The Paper that gets Peace.' Get the boys together, work out
+a scheme and come and show us in half-an-hour."
+
+"But, Daily, is there any likelihood of peace not being signed?" asked
+Mr. Maily, when the editor had gone.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Maily, pull yourself together. Don't you
+understand that one of the principles of our job is to back certs?"
+said Mr. Daily.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Manager of Kinema Theatre_ (_referring to the two
+turbulent members of audience who have been ejected_). "HOW DID THE
+QUARREL COMMENCE?"
+
+_Doorkeeper_. "THEY WERE FIGHTING, SIR, ABOUT WHICH OF THEM THE GIRL
+IN THE PICTURE WAS WINKING AT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+LINES TO A LEGIONARY.
+
+(_MEMBERS OF THE NEW CORPS OF DOMESTIC SERVANTS ARE CALLED
+LEGIONARIES_.)
+
+ Sole hope of this my household, martial maid
+ Whom ordered ranks and discipline austere
+ Have shaped (I gather) for a braver trade,
+ So that respect, not all unmixed with fear,
+ Informs my breast as I await you here,
+ Your title, with its stern Cæsarian touch,
+ Does, to be frank, alarm me very much.
+
+ Come not, I pray you, to my casual home
+ (Where moulting cats usurp the best arm-chair)
+ With the harsh practices of Ancient Rome,
+ The brow severe, the you-be-careful air
+ Which (on the film) all legionaries wear;
+ My dream is just a regulated ease;
+ Rules, if you like, but not too stringent, please.
+
+ Come not with rude awakenings, nor request
+ That I at stated hours must rise and feed;
+ I like my morning slumber much the best
+ And hate a life by drastic laws decreed
+ (I'm not a Persian born, nor yet a Mede);
+ No, but with step demure and tactful come,
+ And if soft music greet you, oh, be dumb!
+
+ In careless comfort let my days be spent!
+ And, maiden, mutual happiness shall reign;
+ The crash of crockery I'll not lament
+ Nor (when I fain would sing) will I complain
+ Though you should raise the far from dulcet strain;
+ But with a sweet content I'll bless the day
+ My legionary came, and came to stay.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "LOST, large retriever dog, flat-coated; when pleased or
+ expectant he grins, showing all his teeth; information leading
+ to his recovery will be rewarded."--_Glasgow Herald_.
+
+It is supposed that he has been studying the portraits of "Variety"
+ladies in the illustrated papers.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "He must, said Mr. Thomas, urge men to recognise that, in the
+ present state of the country, it was imperative that soppages
+ should be avoided."--_Liverpool Paper_.
+
+Excellent advice; but in the present state of the country, unless one
+wears waders, extremely difficult to follow.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "WANTED.--A suitable match for a well-connected and refined
+ Suri widower of 37; healthy and of good moral character;
+ monthly income about 500 rupees. Possesses property. Late
+ wife died last week."--_Indian Paper_.
+
+It is a sign of the truly moral character to be definitely off with
+the old love before you are on with the new.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "The five main points in the Prime Minister's programme are:
+ (1) Punch the ex-Kaiser."--_Sunday Times_ (_Johannesburg_).
+
+The other four don't matter, but we wish to take the earliest
+opportunity of denying this totally unfounded suggestion. Mr. Punch
+is not the ex-Kaiser, and never was.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Late Superintendent of Munition Canteen_ (_in dairy
+where she has dealt for over three years_). "AND YOU WON'T FORGET THE
+CREAM AS USUAL."
+
+_Dairy Girl_. "SORRY, MADAM. I REGRET YOU CANNOT HAVE ANY MORE CREAM,
+AS YOU HAVE CEASED TO BE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A LITTLE FAVOUR.
+
+Maisie was terribly upset when she lost her gold curb bangle (with
+padlock attached) between the hospital and the canteen. The first I
+knew of it was seeing a handbill offering two pounds' reward on our
+front gate, with the ink still damp, when I came home to lunch. There
+was a similar bill blowing down the road. My wife had some more under
+her arm and she pressed them on me. "Run round to the shops," she
+said; "get them put right in the middle of the windows where they'll
+catch everybody's eye."
+
+The first shop I entered was a hosier's. Since drilling in the V.T.O.
+I have acquired rather a distinguished bearing. Shopkeepers invariably
+treat me with attention. The hosier hurried forward, obviously
+anticipating a princely order for tweeds at war prices. I hadn't the
+courage to buy nothing. I selected the nearest thing on the counter, a
+futurist necktie at two-and-six-three, and, as I was leaving the shop,
+turned back carelessly. "By the by, would you mind putting this bill
+in your window?" I said.
+
+His lip curled. "This is a high-class business. We make it a rule--no
+bills," he said.
+
+At the butcher's next door there were several customers. They all gave
+way to me. I made purchases worthy of my appearance and carriage, half
+an ox tail and some chitterlings. Then I proffered a handbill. The man
+in blue accepted it and, before I had opened my lips, returned it to
+me wrapped round the ox tail. I was too taken aback to explain. In
+fact, when he held out his hand, I mechanically gave him another bill
+for the chitterlings.
+
+At the next shop, a fancy draper's, I acted with cunning. In the
+centre of the window, on a raised background of silver paper, was
+displayed a wreath of orange-blossom veiled with tulle. I bought
+it. The young ladies were hysterical. "May I ask permission to put
+this little handbill in its place?" I said. They appealed to the
+shopwalker. "In the absence of the head of the firm I cannot see my
+way to accede to your request," he said. "At present he is on the
+Rhine. On his demobilisation I will place the matter before him if you
+will leave the bill in my hands." I left it.
+
+I skipped a gramophone emporium and a baby-linen shop and entered a
+fishmonger's. Here I adopted tactics of absolute candour. "Look here,"
+I said, "I haven't come to buy anything. I don't want any fish, flesh
+or red-herring, but I should be no end grateful if you would stick
+this bill up for me somewhere."
+
+"Certainly, Sir, as many as you like," said the proprietor heartily.
+
+Gleefully I gave him two. One he stuck on a hook on top of a couple of
+ducks, and it flopped over face downwards on their breasts. The other
+he laid in the middle of the marble counter, and the next moment his
+assistant came along and slapped an outsize halibut on it.
