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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152,
+March 21, 1917, by Various
+
+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, Volume 152, March 21, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14455]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Keith Edkins and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 152.
+
+
+
+March 21st, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+There is a convict at Pentonville who is said to be exactly like the
+KAISER. He feels that in view of the great inconvenience he has suffered it
+is the KAISER'S duty at once to remove his moustache or grow side whiskers.
+
+       ***
+
+The KAISER is in a bit of a hole. Attending a special service for the
+success of the War, he is reported to have "sung the _De Profundis_ at the
+top of his voice." All the rest of him, including the lower part of his
+voice, seems to have been submerged.
+
+       ***
+
+The revolutionary spirit in Germany seems to have extended to the vegetable
+kingdom. In a riot at Barmen which occurred recently the chief of police
+was "seriously wounded" by a turnip.
+
+       ***
+
+The _Berliner Tageblatt_ states that for appearing at a private concert a
+famous opera singer has been paid in food, including sixty eggs. The custom
+is not unknown to some of our own music-hall artistes, who however are
+usually more than content with receiving "the bird."
+
+       ***
+
+According to a _Globe_ report Mr. CHARLES GULLIVER is giving at the
+Palladium "a programme of real entertainers." Enterprise and originality
+are always to be commended in a manager.
+
+       ***
+
+A telegram from Mexico City announces that General CARRANZA has been
+elected President of the Mexican Republic. It is expected that a full list
+of the casualties will be published shortly.
+
+       ***
+
+A Melbourne despatch states that Mr. HUGHES has been offered thirty-four
+seats in the forthcoming elections. The Opposition, it is understood, has
+expressed its willingness to allow Mr. HUGHES to occupy all thirty-four.
+
+       ***
+
+So effective has been the attempt to reduce circulation that we are not
+surprised to find a provincial paper advertising in _The Daily Telegraph_
+for "A Reader."
+
+       ***
+
+"There is no monument more enduring than brass," writes Mr. GEORGE BERNARD
+SHAW, War Correspondent. The general feeling, however, is that there is a
+kind of brass that is beyond enduring.
+
+       ***
+
+The idea of blaming _Queen Elizabeth_ for the Dardanelles fiasco is so
+entirely satisfactory to all parties concerned that it is being freely
+asked why the Commission couldn't have thought of that itself.
+
+       ***
+
+The new order prohibiting newspapers from printing contents bills is
+bearing hardly in certain quarters, and it is rumoured that at least one
+sensational contemporary has offered to forgo publishing itself in return
+for the privilege of selling its posters.
+
+       ***
+
+By order of the General Officer Commanding the London District the Grafton
+Galleries have been placed out of bounds. Or, as they say in the best
+War-time dancing circles, out of leaps and bounds.
+
+       ***
+
+[Illustration: PROGRESS.]
+
+       ***
+
+Kensington Council states that 300,000 tons of food are consumed annually
+by thousands of dogs which serve no useful purpose. The dogs, on the other
+hand, are asking what would become of the nation's womanhood if there were
+no dogs to take it out for exercise in the afternoon.
+
+       ***
+
+The Government, it appears, is determined to keep Charing Cross Railway
+Station on the North side of the river. All the objections to the present
+site, they point out, are easily outweighed by its proximity to the
+National Gallery.
+
+       ***
+
+At Highgate, says a news item, a man named YELLS was fined for having in
+his possession pork which was not sound. It was suggested that defendant
+had held back the squeal for his own purposes.
+
+       ***
+
+An applicant recently informed the House of Commons' Tribunal that cutting
+sandwiches was highly skilled work, which could not be done satisfactorily
+by women. The difficulty appears to consist not in the actual cutting, but
+in conveying the hammy taste from the knife to the bread without actually
+parting with the ham itself.
+
+       ***
+
+Skipping is recommended as a healthy recreation. Several Germans on the
+Ancre say they already owe their lives to this practice.
+
+       ***
+
+It is now proposed that Telephone Directories should be charged for. The
+idea appears to be to bring them into line with other light literature; but
+_Punch_ fears no rivals.
+
+       ***
+
+It has been decided by Mr. PAUL TAYLOR at Marylebone that bacon is meat.
+Lord DEVONPORT, now that his suspicion has been judicially confirmed, has
+announced his intention of going ahead on that basis.
+
+       ***
+
+From a school-girl's examination paper:--"_Question._ What do you know of
+Tantalus? _Answer_: Tantalus suffered from continual hunger and thirst in
+internal regions."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHILDREN'S TALES FOR GROWN-UPS.
+
+III.
+
+ITS OWN REWARD.
+
+"What fun!" cried the wasp.
+
+"Where?" asked the bee looking up with a subdued smile.
+
+"I mean I can't help laughing," said the wasp.
+
+"A disgusting habit," said the bee.
+
+"Look at those people nearly out of their wits. Here goes for old
+Bless-my-Soul again!" He flew off and buzzed round the old gentleman's neck
+and then flew back to the bee, laughing louder than ever at his purple
+rage.
+
+"I don't know what you think of your conduct," said the bee severely, "but
+I think it is insects like you who give us all a bad name."
+
+"Be hanged to your bad name," scoffed the wasp. "A short life and a merry
+one, say I."
+
+"A busy life and a useful one, rather," said the bee. "I am proud to be the
+friend of man."
+
+"Good heavens!" shouted the wasp. "Here comes old Bless-my-Soul bent on
+murder. Look out! I'm going for his neck."
+
+Old Bless-my-Soul slashed wildly with his table-napkin and slew the bee. He
+went back triumphantly with his spoil.
+
+"A bee!" shouted everybody. "I thought it was a wasp. I didn't know bees
+were like that."
+
+"All insects are vicious," said old Bless-my-Soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another Impending Apology.
+
+    "LONDON PAVILION. CHEERIO! at 8.30.--'Just the thing for a dull
+    evening.'"--_Daily News._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A few of the waiting women abandoned hope of getting potatoes, and
+    substituted the purchase by parsnips and sweres."--_Daily Mirror._
+
+In the circumstances who shall blame them?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTICE.
+
+In order to meet the national need for economy in the consumption of paper,
+the Proprietors of _Punch_ are compelled to reduce the number of its pages,
+but propose that the amount of matter published in _Punch_ shall by
+condensation and compression be maintained and even, it is hoped,
+increased.
+
+It is further necessary that means should be taken to restrict the
+circulation of _Punch_, and its price has been raised to Sixpence. The
+Proprietors believe that the public will prefer an increase of price to a
+reduction of matter.
+
+Readers are urged to place an order with their Newsagent for the regular
+delivery of copies, as _Punch_ may otherwise be unobtainable, the shortage
+of paper making imperative the withdrawal from Newsagents of the
+"on-sale-or-return" privilege.
+
+In consequence of the increase in the price of _Punch_ the period covered
+by subscriptions already paid direct to the _Punch_ Office will be
+proportionately shortened; or the unexpired value will be refunded, if
+desired.
+
+The next issue of _Punch_ (March 28th) will be a Navy Double Number, price
+Sixpence. The Proprietors regret that arrangements for this Number were
+completed before the further drastic restrictions in the paper supply were
+announced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Unlucky One_ (_after perusing latest list of honours_).
+"NEVER HAVE HAD ANY LUCK. MONTHS AGO I SAVED A SERGEANT CHAP FROM A ROTTEN
+PLACE--CARRIED THE FELLOW ALL THE WAY BACK--AND TOLD HIM NOT TO SAY A WORD
+ABOUT IT!"
+
+_Friend._ "WELL, WHAT'S WRONG? HAS HE BEEN TALKING?"
+
+_Unlucky One._ "NOT A WORD, CURSE HIM!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MUD LARKS.
+
+When I was young, my parents sent me to a boarding school, not in any hopes
+of getting me educated, but because they wanted a quiet home.
+
+At that boarding school I met one Frederick Delane Milroy, a chubby
+flame-coloured brat who had no claims to genius, excepting as a
+_littérateur_.
+
+The occasion that established his reputation with the pen was a Natural
+History essay. We were given five sheets of foolscap, two hours and our own
+choice of subject. I chose the elephant, I remember, having once been kind
+to one through the medium of a bag of nuts.
+
+Frederick D. Milroy headed his effort "THE FERT" in large capitals, and
+began, "The fert is a noble animal--" He got no further, the extreme
+nobility of the ferret having apparently blinded him to its other
+characteristics.
+
+The other day, as I was wandering about on the "line," dodging Bosch crumps
+with more agility than grace, I met Milroy (Frederick Delane) once more.
+
+He was standing at the entrance of a cosy little funk-hole, his boots and
+tunic undone, sniffing the morning nitro-glycerine. He had swollen
+considerably since our literary days, but was wearing his hair as red as
+ever, and I should have known it anywhere--on the darkest night. I dived
+for him and his hole, pushed him into it, and re-introduced myself. He
+remembered me quite well, shook my chilblains heartily, and invited me
+further underground for tea and talk.
+
+It was a nice hole, cramped and damp, but very deep, and with those Bosch
+love-tokens thudding away upstairs I felt that the nearer Australia the
+better. But the rats! Never before have I seen rats in such quantities;
+they flowed unchidden all over the dug-out, rummaged in the cupboards,
+played kiss-in-the-ring in the shadows, and sang and brawled behind the old
+oak panelling until you could barely hear yourself shout. I am fond of
+animals, but I do not like having to share my tea with a bald-headed rodent
+who gets noisy in his cups, or having a brace of high-spirited youngsters
+wrestle out the championship of the district on my bread-and-butter.
+
+Freddy apologised for them; they were getting a bit above themselves, he
+was afraid, but they were seldom dangerous, seldom attacked one unprovoked.
+"Live and let live" was their motto. For all that they _did_ get a trifle
+_de trop_ sometimes; he himself had lost his temper when he awoke one
+morning to find a brawny rat sitting on his face combing his whiskers in
+mistake for his own (a pardonable error in the dark); and, determining to
+teach them a lesson, had bethought him of his old friend, the noble fert.
+He therefore sent home for two of the best.
+
+The ferrets arrived in due course, received the names Burroughs and
+Welcome, were blessed and turned loose.
+
+They had had a rough trip over at the bottom of the mail sack and were
+looking for trouble. An old rat strolled out of his club to see what all
+the noise was about, and got the excitement he needed. Seven friends came
+to his funeral and never smiled again. There was great rejoicing in that
+underground Mess that evening; Burroughs and Welcome were fêted on bully
+beef and condensed milk, and made honorary members.
+
+For three days the good work went on; there was weeping in the cupboards
+and gnashing of teeth behind the old oak panelling. Then on the fourth day
+Burroughs and Welcome disappeared, and the rats swarmed to their own again.
+The deserters were found a week later; they had wormed through a system of
+rat-holes into the next dug-out, inhabited by the Atkinses, and had
+remained there, honoured guests.
+
+It is the nature of the British Atkins to make a pet of anything, from a
+toad to a sucking pig--he cannot help it. The story about St. George, doyen
+of British soldiers, killing that dragon--nonsense! He would have spanked
+it, may be, until it promised to reform, then given it a cigarette, and
+taken it home to amuse the children. To return to our ferrets, Burroughs
+and Welcome provided no exception to the rule; they were taught to sit up
+and beg, and lie down and die, to turn handsprings and play the
+mouth-organ; they were gorged with Maconochie, plum jam and rum ration; it
+was doubtful if they ever went to bed sober. Times out of number they were
+borne back to the Officers' Mess and exhorted to do their bit, but they
+returned immediately to their friends the Atkinses, _viâ_ their private
+route, not unnaturally preferring a life of continuous carousal and
+vaudeville among the flesh-pots to sapping and mining down wet rat-holes.
+
+Freddy was of opinion that, when the battalion proceeded up Unter den
+Linden, Burroughs and Welcome would be with it as regimental mascots,
+marching behind the band, bells on their fingers, rings on their toes. He
+also assured me that if he ever again has to write an essay on the Fert,
+its characteristics, the adjective "noble" will not figure so prominently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HERBS OF GRACE.
+
+III.
+
+SWEET MARJORAM.
+
+  _"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!"_
+    (Sang an old dame standing on the kerb);
+  "You may hear a thousand ballads,
+  You may pick a thousand salads,
+    Ere you light on such another herb.
+
+  _Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!_
+    (Let its virtues evermore be sung);
+  Oh, 'twill make your Sunday clo'es gay,
+  If you wear it in a nosegay,
+    Pretty mistress, like when I was young.
+
+  _"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!_
+    (Sing of sweet old gardens all a-glow);
+  It will scent your dower drawer, dear,
+  Folk would strew it on the floor, dear,
+    Long ago--long ago--long ago.
+
+  _"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!"_
+    _(Sang the old dame standing on the kerb);_
+  _"You may hear a thousand ballads,_
+  _You may pick a thousand salads,_
+    _Ere you light on such another herb."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The recipients [of the medals] were:--Sergeant W.A. Norris, D.C.M. and
+    Military Private A. Trichney, M.M., andtootompPUF. Medal ..." _Daily
+    Paper._
+
+Private TRICHNEY'S second distinction was awarded presumably for something
+extra good in the bombing line.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lord Beauchamp, opening an Economy Exhibition at Gloucester on
+    Saturday, said that among many interesting exhibits was one described
+    as 'Frocks for the twins from Uncle's pyjamas.' He hoped that the child
+    who sent this exhibit would get the prize it deserved."--_Daily Mail._
+
+Uncle has probably seen to that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE BREAKING OF THE FETTERS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ELLA REEVE.
+
+One can't be too careful how one boasts, especially if there is the chance
+of the boast being put quickly to the proof. In fact, it is better perhaps
+not to boast at all.
+
+I was sitting with a friend and a stranger in a London restaurant, having
+joined their table for coffee. The stranger, on introduction, turned out to
+be connected with the stage in some capacity as agent, and among his
+regular clients were the managers of various big provincial theatres, for
+whom he provided the leading lights of pantomime, or, as he would call it,
+panto. Panto was indeed the mainstay of his business; it was even the warp
+and woof of his life. He lived for panto, he thought panto, and he talked
+panto. No one, according to him, had a more abysmal knowledge of principal
+boys with adequate legs, principal (if that is still the word) girls with
+sufficient voices, contralto fairy queens with abundant bosoms, basso demon
+kings, Prince Dandinis, Widow Twankays, Ugly Sisters, and all the other
+personages of this strange grease-paint mythology of ours. Listening to
+him, I learned--as those who are humble in spirit may learn of all men. I
+learned, for example, that Ugly Sisters are at Christmas-time always Ugly
+Sisters, and very often use again the same dialogue, merely transferring
+themselves from, say, Glasgow to Wigan, or from Bristol to Dublin; and this
+will be their destiny until they become such very old men that not even the
+kindly British public will stand it any longer. England, it seems, is full
+of performers who, touring the halls from March to December, are then
+claimed for panto as her own, arriving a little before Christmas not less
+regularly than the turkey; and the aim of all of them is as nearly as
+possible to do the next Christmas what they did last Christmas.