+
+I went into a jeweller's next and purchased a gold curb bangle (with
+padlock attached).
+
+"You clever old thing," said Maisie; "you'd never tell one from the
+other, would you? Mine's a tiny bit heavier, don't you think? I've
+just found it in the soap-dish. I'll change this for a filigree
+pendant. All my life I've longed for a filigree pendant"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "For 85 tons of blackberries, gathered last autumn,
+ Northamptonshire elementary school children were paid
+ £2,380, 3d. a lb."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+The young profiteers!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Splendid imitation almond paste for cakes can be made
+ as follows: Take four ounces of breadcrumbs, one small
+ teaspoonful of almond essence, four ounces of soft
+ white sugar, and one well-eaten egg to bind the
+ mixture."--_Answers_.
+
+The difficulty is to get the egg.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_APRÈS LA GUERRE_.
+
+"_On ne sait jamais le dessous des cartes_," as the perplexing dialect
+of the aborigines of this country would put it. William and I, when
+we used to discuss after-the-war prospects o' nights in the old
+days, were more or less resigned to a buckshee year or two of filling
+shell-holes up and pulling barbed wire down. Instead of which we all
+go about the country taking in each others' education. No one, we
+gather, will be allowed to go home until he has taken his B.A. with
+honours. And after that--But it would be better to begin at the
+beginning.
+
+It began within ten days of the signing of the armistice, assuming
+the shape of an official inquiry from Division, a five-barred document
+wherein somebody with a talent for confusing himself (and a great
+contempt for the Paper Controller) managed to ask every officer the
+same question in five different ways. They cancelled each other out
+after a little examination and left behind merely a desire to discover
+whether or not each officer had a job waiting for him on his return
+to civil life. William and I took the thing at a gallop, stuck down
+a succinct "Yes. Yes, No, No. Yes," subscribed our signatures and
+returned the documents--or so William proposed to do--"for your
+information and necessary inaction."
+
+"They're getting deuced heavy about these jobs, aren't they?" observed
+William a day or two later. "The Old Man wants to see us all at
+orderly-room for a private interview--he's got to make a return
+showing whether his officers have got jobs waiting for them, if not,
+why not, and please indent at once to make good any deficiencies.
+Hullo, what's this?"
+
+It happened to be William's mail for the day--one large
+official-looking envelope. It turned out to be a document from his old
+unit (he had entered the Army from an O.T.C.), headed, "Resettlement
+and Employment of ex-Officers: Preliminary Enquiry." It was a
+formidable catechism, ranging from inquiries as to whether William had
+a job ready for him to a request for a signed statement from his C.O.
+certifying that he was a sober, diligent and obliging lad and had
+generally given every satisfaction in his present situation. In case
+he hadn't a job or wanted another one there were convenient spaces in
+which to confess the whole of his past--whether he had a liking for
+animals or the Colonies, mechanical aptitude (if any), down to full
+list of birth-marks and next-of-kin. William thrust the thing hastily
+into the stove. But I observed that there was a cloud over him for the
+rest of the day.
+
+However, we both of us satisfied the examiner at the orderly-room,
+though the renewed evidence of a determined conspiracy to find work
+for him left William a trifle more thoughtful than his wont. Shades
+of the prison-house began to close about our growing joy, "These
+'ere jobs," remarked William, "are going to take a bit of dodging,
+dearie. Looks to me as though you might cop out for anything from
+a tram-driver to Lord Chief. Wish people wouldn't be so infernally
+obliging. And, anyway, what is this--an Army or a Labour Exchange?"
+
+As the days wore on the strain became more and more intense. William's
+old school had contrived an association which begged to be allowed to
+do anything in the world for him except leave him for a single day in
+idleness. And what time the Army was not making inquiries about his
+own civil intentions and abilities it was insisting on his extracting
+the same information from the platoons. William grew haggard and
+morose. He began looking under his bed every night for prospective
+employers and took to sleeping with a loaded Webley under his pillow
+for fear of being kidnapped by a registry office. He slept in
+uneasy snatches, and when he did doze off was tormented by hideous
+nightmares.
+
+In one of them he dreamt he was on leave and walking through the City.
+At every doorway he had to run the gauntlet of lithe and implacable
+managing directors, all ready to pounce on him, drag him within and
+chain him permanently to a stool--with the complete approval of
+the Army Council. In another he was appearing before a tribunal of
+employers as a conscientious objector to all forms of work.
+
+The last straw was when the Brigadier caused it to be made known that
+if any officer was particularly unsettled about his future he might be
+granted a personal interview and it would be seen what could be done
+for him. William sat down with the air of one who has established a
+thumping bridgehead over his Rubicon and wrote to the Brigadier direct
+and as follows:--
+
+"SIR,--I have the honour to hope that this finds you a good deal
+better than it leaves me at present. In case you should be in any
+uncertainty over your prospects on return to half-pay, I shall be
+happy to grant you a personal interview at my billet (Sheet 45; G 22a
+3.7.) and see whether anything can be arranged to suit you. I may
+add that I have a number of excellent appointments on my books, from
+knife-boy to traveller to a firm of mineral water manufacturers. For
+my own part my immediate future is firmly settled, thank you. For
+at least three months after my discharge from the Army I have no
+intention of taking up any form of work.
+
+"I have the honour to be, Sir,
+
+"YOUR OTHERWISE OBEDIENT SERVANT, ETC."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The court-martial was held last Thursday and sentence will be
+promulgated any day now. Medical evidence certified William as sane
+enough to understand the nature of his offence, but as the War is
+over it is unlikely that he will be shot at dawn. William himself is
+confident that he will be cashiered, a sentence which carries with
+it automatic and permanent exclusion from all appointments under the
+Crown. "That makes a tidy gap in the wire," says William hopefully.
+"They won't even be able to make a postman of me. With a bit of luck
+I'll dodge the unofficial jobs--I get that holiday after all, old
+bean."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "HUNTING. THE DANGER OF KICKING HORSES."--_Times._
+
+Generally the shoe is on the other foot.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "The Falkirk iron fitters, by an overwhelming majority, have
+ opposed the forty-hour week and have agreed to a forty-four
+ hour week."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+Bravo, Falkirk!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "The announcement of the augmentation of the British beet
+ in the Mediterranean appeared exclusively in the 'Sunday
+ Express.'"--_Daily Express_.