+
+Not only did my new acquaintance know all these people, their capabilities
+and the lowest salary that could be offered to them with any chance of
+acceptance, but he was also, it seemed, beloved by them all. Between agent
+and client never in the history of the world had such charming relations
+subsisted as between every pro. on his books and himself.
+
+It was then that Ella Reeve came in.
+
+Accompanied by two expensive-looking men, whose ancestors had beyond any
+doubt crossed the Red Sea with Moses, this new and glittering star, who had
+but just "made good," or "got over," or "clicked" (my new acquaintance used
+all these phrases indiscriminately when referring to his own Herschellian
+triumphs as a watcher of the skies), walked confidently to a distant table
+which was being held in reserve for her party, and drew off her gloves with
+the happy anticipatory assurance of one who is about to lunch a little too
+well. (All this, I should say, happened before the War. I am reminded of it
+to-day by the circumstance that I have just heard of the death of the agent
+whom I then met.)
+
+The impact of the lady on this gentleman was terrific.
+
+"Look, look!" he said. "That's Ella Reeve, one of my discoveries. She was
+principal boy at Blackpool two years ago. I put her there. She got fifteen
+pounds a week, and to-day she gets two hundred. I spotted her in a chorus,
+asked her to call and see me, and this is the result. I made her. There's
+nothing she wouldn't do for me, she's so grateful. If she knew I was in the
+room she'd be over here in a jiffy."
+
+Having told us all this, he, being a very normal man, told it again, all
+the while craning his neck in the hope that his old client (she had now, it
+seemed, passed out of his hands, having forsaken panto for London and
+revue) might catch sight of his dear face. But she was far too much
+occupied either with the lobster on her plate or with the yellow fluid,
+strange to me, that moved restlessly in a long-stemmed shallow glass at her
+side.
+
+And then, being, as I say, not in any way an eccentric or exorbitant
+character, the agent told it us a third time, with a digression here and
+there as to the deep friendships that members of his profession could form
+and cement if only they were decent fellows and not mere money-grubbing
+machines out for nothing but their commission. "That's what the wise man
+does," he concluded; "he makes real friends with his clients, such as I did
+with Ella Reeve. The result is we never had any hitches, and there's
+nothing she wouldn't do for me. She's a darling!"
+
+Getting a little tired of this, but obviously anything but unwilling to
+shake the new star's slender hand and listen to the vivacious flow of
+speech from such attractive lips, my friend said at last, "Well, as you and
+she are such pals, and as she has only to know that you are here to jump
+over the tables to get to you, why not send your card to her?"
+
+The agent agreed, and we watched the waiter threading his way among the
+tables towards that one at which the new and grateful star was seated and
+hand the card to her.
+
+The end of this story is so tragic that I should prefer not to tell it.
+
+Ella Reeve took the card, read it, laid it down, and resumed conversation
+with her friends. She did not even glance in our direction.
+
+I felt sorry for the agent, whose mortification was very real, though he
+made a brave effort to carry it off; and now that he is dead I feel
+sorrier. As for Ella Reeve (which is not really her name, but one which
+with great ingenuity I devised for her from the French: thus, _Elle
+arrive_) I often see her, under her true style, in her triumphs, and I
+always wonder whether her treatment of the agent, or his assurance of her
+dependence on his cordiality, represents more nearly the truth. She looks
+such a good sort. Some day, when the War is over, I must acquire a shiny
+tall hat and a glossy shirt front and a youthful manner and get someone to
+introduce me, and then, bit by bit, extract the truth.
+
+Meanwhile the fact remains that it is dangerous to boast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Tommy (back from Blighty)_. "YUS, I GRANT YER A BIT O'
+LEAVE'S ALL RIGHT. BUT IT'S AWFUL DEPRESSIN', TOO, AT HOME--NOTHIN' BUT
+WAR--WAR! IT GIVES YER THE FAIR 'UMP."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"JAPANESE POLITICS.
+
+PRIME MINISTER'S ATTACK ON THE DIET."--_Daily Paper._
+
+We wouldn't be the Food Controller in Japan for anything.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Wanted situation as Groom Coachman or Coachman General; disengaged
+    early in March; can milk and care motor if required."--_Irish Paper_.
+
+A modern improvement, we suppose, on "the cow with the iron tail."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "At a special meeting of the Duma held to-day, the Minister for
+    Agriculture, M. Rittich, in reply to an urgent question on the measures
+    for supplying Petrograd, stated the supplies were sufficient for the
+    present. Difficulties in purchase are due to excessive building and
+    storing by individuals in the shape of rusks."--_Daily Chronicle_.
+
+No authority for this remarkable statement is given, but we suspect the
+_Russky Invalid_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A trifle of a trinket for his women-folk is the only saving as an
+    insurance for the poor against famine and starvation for a rainless
+    day."--_A Native Writer in "The Times of India."_
+
+KIPLING was right, East is East and West is West.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The undersigned has great pleasure in informing all the ladies,
+    gentlemen and the other travellers in the Station that a very nice
+    comfortable motor car can be obtained on hire from him for a walk in or
+    out of the Station for any period of time at very reasonable
+    charges."--_Peshawar Daily News_.
+
+The petrol shortage evidently extends to India.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Ireland is accustomed to disappointment; she is accustomed to what she
+    signalises as betrayal, but her spirit remains unbroken, and she goes
+    on her way undaunted to seek, it may be by new methods and a new road,
+    her appointed gaol."--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+Irishmen may justifiably resent this cynicism on the part of an old friend.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A MODIFIED SALIENT.
+
+_The Old 'Un (surveying recently called-up warrior)._ "WELL, JARGE, YOU'M
+STILL TURR'BLE FAT, BUT THE ARMY DO ZEEM TO 'AVE REARRANGED IT, LIKE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GOLD BRAID.
+
+  Same old crossing, same old boat,
+    Same old dust round Rouen way,
+  Same old narsty one-franc note,
+    Same old "Mercy, sivvoo play;"
+  Same old scramble up the line,
+    Same old 'orse-box, same old stror,
+  Same old weather, wet or fine,
+    Same old blooming War.
+
+      _Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,_
+        _It's just as it used to be, every bit;_
+      _Same old whistle and same old bang,_
+        _And me to stay 'ere till I'm 'it._
+
+
+  'Twas up by Loos I got me first;
+    I just dropped gently, crawled a yard
+  And rested sickish, with a thirst--
+    The 'eat, I thought, and smoking 'ard ...
+  Then someone offers me a drink,
+    What poets call "the cooling draft,"
+  And seeing 'im I done a think:
+    "_Blighty_," I thinks--and laughed.
+
+  I'm not a soldier natural,
+    No more than most of us to-day;
+  I runs a business with a pal
+    (Meaning the Missis) Fulham way;
+  Greengrocery--the cabbages
+    And fruit and things I take meself,
+  And she has daffs and crocuses
+    A-smiling on a shelf.
+
+  "Blighty," I thinks. The doctor knows;
+    'E talks of punctured damn-the-things.
+  It's me for Blighty. Down I goes;
+    I ain't a singer, but I sings;
+  "Oh, 'oo goes 'ome?" I sort of 'ums;
+    "Oh, 'oo's for dear old England's shores?"
+  And by-and-by Southampton comes--
+   "Blighty!" I says and roars.
+
+  I s'pose I thort I done my bit;
+    I s'pose I thort the War would stop;
+  I saw myself a-getting fit
+    With Missis at the little shop;
+  The same like as it used to be,
+    The same old markets, same old crowd.
+  The same old marrers, same old me,
+    But 'er as proud as proud....
+
+  The regiment is where it was,
+    I'm in the same old ninth platoon;
+  New faces most, and keen becos
+    They 'ope the thing is ending soon;
+  I ain't complaining, mind, but still,
+    When later on some newish bloke
+  Stops one and laughs, "A blighty, Bill,"
+    I'll wonder, "Where's the joke?"
+
+  Same old trenches, same old view,
+    Same old rats and just as tame,
+  Same old dug-outs, nothing new,
+    Same old smell, the very same,
+  Same old bodies out in front,
+    Same old _strafe_ from 2 till 4,
+  Same old scratching, same old 'unt,
+    Same old bloody War.
+
+      _Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,_
+        _It's just as it used to be, every bit;_
+      _Same old whistle and same old bang_
+        _And me out again to be 'it._
+                  A.A.M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW POSTER.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The important now development in the cotton situation is that the ½
+    Prime Minister has consented to receive a deputation."--_Manchester
+    Guardian._
+
+All the same, he refused to adopt a ½ measure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The history of the development of the ¾eppelin is well-known."--_Daily
+    Chronicle._
+
+Particularly since our airmen ceased to give it any quarter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an official notice of the sale of an enemy business:--
+
+    "Lot 2. The goodwill of the business of the company attaching to goods
+    shipped from England to Nigeria, marked with the unregistered or
+    common-law trade-marks known as 'Eagle on Rocks' and 'Lion and Flag.'"
+
+We are not surprised to hear of the "Eagle on Rocks" when it had the "Lion
+and Flag" after it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: TILLERS OF THE SOIL.
+
+STUDY OF URBAN DWELLERS PREPARING FOR THE WORST.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE JOY-RIDER AT THE FRONT.
+
+    (_Being a free version of Mr. BERNARD SHAW'S articles in "The Daily
+    Chronicle" on his visit to the seat of War_.)
+
+  "Since the good man, RAMSAY MACDONALD, while touring in the East
+  Went out to shoot the tiger, that homicidal beast,
+  The most electrifying humanitarian stunt
+  Has been my khaki joy-ride along the British Front.
+
+  "It wasn't my own suggestion; I went as the Government's guest,
+  Invited to see how the brass-hats were running the show on the West;
+  I've never been sweet on soldiers, but I only went for a week,
+  And it gave me heaps of chances of studying war technique.
+
+  "If they really thought to convert me by the loan of a khaki suit,
+  Or by conferring upon me the right to claim a salute,
+  It wouldn't at all surprise me, for dullards have always tried
+  To bribe true men of genius to take the popular side.
+
+  "Well, I went, I saw, I 'joy-rode,' and my verdict remains the same;
+  There's no use having a country unless she's always to blame;
+  For of all the appalling prospects that human life can lend
+  The worst is to be unable to play the candid friend.
+
+  "Men talk of France, the Martyr; of her precious blood outpoured;
+  Of the innocent helpless victims of the brutal Hunnish horde;
+  Presuming, insensate idiots, to label as beast and brute
+  The race that has always held me in the very highest repute!
+
+  "While France has failed completely, at least in those later days,
+  To show appreciation of my Prefaces and Plays;
+  It wouldn't be therefore worthy of a genuine superman
+  To show undue compassion for the sorrows of 'Marianne.'
+
+  "And as for the sheer destruction of noble and ancient fanes
+  Which the prejudiced Hun-hater indignantly arraigns,
+  The simple truth compels me in honesty to state
+  That the style of some ruined buildings was utterly second-rate.
+
+  "But to quit these trivial matters--let weaklings wail and weep,
+  The loss of a few cathedrals will never affect my sleep--
+  What lifts this Armageddon to an altitude sublime
+  Is the crowning fact that it gave me a perfectly glorious time.
+
+  "As an ultra-neutral observer I entered the battle zone
+  And emerged unmoved, unshaken, with a heart as cool as a stone;
+  No sight could touch or daunt me, no sound my soul untune;
+  From pity or tears or sorrow I still remained immune.
+
+  "I own that before my arrival I felt an occasional qualm
+  Lest the shock of the unexpected might shatter my wonted calm;
+  But it gave me the richest rapture to find I was wholly free
+  From the crude and vulgar emotions that harass the plain V.C.
+
+  "I inspected the great war-engine, and, instead of its going strong,
+  I saw that in each of its workings there was always something wrong;
+  In fact, with the old black powder and the obsolete Brown Bess
+  The chances of missing your target were infinitely less.
+
+  "The so-called arm of precision scores only by lucky hits,
+  Though the 'heavies' and high explosives may possibly blow you to bits;
+  I saw one corpse on my 'joy-ride,' the head had been blown away,
+  And the thought of this painless ending produced in me no dismay."
+
+  _Now he's back in the finest feather from his holiday with the Staff,_
+  _And we're sure that no one will grudge him the meed of this epitaph:_
+  _"He went through the fiery furnace, but never a hair was missed_
+  _From the heels of our most colossal Arch-Super-Egotist."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"GREAT WHITE SALE.
+
+UNREPEATABLE BARGAINS IN LINGERIE."--_Daily Paper._
+
+We respect this reticence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The public are responding but slowly to the appeal of the Post Office
+    to facilitate the delay of correspondence in London by using the new
+    numbered addresses."--_Daily Mail._
+
+If that is really the object, why hurry?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CANCELLED
+
+BY ORDER OF THE COMPETENT MILITARY AUTHORITY.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+_Monday, March 12th._--Having declared war upon the Government the
+Nationalists are seeking a suitable plan of campaign. The Home Rule demand
+never obtained much support among the Irish farmers until FINTAN LALOR
+hitched it on to the Land question, and ever since Mr. WYNDHAM'S Land
+Purchase Act turned the tenants into prospective owners it has been
+steadily losing momentum. Mr. GINNELL, who made his reputation as a
+perverse species of cowboy, now witnesses with grim satisfaction the
+efforts of his colleagues to borrow his policy and break up the grass
+farms. It was rather hard on him that the Parliamentary printer should have
+ruined one of his questions on the subject by making him say "that the
+reason"--instead of the season--"for breaking this land is passing away."
+
+The HOME SECRETARY is regarded by those who do not know him intimately as a
+somewhat austere person, but given the right atmosphere he can be as lively
+as anybody. Questioned about the reopening of Ciro's, he betrayed a minute
+acquaintance with the details of its programme. I was beginning to wonder
+if he were related to that famous Early-Victorian family, the Caves of
+Harmony, when his knowledge broke down. On being asked by his old friend
+Mr. BUTCHER to define a cabaret-entertainment he was nonplussed, and could
+only refer him to Colonel LOCKWOOD as a probable authority.