+
+It doesn't seem anything to boast about.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "WANTED.--On a farm, two capable European young or
+ middle-aged girls."--_South African Paper_.
+
+There are lots of girls answering this description, but the difficulty
+is that most of them are too shy to admit it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "M. Clemenceau ... speaks English with rare perfection,
+ having spent years in the United States."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+ "M. Clemenceau, speaking in excellent English, said
+ 'Yes.'"--_Sunday Paper_.
+
+What he really said, of course, was "Yep."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+QUESTION AND ANSWER.
+
+ "What _are_ you, Sir?" the Counsel roared.
+ The timid witness said, "My Lord,
+ A Season-ticket holder I
+ Where London's southern suburbs lie."
+ "Tut, tut," his Lordship made demur,
+ "He meant what is your business, Sir."
+ The witness sighed and shook his head,
+ "I get no time for that," he said.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: SERVICE EVOLUTION. BUD. BLOSSOM. FRUIT.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Guest_ (_who has cut the cloth_). "BILLIARDS REQUIRE
+CONSTANT PRACTICE."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ANOTHER CRISIS.
+
+(_BY A FUTILITY RABBIT KEEPER_.)
+
+ There is a rabbit in the pansy bed,
+ There is a burrow underneath the wall,
+ There is a rabbit everywhere you tread,
+ To-day I heard a rabbit in the hall,
+ The same that sits at evening in my shoes
+ And sings his usefulness, or simply chews;
+ There is no corner sacred to the Muse--
+ And how shall man demobilise them all?
+
+ Far back, when England was devoid of food,
+ Men bade me breed the coney and I bought
+ Timber and wire-entanglements and hewed
+ Fair roomy palaces of pine-wood wrought,
+ Wherein our first-bought sedulously gnawed
+ And every night escaped and ran abroad;
+ Yet she was lovely and we named her Maud,
+ And if she ate the primulas, 'twas nought.
+
+ The months rolled onward and she multiplied,
+ And all her progeny resembled her;
+ They ate the daffodils; they seldom died;
+ And no one thought of them as provender;
+ The children fed them weekly for a treat,
+ And my wife said, "The _little_ things--how sweet!
+ If you imagine I can ever eat
+ A rabbit called Persephone, you err."
+
+ Yet famine might have hardened that proud breast,
+ Only that victory removed the threat;
+ And now, if e'er I venture to suggest
+ That it is time that some of them were ate,
+ That Maud is pivotal and costing pounds,
+ And how the garden is a mass of mounds,
+ She answers me, on military grounds,
+ "Peace is not come. We cannot eat them yet."
+
+ So I shall steal to yon allotment space
+ With a large bag of rabbits, and unseen
+ Demobilise them, and in that fair place
+ They all shall browse on cauliflower and bean;
+ There Smith will come on Saturday, and think
+ That it is shell-shock or disease or drink;
+ But Maud shall dwell for ever there and sink
+ A world of burrows in Laburnum Green. A.P.H.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+SECRETS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
+
+ "The proceedings yesterday afternoon began punctually at three
+ o'clock. Lord Robert Cecil sat with the British delegates. M.
+ Léon Bourgeois sat among the French delegates."--_Manchester
+ Guardian_.
+
+And not, as might have been thought, _vice versâ_.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "A thoroughly capable and energetic man wanted, who will look
+ after a family concern: Must understand management of 25 acre
+ farm with 10 cows, about four acres may have to be broken up.
+ Must be an experienced brewer, capable of mashing 10 times
+ a week, and taking entire charge of brewing operations with
+ assistance of unskilled labour. Must be conversant with
+ licensing laws and requirements, also present restrictions
+ as applying to brewing; thoroughly understand and superintend
+ wines and spirits department, direct repairs, capable buyer,
+ general manager, organiser and foreman. Must be thorough
+ accountant, capable of directing office and branch work,
+ conversant with income-tax and excess profits duty practice.
+ Able to drive, or willing to learn a 4-ton Commer lorry,
+ must be motor-cyclist to visit branches, and manage
+ public-houses. Absolutely essential to understand and
+ drive oil engines.--Further particulars apply ---- and
+ Sons."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+What we chiefly miss is any information as to how the man is to fill
+up his spare time.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "ITALIAN SPELLING.
+
+ "There are to be streets in Athens named after President Wilson
+ and after Mr. Lloyd George. In the 'Patris,' an Athens paper,
+ we read that 'Wilson' is spelt 'Ouilson,' whilst 'George' is
+ Tzortz,' 'Bonar Law' is 'Mponar Lo.'"--_Birmingham Mail_.
+
+We bow to our contemporary's erudition, but we confess it all looks
+Greek to us.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE PROGRESSIVE WEIGHT-LIFTER.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Betty_. "MUMMY, DOES GOD SEND US OUR FOOD?"
+
+_Mother_. "YES, DEAR; OF COURSE HE DOES."
+
+_Betty_. "BUT WHAT A PRICE!"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ALL THE TALENTS.
+
+Now that hostilities are at an end it is thought by many intelligent
+young subalterns that a little variety might well be introduced into
+Army routine.
+
+For instance, at a General's Inspection why should not Officers'
+duties be allotted after this fashion?--
+
+The Commanding Officer will bind up the Second-in-Command with a
+length of red tape, showing that no escape is possible from this
+form of entanglement.
+
+The Adjutant will give an exhibition of paper manipulation, using
+various Army Forms for this purpose.
+
+The Assistant-Adjutant will demonstrate how a morning's work may be
+made of the changing of a pen-nib, while still creating an impression
+of devoted industry.
+
+The Messing Officer will fry a fillet of sole by means of haybox
+cookery, and during the process will publicly skin a ration rabbit
+in such a way that not the slightest depreciation is caused in the
+value of 2½d. attached to a rabbit-skin.
+
+The Officer i/e Demobilisation will demobilise you while you wait
+(provided you can wait long enough).
+
+The Quartermaster will make a model of Hampton Court Maze,
+illustrative of the intricacies of his department, taking care that
+his model appropriately differs from the original in having no means
+of exit.
+
+The Medical Officer will demonstrate how the huge national
+accumulation of No. 9 pills may be adapted to civilian purposes by
+using the pill _(a)_ as a fertiliser for the Officers' tennis lawn,
+and _(b)_ as a destroyer of the superfluous grass bordering thereon.
+
+Company Commanders will collaborate in a display of standing on
+their own feet without the assistance of their respective Company
+Sergeant-Majors. (N.B.--Absolute silence is requested during this
+very delicate performance.)
+
+The Junior Subaltern will give an exhibition of stunt saluting.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+TO MY DRESS SUIT.
+
+ Old friend, well met! I've longed for this reunion;
+ You've been the lodestar of this storm-tossed ship
+ In those long hours which poets call Communion
+ With one's own Soul, and common folk the Pip.
+
+ The foe might rage, the Brigadier might bluster.
+ Was I down-hearted? No! My spirit soared
+ And dreamt of you and me with blended lustre
+ Gracing some well-spread and convivial board.
+
+ And what if now you fit askew where erstwhile
+ Fair lines bewrayed a figure not too svelte?
+ What if your shoulder-seams are like to burst, while
+ A sad hiatus shows beneath the belt?
+
+ As April fills the buds to shapely beauty,
+ As cooks fill Robert with plum-cake and tea,
+ So, it may be, a diet rich and fruity
+ May fill the gap that sunders you from me.
+
+ And if it fail, as I'm a, living sinner
+ I'll save you from the gaze of scornful eyes.
+ They say that Bolsheviks don't dress for dinner;
+ I'll off to Petrograd and Bolshevize.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _The Mayor_. "THE CONTENTS OF THE PURSE WILL IN TIME
+INEVITABLY DISAPPEAR; BUT (_laying his hand on the clock_) HERE IS
+SOMETHING WHICH WILL NEVER GO."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A PLEA FOR PROPORTION.
+
+ [Its contemporaries having told us all about Mr. Lloyd
+ George's hat and how President Wilson ate a banana, _The
+ Daily Express_ recently went one better with the headline,
+ "Mr. Balfour joins a Tennis Club," as the subheading of its
+ "Peace Conference Notes."]
+
+ Has it always been this way, I wonder,
+ Did editors always display
+ The same disposition to blunder
+ O'er the weight of the news of the day?
+ When simpler was war and directer,
+ Was Athens accustomed to see
+ In the sheets of its _Argus_ how Hector
+ Had bloaters for tea?
+
+ If so--or indeed if it's not so--
+ One cannot but gently deplore
+ That the custom of chronicling rot so
+ Has not been expunged by the War.
+ When the world with its horrors still stunned is
+ And waits for vast hopes to come true,
+ What boots it if delegates' undies
+ Are scarlet or blue?
+
+ All facts of those delegates' labours
+ I'm ready to read with a zest,
+ And they must, like myself and my neighbours,
+ I know, have their moments of rest;
+ I do not begrudge them their pleasures,
+ But frankly I don't care a rap
+ If the sport that engages their leisure's
+ "Up, Jenkins" or "Snap."
+
+ Since the founts of its wisdom present us
+ Each morning with gems of this kind,
+ Such matters must strike as momentous
+ The news-editorial mind;
+ 'Tis time this delusion was done with,
+ High time that some voice made it clear
+ We don't want those fountains to run with
+ Such very small beer.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "A married man, aged 34 years, collided with the mail train
+ when riding a motorcycle into Hawera on Friday. His right
+ arm, collarbone, and blue hospital uniforms on Thursday
+ morning."--_New Zealand Herald_.
+
+We rather like this telescopic style of reporting. It leaves something
+to the reader's imagination.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "To Parents and Pawnbrokers.--Anyone assisting to remove the
+ Charity Boots, marked B., from the Children's Feet, which
+ are the property of Mr. J. B---- and his Supporters, WILL BE
+ PROSECUTED."--_Irish Paper_.
+
+A distressful country, indeed, where the children do not own their own
+feet.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+WINCHESTER'S OPPORTUNITY.
+
+War legislation has pressed hard on many callings, and on none more
+than that of the architect. But the embargo has been lifted; the
+ancient art is coming to its own again, and it is of happy omen
+that the new President of the Royal Academy has been chosen from the
+architects. In this context we welcome the stimulating article in a
+recent issue of _The Times_ _à propos_ of the Winchester War Memorial.
+"Are we never," asks the writer, "to take risks in our architecture?"
+and his answer, briefly summed up, is "Perish the thought. _De
+l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace._" It is, of
+course, a pity that the Winchester War Memorial scheme has not met
+with the unanimous approval of Wykehamists. Possibly they have reason,
+for while adding a new cloister, a new gateway and a new hall to
+the existing school buildings, it involves the pulling down of the
+Quingentenary Memorial Building, erected some twenty years ago, and
+of some old houses in Kingsgate Street. Some consider such a drastic
+destruction to be unfortunate, but, says _The Times_, it is "necessary
+if any scheme worthy of the occasion is to be carried out." Moreover
+it is proposed to re-erect the Quingentenary Memorial on a new site,
+"where it will certainly look as well as ever."
+
+The greatest event in our history, as the writer finely observes,
+cannot be worthily commemorated by any timid compromise. Winchester
+has set a splendid example, but it is perhaps too much to expect
+that it will be followed by London, owing to the inevitable clash of
+conflicting interests in our unwieldy metropolis. The erection of
+a new Pantheon on the site of St. Paul's and the removal of WREN'S
+massive but _démodé_ structure to Hampstead Heath, where it would
+certainly look as well as ever, is, we fear, however much _The Times_
+may desire it, beyond the range of practical politics. But example is
+infectious, and if only the Winchester authorities would expand their
+scheme and carry it out with Dantonesque audacity to its full logical
+conclusion, other towns and cities might ultimately fall into line.
+
+Winchester Cathedral, as we need hardly remind our readers, has only
+been rescued from subsidence and collapse at an immense cost by a
+lavish use of the resources of modern engineering. The building itself
+is not without merits, but its site is inconspicuous and the swampy
+nature of the soil is a constant menace to its durability. The scheme
+which we venture with all humility to suggest is that it should be
+removed and re-erected, in the same spirit though in the architectural
+language of our own day, on the summit of St. Catherine's Hill,
+where it would look better than ever, and be connected by a scenic
+neo-Gothic railway with Meads. This would not only add to the
+amenities of the landscape, but enable the present cathedral site to
+be utilized for a purpose more in consonance with the needs of the
+age. We do not presume to dictate, but may point out that if the
+deanery and the canons' houses were pulled down and re-erected on the
+golf-links, where they would look better than ever, space would be
+available for a majestic aerodrome, or, better still, an experimental
+water-stadium for submarines, in memory of KING ALFRED, the founder of
+our Fleet.