+
+No one was more delighted at Mr. BONAR LAW'S announcement of the capture of
+Baghdad than the Member for Cockermouth, who knows the region well.
+Mesopotamia may or may not be the Garden of Eden, but Baghdad was at one
+time unquestionably the abode of BLISS.
+
+Mr. CATHCART WASON was a little puzzled when Mr. FORSTER informed him that
+the peeling of potatoes by Army cooks is strictly forbidden, "except when
+the dietary of the troops makes it necessary." Why should there be any
+exception at all, he wondered, until a neighbour, better informed about the
+new meat-ration, whispered, "Sausages and _mashed_."
+
+A grave statement by Mr. MACPHERSON as to the recent losses of the Royal
+Flying Corps on the Western Front, and the increased activity of the German
+airmen, created some natural depression, which might have been more
+pronounced had not Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING seized the occasion to reiterate
+his charges of "Murder" already condemned as baseless by two judicial
+tribunals. The House will do anything in reason, but it refuses to
+accompany Mr. BILLING in his flights of imagination.
+
+_Tuesday, March 13th._--In the Lords, the Bill to deprive enemy peers of
+their titles was supported by Lord MIDLETON, who nobly offered to sacrifice
+his Red Eagle on the altar of patriotism. On the other hand Lord COURTNEY
+condemned it; but there is no truth in the story that the Yellow Waistcoat
+which he habitually wears was originally conferred upon him by the KAISER.
+It is, I understand, an example of protective colouring, designed to ward
+off the attacks of the Yellow Press.
+
+_Wednesday, March 14th._--The explosive qualities of cotton when suitably
+combined with other ingredients are well known. Of these ingredients the
+Lancashire spirit is perhaps the most potent. Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN began
+his defence of the proposed Indian cotton duties with an appeal to Imperial
+sentiment based upon what India had done and was doing. The Maharajah of
+BIKANIR, seated in the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery, listened with
+appreciation to the praises of his famous Camel Corps. Then followed what
+might be called the Home Rule argument--we could not refuse what the Indian
+people so much desired--delivered with so much earnestness that Mr.
+JEREMIAH MACVEAGH loudly invited Mr. CHAMBERLAIN to "come over and sit on
+these benches."
+
+[Illustration: MEGAPHONES FOR MINISTERS. A SUGGESTION FROM THE PRESS
+GALLERY.]
+
+But his best card was his last, when, after a tribute to Mr. ASQUITH'S
+"loyalty to colleagues," which roused tremendous cheering from the
+Liberals, he invited the late Prime Minister to cast his vote with the
+Government. Mr. ASQUITH did even more, for at the end of a speech, critical
+but not censorious, he suggested an amendment to the Resolution which
+enabled his Free Trade followers to "save their face." A few stalwarts from
+Lancashire insisted none the less on taking a division, and were joined on
+general principles by the Nationalists and other habitual malcontents. But
+India, the Government and Mr. ASQUITH had the comfortable majority of 140.
+
+_Thursday, March 15th._--Under the present rules of procedure (the products
+of Irish obstruction in the past) the Nationalists find it difficult to put
+their declaration of war against the Government to much effect. Their best
+chance comes during the first hour of the sitting, and their most useful
+weapon is the Supplementary Question. No sooner has Mr. DUKE read the
+official reply to the inquiry on the Paper than there comes a strident
+"Arising out of that, Mr. SPEAKER-R." Fortunately the CHIEF SECRETARY
+possesses a Job-like patience, and is rarely betrayed into any departure
+from his polite if somewhat ponderous manner. To badger Mr. BIRRELL was an
+exciting pastime rather like punching the ball. To heckle Mr. DUKE is like
+hammering a sandbag.
+
+It would be interesting to know how many Members of the House of Commons
+have volunteered under the National Service scheme. I only know of one;
+that is Dr. MACNAMARA, who modestly avowed the fact when challenged by Mr.
+PRINGLE, though I doubt whether the Admiralty will consent to dispense with
+his services. On the other hand I only know of one who has not; and that is
+Mr. PRINGLE himself, who, on the same challenge being put to him, replied,
+"No, and don't intend." There is evidently someone, possibly Mr. HOGGE, who
+thinks Mr. PRINGLE'S present services indispensable to the winning of the
+War.
+
+The debate on the new Vote of Credit dragged along in a thin and somnolent
+House until Mr. BONAR LAW woke it up with the startling news that there had
+been a revolution in Russia, and that the TSAR had abdicated. Everybody
+seemed pleased, including Mr. DEVLIN, who was quite statesmanlike in his
+appreciation. But no one noticed that henceforward we must rank the late
+Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN among the prophets. Addressing the Members of
+the Inter-parliamentary Conference assembled in the Palace of Westminster
+on July 23rd, 1906, just after the dissolution of Russia's first elected
+Parliament, he said, "_La Duma est morte; vive la Duma!_" For a Prime
+Minister this outburst was regarded as a little tactless; its essential
+wisdom has been justified by the event.
+
+_Friday, March 16th._--To-morrow being St. Patrick's Day, Mr. BONAR LAW
+seized the opportunity to address a little homily to Members from Ireland.
+Unless they mend their ways pretty soon they may have to go back to their
+constituents and tackle the Sinn Feiners themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WINGED VICTORY.
+
+"_Per ardua ad astra._"
+
+"One of our machines did not return."
+
+  I like to think it did not fall to earth,
+    A wounded bird that trails a broken wing,
+  But to the heavenly blue that gave it birth
+    Faded in silence, a mysterious thing,
+  Cleaving its radiant course where honour lies,
+  Like a winged victory mounting to the skies.
+
+  The clouds received it and the pathless night;
+    Swift as a flame, its eager force unspent,
+  We saw no limit to its daring flight;
+    Only its pilot knew the way it went,
+  And how it pierced the maze of flickering stars
+  Straight to its goal in the red planet Mars.
+
+  So to the entrance of that fiery gate,
+    Borne by no current, driven by no breeze,
+  Knowing no guide but some compelling fate,
+    Bold navigators of uncharted seas,
+  Courage and youth went proudly sweeping by,
+  To win the unchallenged freedom of the sky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Curate (to unfailing supporter)._ "OH, MISS TOOTSBY, IT'S
+GOOD TO SEE YOU HERE AGAIN. IT WOULDN'T SEEM LIKE A JUMBLE SALE WITHOUT
+YOU."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.
+
+(_Enter PASHA and the Sultan of TURKEY._)
+
+_The Sultan._ Then you want me to press the GERMAN KAISER to come to
+Constantinople and pay me a visit. Is that it?
+
+_Enver._ Yes, your Majesty, that is about it. It would produce a splendid
+effect on the populace and would electrify the soldiers.