+
+Into the question of details, design and cost it is not for us to
+enter. We confine ourselves to appealing with all the force at our
+command to Winchester, fortunate, as _The Times_ reminds us, in the
+choice of an architect of genius and ingenuity, to persevere, to
+rise to the occasion, to cast compromise to the winds and above all
+to remember that the greatest compliment which can be paid to the
+architects of the past is to remove their buildings to sites where
+they look better than ever and do not suffer from the immediate
+neighbourhood of the masterpieces of their successors. Architecture
+has been defined as "frozen music." But on great occasions such as
+this it needs to be taken out of its cold-storage and judiciously
+thawed.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE SOFT ANSWER.
+
+_Navvy_ (_to person who has accidentally bumped him_). "GO TO
+BLANKETY--BLANK--BLANK--BLAZES."
+
+_Person_. "GENTLE STRANGER, YOUR LIGHTEST WISH, EXPRESSED IN SUCH
+COURTEOUS LANGUAGE, IS TO ME A COMMAND."
+
+(_Ambulance call_.)]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Lost, sulky inflate."--_Glasgow Citizen_.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+CIVIL EDUCATION FOR SOLDIERS.
+
+When the armistice was signed and the close season for Germans set in,
+it occurred to the authorities that it would be a waste of labour to
+continue to train some few million good men for a shooting season that
+might never re-open, and the weekly programme became rather a sketchy
+affair till some brain more brilliant than the rest conceived the
+idea of giving a good sound education in the arts of peace to this
+promising and waiting multitude. The idea was joyfully accepted, and
+gradually filtered through its authorised channels, suffering some
+office change or other at each stage till it finally reached one of
+our ancient seats of learning. It arrived rather like the peremptory
+order of a newly-gazetted and bewildered subaltern, who, having got
+his platoon hopelessly tied up, falls back on the time-honoured and
+usually infallible "Carry on, Sergeant."
+
+There were some six-hundred white-hatted cadets stationed at this
+spot, all thirsting (presumably) for information on gas, and Mills
+bombs, and studs on the cocking-piece, and forming fours, and vertical
+intervals and District Courts-martial; and when the order came to
+"carry on" with education it caused something like a panic. A council
+of war nearly caused Head-quarters to cancel a battalion parade, but
+they pulled themselves together and held the drill, and the appointed
+Jack as "Battalion Education Officer," and empowered him to draft a
+scheme of work.
+
+When produced it consisted of fourteen paragraphs, each of which
+finished up with the sentence, "This is obviously a problem for the
+Company Commander." Jack had nothing to learn as to the duties of a
+battalion specialist and realised that his responsibility lay simply
+in providing Company Commanders, and then finding problems for them
+to solve. As the Company Commanders were already in being his work
+was simplified.
+
+However, the Company Commanders, being men of merit, cheerfully
+accepted the situation and approached their victims. "We are going to
+teach you," they said. "What would you like to be taught?"
+
+"Well," said the victims, "what have you got?"
+
+"Oh, anything you like," said the Company Commanders. "Just you choose
+your subject and we'll do the rest."
+
+Now that was very generous, but rather rash. For the victims took them
+at their word, and so by the time the perspiring Platoon Commanders
+had produced their returns (in triplicate) it was found that there
+were forty-three subjects to be provided for, including seven
+languages, six branches of science, four kinds of engineering,
+six commercial subjects and various sundries, such as metaphysics,
+wool-classing and coker-nut planting.
+
+The way the Company Commanders dealt with this problem was quite
+simple and ingenious. They sent for all junior officers and asked
+what they were prepared to teach. The result seemed really rather
+good. Tom said he would take French, having spent three months in
+Northern France before they sent him to Salonika. Dick's father
+has an allotment and Dick himself occasionally hunts, so he chose
+Agriculture, Oswald chose Mathematics, on the strength of having been
+a Quartermaster-Sergeant in the Public Schools Brigade in September,
+1914. Wilfred once went to a gas course for ten days, so of course
+his subject was Science. Arthur really does know something about
+Architecture and can also enlarge a map quite nicely, so he put down
+Drawing. John chose Theology. He said he once read the lessons in
+church; really he thought he was safe to draw a blank.
+
+Once more the Company Commanders were equal to the emergency. They
+looked at it in this way. French is a foreign language; Spanish is
+also a foreign language. Tom offers to teach a foreign language;
+therefore Tom shall teach Spanish. Corn-growing in Western Canada,
+sheep-raising in Australia and coker-nut planting are all obviously
+agriculture. Dick says he can teach Agriculture; so he shall. The
+science of manures caused some discussion as to whether it should
+be agriculture or science, but it was finally settled in favour of
+science, which also included physics, electricity and crystallography.
+John got four theological students, but, when he investigated, he
+found that one was a Jew and one a Presbyterian minister, while the
+other two, like himself, thought that no one else would have thought
+of it. And these touch only the fringe of the subject.
+
+The indent sent in for materials was a rather formidable one, but the
+article most in demand was a sheep, which was wanted at the same time
+by Dick for his Agriculture and Arthur for his Drawing, and also by
+Mac, who is O.C. the Butchery class. Mac wrote a polite little note
+saying he must have at least one a week, and he'd like "a pig to be
+going on with, if you please," promising to hand, the latter over
+complete and in good order, when he'd done with it, to Jones for his
+bacon-curing class, "upon receipt of signature for same."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Politically inclined Nurse_ (_exhibiting new daughter
+to M.P._). "LET US 'OPE, SIR, THAT SHE MAY LIVE TO BE CALLED THE
+MOTHER OF THE 'OUSE OF COMMONS."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.
+
+ "120 Pairs Unbleached Calico Sheets, 2 x 2¾ yards. Sale price,
+ 12/11 per pair; present value, 1/- per pair."--_Yorkshire
+ Paper_.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Including new enlistments there are about 1,000 men
+ concentrated in and around Berlin."--_Manchester Guardian_.