+
+_The Sultan._ But I've already told you that I cordially dislike this
+KAISER of yours. Wherever he goes he turns everything upside down, and
+there's not a moment's peace or repose for anybody. He must have reviews of
+troops morning, noon and night, and it's all quite useless, for our
+Generals tell me that he doesn't really understand anything about soldiers
+and their movements. You know they've had to keep him away from the
+fighting, both in France and Russia, because he would insist on giving the
+most absurd orders, and when things didn't go right immediately he always
+broke out into shouting and cursing, and praying and crying until his Staff
+felt so ashamed of him and themselves that they didn't know which way to
+look. There's never any knowing what a man like that will do. He's as
+likely as not to want to preach a sermon in St. Sophia, or to ride his
+horse up the steps of the Palace.
+
+_Enver._ These are certainly faults, but they are the faults of an
+enthusiastic nature.
+
+_The Sultan._ Well, I don't like that kind of enthusiastic nature. I prefer
+something quieter. Besides, I am told that his behaviour in the house and
+his table-manners are dreadful. He's quite capable, if he doesn't like a
+dish, of throwing it at the attendants. Then he gets so angry when people
+don't agree with him; the least contradiction makes him purple, absolutely
+purple, with passion. My dear ENVER, you would have to pretend you knew
+nothing about Turkey when you talked with him--at any rate nothing in
+comparison with his knowledge--and I'm sure you wouldn't like that; nobody
+would. No, I can't say the prospect of having him here as my guest allures
+me, but of course, if you say it _must_ be done, I'm ready to sacrifice
+myself. Only I warn you it will spoil everything for me to have him here
+prancing about in a Turkish uniform.
+
+_Enver._ I didn't know your Majesty's feelings were so strong on the
+subject. Perhaps it will not, after all, be necessary. I will see what can
+be done.
+
+_The Sultan._ Yes, do, there's a good fellow. If I had to entertain that
+man for a week I should suffer from indigestion for the rest of my life.
+
+_Enver._ If possible we will see that your Majesty is spared such an
+affliction. With your Majesty's leave I will now withdraw.
+
+_The Sultan._ Do by all means. No--stop; you haven't given me any of the
+War news. I keep on asking for it, but nobody pays any attention to my
+requests. Honestly, I don't see much use in being a Sultan if one can't get
+anyone to do what one asks.
+
+_Enver._ Oh, you want to hear some War news, do you? Well, I may as well
+tell you now as later. Baghdad's gone.
+
+_The Sultan._ What--captured?
+
+_Enver._ Yes, the infernal English have got it.
+
+_The Sultan._ I knew it was bound to happen. I told you so only last
+Tuesday--at least, if it wasn't you it was somebody else. "Baghdad," I
+said, "is sure to be captured. The English are in great force, and if we
+don't watch it carefully they're sure to snatch it from us." That's what I
+said; but you wouldn't have it. You were all so cock-sure, and now where
+are you?
+
+_Enver._ Who can fight against treachery?
+
+_The Sultan._ Treachery? It's simply stupidity and incompetence. You and
+your KAISER keep patting one another on the back, and then one fine morning
+you wake up and discover that Baghdad has fallen. ENVER, you'll find it
+rather difficult to explain this to the people. They know my advice hasn't
+counted for anything in this; they'll put it all down to you; and you can't
+murder them all, as you murdered poor old NAZIM.
+
+_Enver._ Silence, or--
+
+_The Sultan._ Yes, I know, but I will not keep silence. Rather, I will ask
+again, why have you sent my best regiments to help the Austrians and
+Germans on their own fronts? Even I could have managed better than that.
+And why are we fighting in this War at all? Answer me that.
+
+_Enver._ We fight for the greatness of Turkey.
+
+_The Sultan._ Well, we don't seem very successful. It was a good deal
+bigger before we lost Erzerum and Baghdad...
+
+(_Left wrangling._)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Conscience-Money?
+
+    "The Commissioners of Inland Revenue acknowledge the receipt of first
+    half of £100 note from 'Berlin.'"--_Daily Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Half-a-dozen deer escaped from Hatfield Park some weeks ago through a
+    gate having been carelessly left open. A wholesale clearance of
+    vegetables followed in the district, and the damage was so serious
+    that, with the Marquis of Salisbury's approval, shooting parties of
+    farmers went out, and the raiders have now been run to
+    earth."--_Manchester Paper._
+
+It looks as if they were only rabbits, after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"REMNANT."
+
+I wish now that I had not been compelled to postpone my visit to the
+Royalty, for I think the fall of Baghdad must have put me a bit above
+myself. Anyhow, I was less moved than usual by the triumph of virtue and
+the downing of vice; and permitted myself to wonder how a play like
+_Remnant_ ever found its way into the Royalty (of all theatres), and what
+Mr. DENNIS EADIE (of all actors) was doing in this galley, this
+melted-butter boat. And indeed there were moments when I could see that Mr.
+EADIE himself shared my wonder, if I rightly interpreted certain signs of
+indifference and detachment in his performance. I even suspected a sinister
+intention in the title, though, of course, Messrs. MORTON and NICCODEMI
+didn't really get their play off in the course of a bargain sale of
+superannuated goods.
+
+Apart from the Second Act, where Miss MARIE LÖHR (looking rather like a
+nice Dutch doll) delivered the blunt gaucheries of _Remnant_ with a
+delightfully stolid naïveté, the design of the play and its simple little
+devices might almost have been the work of amateurs. The sordid quarrels
+between _Tony_ and his preposterous mistress (whom I took to be a model,
+till I found that he was only an artist in steam locomotives) were
+extraordinarily lacking in subtlety. In all this Bohemian business one
+looked in vain for a touch of the art of MURGER. What would one not have
+given for something even distantly reminiscent of the _Juliet_ scene--"_et
+le pigeon chantait toujours_"? And it wasn't as if this was supposed to be
+a sham Americanised _quartier_ of to-day. We were in the true period--under
+Louis PHILIPPE. Indeed I know no other reason (costumes always excepted)
+why the scene was the Paris of 1840. For the purposes of the play _Tony_
+might just as well have been a British designer of tanks (London, 1916).
+Nor was there anything even conventionally French about the girl _Remnant_,
+who might have been born next-door to Bow Bells.
+
+[Illustration: REMNANT BARGAIN DAY.
+
+_Tony_ ... MR. DENNIS EADIE.
+
+"_Remnant_" ... MISS MARIE LÖHR.]
+
+Miss MARIE LÖHR was the life and soul of the party. Her true comedy manner,
+when she was serious, was always fascinating. She said with great
+discretion her little Barriesque piece about the desirability of babies,
+and she did all she knew to keep the sentiment from being too sickly-sweet.
+Here she had strong assistance from Mr. EADIE as her lover _Tony_; for,
+though he got a fine flash out of the green eye of jealousy when he
+suspected his patron, _Jules_, of jumping his love-claim, it was obvious at
+the end that the success of his professional ambitions was far more to him
+than any affair of the heart. And, after all, when _Remnant_ complained of
+a curious _bourdonnement_ in her ears, and _Tony_ had to reply solemnly,
+"That which you hear is the beating of your heart to the music of your
+soul," you could hardly expect a man with Mr. EADIE'S sense of humour to
+throw much conviction into the statement.
+
+Mr. C.M. LOWNE was a very passable _beau_, and made love to _Remnant_ with
+that rich fruitiness of voice of which he is a past master. It was her
+business (as she explained to _Tony_ when he surprised their two faces
+within kissing distance of each other) to keep _Jules_ in good humour since
+_Tony's_ chances depended upon his patronage. But it couldn't have helped
+much to tell _Jules_ with such appalling candour that the shiver produced
+by his kiss was the same kind as she had once felt when a rat ran over her
+face during sleep. However, _Jules_ was not a _beau_ for nothing and could
+afford this exceptional set-back to one of his many amours. There was, by
+the way, an excellent little comedy scene between him and his wife, played
+by Miss MURIEL POPE with a quiet humour as piquant as her gown.
+
+As _Manon_, the querulous termagant that _Tony_ had taken for mistress,
+Miss HILDA MOORE was not very kindly served by her part--so rudimentary
+that its highest flight was achieved when, with a Parthian shot, she
+referred to _Tony_ as a geni-ass.
+
+I will not forecast a limited success for this play, for who would dare to
+say that there is not always room in the broad British bosom for yet
+another triumph of sentiment over ideas--I speak of the play itself and not
+of the performance? If only for Miss LÖHR'S sake I could wish that the best
+of fortune may attend it; for to have worn her hair as she did in the
+Second Act, out of regard for the period, was a sacrifice as fine as any
+that women have shown in the course of Armageddon (if I may judge of them
+by their portraits in the Photographic Press), and she ought to have her
+reward, bless her heart!     O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"GENERAL POST."
+
+It would be easy to make fun of the exaggerations and ultra-simplifications
+of Mr. TERRY'S new comedy. It is much pleasanter (and juster) to dwell on
+its wholesomeness, its easy humour and its effect of honest entertainment.
+Not a highbrow adventure, it is not to be judged by highbrow standards. It
+is decently in key, and an exceptionally clever cast carried it adroitly
+over any rough places. Remarkable, too, as almost the first popular
+testimonial since the War began to the too-much-taken-for-granted
+Territorials, who worked in the old days while we scoffed and golfed.
+That's all to the good.
+
+[Illustration: THE TAILOR WHO DID NOT NEED TO PRESS HIS SUIT.
+
+_Sir Dennys Broughton_ ... MR. NORMAN MCKINNEL.
+
+_Lady Broughton_ ... MISS LILIAN BRAITHWAITE.
+
+_Edward Smith (tailor)_ ... MR. GEORGE TULLY.]
+
+Our author's hero is an excellent provincial tailor, who is also keen
+_Captain Smith_ in the Sheffingham Terriers. As tailor his chief customer,
+as soldier his contemptuous scandalised critic, is _Sir Dennys Broughton_,
+whose wayward flapper daughter _Betty_ is in the early fierce stages of
+revolt against the stuffiness of life at Grange Court, meets _Smith_ over
+some boys' club work, and, finding brains and dreams in him (a formidable
+contrast to her loafing brother), falls into passionate first-love. _Smith_
+is just as badly if more soberly hit, and recognising the impossibility of
+the situation (quite apart from demonstrations by the alarmed _Broughtons_)
+decides to take his tape and shears to his London house of business. The
+date of all this being about the time of the misguided _Panther's_ fateful
+leap on Agadir.
+
+Act II. brings us to the second year of the War. Young _Broughton_, puppy
+no longer, is gloriously in it, and has just been gazetted to a Territorial
+regiment whose Colonel bears the not uncommon name of Smith. Our tailor, of
+course, and a rattling fine soldier too. Having discovered this latter fact
+and also formed a remarkably cordial relationship apparently in a single
+day, the enthusiastic cub subaltern (distemper and snobbishness over and
+done with) motors up his C.O., who is visiting his brother and partner, and
+brings him in to Grange Court on the way. _Sir Dennys_, now a brassarded
+private and otherwise a converted man, is still confoundedly embarrassed,
+and stands anything but easy in the presence of his youngster's Colonel.
+_Lady Broughton_, least malleable of the group, is frankly appalled by this
+new _mésalliance_. Perhaps Mr. TERRY'S version of blue-blooded insolence
+and fatuity is for his stage purpose rather crudely coloured, but who shall
+say that the doctrine that a man in khaki who has been an elementary
+schoolmaster or a tailor is a man for a' that, is quite universally
+accepted in the best circles even in this year of grace? _Betty_, now a
+grown girl in the cynical stage, revenges herself with feline savagery on
+the knight of the shears for the imagined slight of his defection.
+
+Act III. is dated 19? just after peace is declared. The tailor is not (as I
+half expected) back in his shop, but a _Brigadier-General Smith, V.C._, is
+being invested with the freedom of Sheffingham and is making a spirited
+attack on the defences of _Betty_. She puts up enough of a fight to ensure
+a good Third Act, and capitulates charmingly to the delight, now, of all
+the _Broughton_ household--butler included. I hope Mr. TERRY is right and
+that the places taken in this great war game of _General Post_ and the
+values registered will have permanence.
+
+I won't deny that the excellent moral of the play goes far to disarm one's
+critical faculty. Why not confess that one lost one's heart to the nicest
+tailor since _Evan Harrington_? Indeed, Mr. TULLY (always, I find, quite
+admirable in characterisation, and that no mere matter of outward trick,
+but duly charged with feeling) made just such a decent, lovable, sideless
+officer as it has been the pride of the nation of shopkeepers to produce in
+the day of challenge. Whoever was it dared cast Mr. MCKINNEL for the part
+of a weak kindly old ass of a baronet, without any ruggedness or violence
+in his composition? Congratulations to the unknown perspicacious hero and
+to Mr. MCKINNEL! Miss MADGE TITHERADGE flapped prettily as a flapper; bit
+cleanly and cruelly in her biting mood; surrendered most engagingly. This
+is less than justice. She used her queer caressing voice and her reserves
+of emotional power to fine effect. Miss LILIAN BRAITHWAITE made her _Lady
+Broughton_ nearly credible and less "unsympathetic" than was just. Mr.
+DANIELL is new to me. He played one of those difficult foil parts with a
+really nice discretion.
+
+The audience was genuinely pleased. It dragged from the author a becomingly
+modest acknowledgment. He _did_ owe a great deal to his players, but a
+writer of stage plays need not be ashamed of that. T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Ethel (playing at grown-ups)._ "IS YOUR HUSBAND IN THE WAR,
+MRS. BROWN?"       _Mabel._ "OH YES, OF COURSE, MRS. SMITH."
+
+_Ethel._ "IS HE IN FRANCE?"       _Mabel._ "NO, HE'S IN THE WAR LOAN."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PLOT PRECAUTIONARY.
+
+(_The KAISER addresses his Transatlantic Faithful._)
+
+      Ye stalwart Huns and strident,
+          Who can't come home again,
+      Because base Albion's trident,
+          Though largely on the wane,
+  Still occupies successfully the surface of the main;
+
+      Give ear, my gallant fellows,
+          While I the truth declare;
+      Britain's expiring bellows
+          Will shortly rend the air;
+  Wiping the earth up then will be a simplified affair.
+
+      But, while at home our Hunnish
+          Valour obtains the day,
+      It must be yours to punish
+          The craven U.S.A.,
+  Debouching on them unawares from Sinaloa way.
+
+      I make the rough suggestion,
+          And it shall be your care
+      To solve the minor question
+          Of how and when and where,
+  Aided by Gen. CARRANZA, the party with the hair.
+
+      Some pesos and centavos
+          He will of course demand
+      Before he leads his bravos
+          Across the Rio Grande;
+  Offer the fellow all he wants--in German notes of hand.