+
+Let FOCH be warned.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "BAD BOYS AND THE BIRCH.
+
+ "We are glad to observe that the Recorder has decided to adopt
+ stern measures with juvenile offenders who are brought before
+ him in future."--_Irish Times_.
+
+"Stern measures" is good.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "NON-STOP WAIST DRIVES, Every Wednesday Evening at 8.30. £10
+ Top, and Six other Special Prizes."--_Local Paper_.
+
+Believed to be under the patronage of the FOOD-CONTROLLER.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE FOOD PROBLEM IN PARIS.
+
+The cost of living in the vicinity of the Peace Conference has been
+enormously exaggerated. Likewise the difficulty of reorganizing Europe
+on a truly ethnic basis. By combining the two questions I have found
+them immensely simplified, and I have been in Paris only three days.
+
+My meaning will be clearly illustrated by the record of a single day's
+experience--with the representative of the Dodopeloponnesians for
+_déjeûner_ and the delegate of the Pan-Deuteronomaniads for dinner.
+
+I made the acquaintance of the first in the lift. On the way down
+it came out that I was _journaliste_ assisting at the Conference of
+the Peace, whereupon the other introduced himself as secretary of
+the Dodopeloponnesian delegation and eager for the pleasure of
+entertaining me at _déjeûner_.
+
+Nothing international arose in connection with the _hors d'oeuvres_.
+It was between the soup and the fish that my host inquired whether
+I had yet found time to look into the just claim of the
+Dodopeloponnesian people to the neighbouring island of Funicula.
+
+"You mean," I said, "on the ground that the island of Funicula was
+brought under the Dodopeloponnesian sceptre on September 11th, 1405,
+by Blagoslav the Splay-fingered, from whom it was wrested on February
+3rd, 1406, by the Seljuks?"
+
+"Precisely," he said. "But also because the people of Funicula are
+originally of Dodopeloponnesian stock."
+
+"Yet they speak the language of Pan-Deuteronomania," I said.
+
+"A debased dialect," he said, "foisted upon them by a remission of
+ten per cent. in taxes for every hundred words of the lingo learned
+by heart, with double votes for irregular verbs."
+
+The _entrée_, something with eggs and jelly, was excellent.
+
+"Far be it from me to deny," I said, "the fact that Funicula is by
+right a part of the inheritance of the Octo-syllabarians"--and I bowed
+gracefully to my host, who raised his glass in return--"and I agree
+in advance with every argument you put forward in favour of a restored
+Sesquicentennial commonwealth by bringing together the scattered
+members of the Duodecimal race from all over the world. In fact," I
+added as the waiter poured out the champagne, "it seems to me that
+in addition to the Island of Funicula there properly belongs, in the
+realm of your Greater Anti-Vivisectoria, the adjacent promontory,
+geyser and natural bridge of Pneumobronchia, from which the last
+Seljuk ruler, Didyffius the Forty-fifth, leaped in front of a
+machete wielded by his eldest son, who therefore became Didymus the
+Forty-sixth."
+
+He was delighted to find so much sympathy and understanding in an
+alien journalist from far across the seas. His bill, so far as a
+hurried and discreet glance could reveal, was 89 francs 50 centimes,
+not including the _taxe_.
+
+On the other hand, the _sous-secrétaire_ of the Pan-Deuteronomaniad
+delegation, who took me out to dinner that same night, paid 127 francs
+(including theatre tickets) before he proved to my satisfaction
+that the basic civilization of Funicula Island is after all
+Pan-whatever-you-call-it.
+
+At any rate my point is made. My expenditure on food these three
+days in Paris has been negligible, and there is rumour that the
+Supra-Zambesian delegation is thinking of opening a hotel with running
+water, h. and c., in every room.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Gunner_. "DO YOU PLAY THE PIANO?"
+
+_Jack_. "NO, SIR."
+
+_Gunner_. "NOR THE 'CELLO?"
+
+_Jack_. "NO, SIR."
+
+_Gunner_. "WELL, THE NEXT TIME YOU HEAR RUMOURS OF A BARBER JUST
+FOLLOW THE MATTER UP."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_DULCE DOMUM_.
+
+ The air is full of rain and sleet,
+ A dingy fog obscures the street;
+ I watch the pane and wonder will
+ The sun be shining on Boar's Hill,
+ Rekindling on his western course
+ The dying splendour of the gorse
+ And kissing hands in joyous mood
+ To primroses in Bagley Wood.
+ I wish that when old Phoebus drops
+ Behind yon hedgehog-haunted copse
+ And high and bright the Northern Crown
+ Is standing over White Horse Down
+ I could be sitting by the fire
+ In that my Land of Heart's Desire--
+ A fire of fir-cones and a log
+ And at my feet a fubsy dog
+ In Robinwood! In Robinwood!
+ I think the angels, if they could,
+ Would trade their harps for railway tickets
+ Or hang their crowns upon the thickets
+ And walk the highways of the world
+ Through eves of gold and dawns empearled,
+ Could they be sure the road led on
+ Twixt Oxford spires and Abingdon
+ To where above twin valleys stands
+ Boar's Hill, the best of promised lands;
+ That at the journey's end there stood
+ A heaven on earth like Robinwood.
+
+ Heigho! The sleet still whips the pane
+ And I must turn to work again
+ Where the brown stout of Erin hums
+ Through Dublin's aromatic slums
+ And Sinn Fein youths with shifty faces
+ Hold "Parliaments" in public places
+ And, heaping curse on mountainous curse
+ In unintelligible Erse,
+ Harass with threats of war and arson
+ Base Briton and still baser CARSON.
+ But some day when the powers that be
+ Demobilise the likes of me
+ (Some seven years hence, as I infer,
+ My actual exit will occur)
+ Swift o'er the Irish Sea I'll fly,
+ Yea, though each wave be mountains high,
+ Nor pause till I descend to grab
+ Oxford's surviving taxicab.
+ Then "Home!" (Ah, HOME! my heart be still!)
+ I'll say, and, when we reach Boar's Hill,
+ I'll fill my lungs with heaven's own air
+ And pay the cabman twice his fare,
+ Then, looking far and looking nigh,
+ Bare-headed and with hand on high,
+ "Hear ye," I'll cry, "the vow I make,
+ Familiar sprites of byre and brake,
+ _J'y suis, j'y reste_. Let Bolshevicks
+ Sweep from the Volga to the Styx;
+ Let internecine carnage vex
+ The gathering hosts of Poles and Czechs,
+ And Jugo-Slavs and Tyrolese
+ Impair the swart Italian's ease--
+ Me for Boar's Hill! These war-worn ears
+ Are deaf to cries for volunteers;
+ No Samuel Browne or British warm
+ Shall drape this svelte Apolline form
+ Till over Cumnor's outraged top
+ The actual shells begin to drop;
+ Till below Youlberry's stately pines
+ Echo the whiskered Bolshy's lines
+ And General TROTSKY'S baggage blocks
+ The snug bar-parlour of 'The Fox.'"
+
+ ALGOL.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ROMANCE WHILE YOU WAIT.
+
+My friend and I occupied facing seats in a railway-carriage on a
+tedious journey. Having nothing to read and not much to say, I gazed
+through the windows at the sodden English winter landscape, while
+my friend's eyes were fixed on the opposite wall of the compartment,
+above my head.
+
+"What a country!" I exclaimed at last. "Good heavens, what a country,
+to spend one's life in!"
+
+"Yes," he said, withdrawing his eyes from the space above my head.
+"And why do we stay in it when there are such glorious paradises to go
+to? Hawaii now. If you really want divine laziness--sun and warmth and
+the absence of all fretful ambition--you should go to the South Seas.
+You can't get it anywhere else. I remember when I was in Hawaii--"
+
+"Hawaii!" I interrupted. "You never told me you had been to Hawaii."
+
+"I don't tell everything," he replied. "But the happiest hours of
+my existence were spent in a little village two or three miles
+from Honolulu, on the coast, where we used to go now and then for
+a day's fun. It was called--let me get it right--it was called
+Tormo Tonitui--and there were pleasure-gardens there and the most
+fascinating girls." His eyes took on a far-away wistfulness.
+
+"Yes, yes?" I said.
+
+"Fascinating brown girls," he said, "who played that banjo-mandolin
+thing they all play, and sang mournful luxurious songs, and danced
+under the lanterns at night. And the bathing! There's no bathing here
+at all. There you can stay in the sea air day if you like. It's like
+bathing in champagne. Sun and surf and sands--there's nothing like
+it." He sighed rapturously.
+
+"Well, I can't help saying again," I interrupted, "that it's a most
+extraordinary thing that, after knowing you all these years, you
+have never told me a word about Honolulu or the South Seas or this
+wonderful pleasure-garden place called--what was the name of it?"
+
+He hesitated for a moment. "Morto Notitui," he then replied.
+
+"I don't think that's how you had it before," I said; "surely it was
+Tormo Tonitui?"
+
+"Perhaps it was," he said. "I forget. Those Hawaiian names are very
+much alike and all rather confusing. But you really ought to go out
+there. Why don't you cut everything for a year and get some sunshine
+into your system? You're fossilising here. We all are. Let's be
+gamblers and chance it."
+
+"I wish I could," I said. "Tell me some more about your life there."
+
+"It was wonderful," he went on--wonderful. I'm not surprised that
+STEVENSON found it a paradise."
+
+"By the way," I asked, "did you hear anything of STEVENSON?"
+
+"Oh, yes, lots. I met several men who had known him--Tusitala he
+was called there, you know--and several natives. There was one
+extraordinary old fellow who had helped him make the road up the
+mountain. He and I had some great evenings together, yarning and
+drinking copra."
+
+"Did he tell you anything particularly personal about STEVENSON?" I
+asked.
+
+"Nothing that I remember," he said; "but he was a fine old fellow and
+as thirsty as they make 'em."
+
+"What is copra like?" I asked.
+
+"Great," he said. "Like--what shall I say?--well, like Audit ale and
+Veuve Clicquot mixed. But it got to your head. You had to be careful.
+I remember one night after a day's bathing at--at Tromo Titonui--"
+
+"Where was that?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, that little village I was telling you about," he said. "I
+remember one night--"
+
+"Look here," I said, "you began by calling it Tormo Tonitui, then you
+called it Morto Notitui and now it's Tromo Titonui. I'm going to say
+again, quite seriously, that I don't believe you ever were in Hawaii
+at all."
+
+"Of course I wasn't," he replied. "But what is one to do in a railway
+carriage, with nothing to read, and a drenched world and those two
+words staring one in the face?" and he pointed to a placard above my
+head advertising a firm which provided the best and cheapest Motor
+Tuition.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+DEMOBILISED.
+
+ Daddy's got his civvies on:
+ In his room upstairs
+ You should have heard him stamping round,
+ Throwing down the chairs;
+ When I went to peep at him
+ Daddy banged his door....
+ Well, I think I'll hide from Daddy
+ Till the next Great War!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Exhausted Shopman_. "WELL, SIR, YOU'VE HAD ON EVERY
+HAT IN THE PLACE. I'M SURE I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SUGGEST."
+
+_Fastidious Warrior_ (_hopelessly_). "NO, I SEE NOTHING FOR IT BUT
+TO REMAIN IN THE ARMY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
+
+MR. ARNOLD BENNETT'S new novel, _The Roll Call_ (HUTCHINSON), is
+a continuation of the _Clayhanger_ series to the extent that its
+hero, _George Cannon_, is the stepson of _Edwin_, who himself makes
+a perfunctory appearance at the close of the tale. The scene is,
+however, now London, where we watch _George_ winning fame and fortune,
+quite in the masterful Five-Towns manner, as an architect. The change
+is, I think, beneficial. That quality of unstalable astonishment,
+native to Mr. BENNETT's folk, accords better with the complexities
+of the wonderful city than to places where it had at times only
+indifferent matter upon which to work. But it is noticeable that Mr.
+BENNETT can communicate this surprise not only to his characters but
+to his readers. There is an enthusiasm, real or apparent, in his art
+which, like the beam celestial, "evermore makes all things new," so
+that when he tells us, as here, that there are studios in Chelsea
+or that the lamps in the Queen's Hall have red shades, these facts
+acquire the thrill of sudden and almost startling discovery. I suppose
+this to be one reason for the pleasure that I always have in his
+books; another is certainly the intense, even passionate sympathy
+that he lavishes upon the central character. In the present example
+the affairs of _George Cannon_ are shown developing largely under the
+stimulus of four women, of whom the least seen is certainly the most
+interesting, while _Lois_, the masterful young female whom _George_
+marries, promises as a personality more than she fulfils. We conduct
+_George's_ fortunes as far as the crisis produced in them by the
+War, and leave him contemplating a changed life as a subaltern in
+the R.F.A. It is therefore permissible to hope that in a year or
+two we may expect the story of his reconstruction. I shall read it
+with delight.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_Iron Times with the Guards_ (MURRAY), by an O.E., is emphatically
+one of the books which one won't turn out from one's war-book shelf.
+It fills in blanks which appear in more ambitious and more orderly
+narratives. This particular old Etonian, entering the new Army by way
+of the Territorials in the first days of the War, was transferred, in
+the March of 1915, to the Coldstreams and was in the fighting line
+in April of the same year. A way they had in the Army of those great
+days. Details of the routine of training, reported barrack-square
+jests and dug-out conversations, vignettes of trench and field,
+disquisitions on many strictly relevant and less relevant topics,
+reflections of that fine pride in the regiment which marks the best
+of soldiers, an occasional more ambitious survey of a battle or a
+campaign--all this from a ready but not pretentious pen, guided by a
+sound intelligence and some power of observation, makes an admirable
+commentary. Our author's narrative carries us to those days of the
+great hopes of the Spring of 1917, hopes so tragically deferred.
+Perhaps the best thing in an interesting sheaf is the description
+of the attack of the Guards Division--as it had become--on the
+Transloy-Lesboeufs-Ginchy road, with its glory and its carnage.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It is to be feared that _Battle Days_ (BLACKWOOD), a new work by Mr.
+ARTHUR FETTERLESS, author of _Gog_, will lose a good many readers as
+the result of the armistice. There are battle stories and battle books
+that are not stories that will live far into the piping times of peace
+because they are human documents or have the stamp of genius. These
+attractions are not present in _Battle Days_, which in truth is rather
+a prosy affair, though ambitious withal. It is not fiction in the
+ordinary sense. Mr. FETTERLESS essays to conduct the reader through
+every phase of a big "Push." Pushes were complicated affairs, and the
+author does not spare us many of the complications. And unless the
+reader happens to be an ardent militarist he is apt to push off into
+slumberland. Cadets should be made to read this book as a matter of
+instruction; for, though it lacks the subtle humour that endeared
+_Duffer's Drift_ to us, it provides a striking analysis of modern
+trench warfare.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_The Curtain of Steel_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is the fourth book which
+the author of _In the Northern Mists_ has given us during the War, and
+in essentials it is the most valuable of the quartette. For here we
+have real history, served, it is true, with some trimmings, but none
+the less a true record of the doings of our Grand Fleet since the day
+when the "curtain" was lowered. "Nothing," our author says, "nauseates
+a naval man so much as the attempt to represent him as a hero or to
+theatricalise him and his profession." It behoves me then to choose
+my words with the utmost circumspection, and I beg him to forgive my
+audacity when I say that, if I were Book-Controller, a copy of _The
+Curtain of Steel_ would be in (and out of) the library of every
+school in the Empire. I find courage to make this statement because I
+see that he does not deny that a part of our "disease of ignorance"
+concerning the Senior Service is due to the modesty of Naval men.
+If he will please go on correcting that ignorance, and in the same
+inspiring style, I wish an even greater access of power to his elbow.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"I am allowed the reputation of a tolerable guide in writing and
+style, and I can certainly help you to produce clear English." These
+words, written in 1881, are to be found in a letter of GEORGE MEREDITH
+to his eldest son. They show how wildly mistaken even the best of us
+may be with regard to our own qualities and gifts; for if there is one
+thing that MEREDITH could not produce, that thing is clear English.
+Mr. S.M. ELLIS agrees with me in this particular point, and has
+written _George Meredith: His Life and Friends in Relation to his
+Work_ (GRANT RICHARDS) to prove that this is so. The book is a curious
+compound. At one moment Mr. ELLIS sets out in detail the Meredithian
+genealogy, and shows that MEREDITH was the son and grandson of tailors
+and did not relish the relationship; at another moment he describes
+MEREDITH'S delightful and exuberantly youthful characteristics as a
+friend; and again he shows how badly MEREDITH behaved in regard to his
+first wife (though she was much more in fault), and also in regard to
+his first son, Arthur. Still the book is extremely interesting and,
+though it does not profess to deal in elaborate criticism, it contains
+some very shrewd comments on MEREDITH'S work and the reasons that made
+his novels so many sealed books to the British public. Here and there
+Mr. ELLIS allows himself almost to write a passage or two in the style
+of the master. This is one of them: "As he [Maurice Fitzgerald] was
+the gourmetic instrument that brought Mrs. Ockenden's art to perfect
+expression, he appropriately attained immortalisation jointly with her
+at the hands of the friend who had shared with him the joys of that
+good woman's superlative cookery in Seaford days."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE PAY-TABLE. (THE END OF A PERFECT WAR.) "JOHN SMITH,
+A.B., THREE POUNDS TEN--IN DEBT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Wanted, half-governess for boy aged nine, girl aged six;
+ wages £30 per year."--_Morning Post_.
+
+A half-governess is, we suppose, the feminine equivalent of two
+quartermasters.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Lady Nurse, nursery college trained, wanted, under 34;
+ very experienced babies."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+Perhaps they will know too much for her.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Will gentleman, navy mackintosh, who spoke to lady, blue
+ hat, vicinity Park Station, Tuesday, 6 o'clock, speak again
+ same time?"--_Liverpool Echo_.
+
+The gentleman will doubtless beg a ride on Mr. H.G. WELLS'S "Time
+Machine" in order to get back in time for the appointment.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ [Sir WILLIAM BEVERIDGE. K.O.B., has been appointed Permanent
+ Secretary to the Ministry of Food.]
+
+ To skimp its daily bread for beer
+ Was not this nation's mood;
+ But now with lightened hearts we hear
+ That BEVERIDGE turns to Food.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11868 ***