+
+      Meanwhile the Hyphenated,
+          Busy with bomb and knife,
+      Will likewise hand the hated
+          Gringos a taste of strife,
+  Starting with Colonel ROOSEVELT and the Editor of _Life_.
+
+      These are, in brief, the vistas
+          That swim before my ken;
+      So tell the Carranzistas
+          To up and act like men;
+  And say the money's coming on, but do not mention when.
+
+      Bid them with sword and fire wreck
+          The pale Pacific West;
+      And tell SYLVESTER VIERECK
+          And BARTHOLDT and the rest
+  To call the Lagerbund to arms and jump on WILSON'S chest.
+
+      There'll be some opposition--
+          That I can quite foresee;
+      But bear in mind your mission
+          Must primarily be
+  To keep the swine-dog Yankees from jumping on to _me_!
+                  ALGOL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Commercial Stylists.
+
+"--, SONS & CO., LTD.,
+
+ARE SHOWING A DELIGHTFUL RANGE OF CORSETS, EMBRACING THE MOST APPROVED
+MODELS."--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Dover: Gas up 5d. a 1,000.
+  Tunbridge Wells: Gas up 2d. a 1,000.
+  Lord Selborne is up again, after a chill."--_Evening News._
+
+Good, but how much?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
+
+_The Snare_ (SECKER) impressed me as a tale emphatically prededicate to the
+footlights. Actually, by the way, Mr. RAFAEL SABATINI has dedicated it "to
+LEON M. LEON, who told me this story"--which, of course, only strengthens
+my belief. Anyhow, it has every mark of the romantic drama--a picturesque
+setting, that of the Peninsular War, rich in possibilities for the scenic
+and sartorial arts; and a strongly emotional plot, leading up to a
+situation that could be relied upon to bring down the house. I shall, of
+course, not tell you the plot. It contains a jealous husband, an
+injudicious wife, a hero and heroine, a villain (of foreign extraction) and
+a god in the machine, who is none other than our IRON DUKE himself. And the
+situation in the last Act offers as pretty a piece of table-turning as any
+audience need desire. I wish I could explain how the DUKE plays with his
+enemies, and finally--but no, I said I wouldn't, and I will keep my word.
+Two little carpings, however. Surely it is wrong to speak of "catch
+half-penny" journalism in the time of WELLINGTON. My impression is that the
+journalists of those days caught at least fourpence by their wares. And I
+confess to an emotion of disappointment when the heroine bounced up at the
+court-martial and said that the hero couldn't have committed the murder
+because he was "in her arms" at the time. Of course he hadn't been; and I
+very much doubt whether any Court would have believed her for two minutes.
+But leading ladies love saying it, so I suppose the very out-worn device
+will have to be retained in the stage version. I look forward to this with
+much pleasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That clever lady, ELINOR MORDAUNT, has collected into the volume that she
+calls _Before Midnight_ (CASSELL) a series of short stories of a psychic
+(though not always ghostly) character, which, while not very eerie, or on
+the same high level, are at their best both original and impressive. The
+first of them, which affords excuse for a highly-intriguing cover-picture,
+is at once the most spooksome and the least satisfactory. That is to say
+that, though it opens with a genuine and quite horrible thrill, the
+"explanation" is obscure and tame. Far more successful, to my mind, is "The
+Vision," a delicate little idyll of a Midland schoolmarm, to whom is shown
+the death of Adonis and the lamenting of his goddess-lover. The writing of
+this touches real beauty (the high-fantastic, instead of the merely
+high-falutin', which in such connection would have been so fatally easy).
+To sum up, though one at least of these "dreams before midnight" may quite
+possibly become a nightmare after it, I fancy that, to all lovers of the
+occult, the game will be found well worth the bed-room candle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are qualities in _The Bird of Life_, by GERTRUDE VAUGHAN (CHAPMAN AND
+HALL), which cause me to look forward to this lady's future work with very
+considerable interest. In the present novel she sets out the life story of
+_Rachel_ up to a point boldly given as being beyond the conclusion of the
+War, in which, by the way, both her husband and the man whom she ought to
+have married are killed on the same day. The first eighty-four pages of the
+book raised my hopes very high. They describe with great simplicity and
+sympathy the thoughts and feelings, the romances and difficulties, of an
+affectionate and lonely little girl living with her _Uncle Matthew_ and her
+_Aunt Elizabeth_, and loving them both with a childlike fervour. There is
+no exaggeration; the writing goes true to its mark, and the effect designed
+by the writer is admirably well made. Then _Uncle Matthew_ dies and
+_Rachel_ finds a new home in the Vicarage of _Mr. Venning_, a family man if
+ever there was one, for he has fifteen children. From this point the
+interest is slightly diluted, and the excellence of the book diminishes.
+One does not recognise in the more mature _Rachel_ the girl one had
+expected to find after one's initiation into the secrets of her baby mind.
+She marries _Edward Venning_, and finds too late that he is, like his
+father, made up of convention and narrowness. She plans a disappearance,
+and leaves some of her belongings on the edge of a bottomless tarn. Then,
+being hypothetically dead, she begins to live her life in her own way.
+Later on she returns to _Edward_, "on approval for six months"; but this
+period was apparently not sufficient to break the chain that bound her to
+Another, and, the War intervening, she is left almost doubly widowed. I
+feel that I have not quite done justice to Miss VAUGHAN'S book, but, on the
+other hand, I am sure that she has not quite done justice to her
+unquestionable talent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A volume entitled _Friends of France: The Field Service of the American
+Ambulance_ (SMITH, ELDER) has appeared in a happy hour to remind one, if
+that were necessary, that in the great nation that awaits Mr. WILSON'S call
+there have always been found some eager to give their services and, if need
+be, life itself to prove their love for the other great Republic. I don't
+think either you or I will grudge such an affection at this date, founded
+historically though it may be on a mutual dislike of ourselves, and
+consequently it is a very pleasant impression that is produced by this
+record of American efficiency and courage in Red Cross work on the French
+front. This being clearly remembered one need not be afraid to admit that
+in detail the book will be of interest mainly to the friends of those
+concerned, since the method of multiple authorship adopted necessarily
+involves overlapping, and a good deal of the volume is given up to
+monotonous, though undoubtedly well-earned, "tributes and citations" from
+the French authorities. Neither is the bulk of the matter, most generously
+illustrated though it is, particularly intriguing, for by now one is
+sufficiently familiar with accounts of the removal of wounded under fire
+and the sort of work at which these four hundred American University men
+proved themselves so adept at half-a-dozen points between Flanders and
+Alsace. Americans, long at odds with "ruthlessness" (and at last forced to
+the inevitable logical conclusion in regard to it), may well be glad to be
+able to point, amongst other creditable things, to this history of service
+given without hesitation in acknowledgment of their debt to the
+civilisation of the Old World; and we also shall be no less glad to
+remember it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is perhaps natural that in _Winnowed Memories_ (CASSELL), by
+Field-Marshal Sir EVELYN WOOD, V.C., one should look at first to see what
+references they contain to modern events. On these matters, as on all
+others covered by this volume, we are told nothing that is not invigorating
+and to the point, and the tributes here paid to the fighting qualities of
+our armies of to-day form a fitting conclusion to a book that is full of
+sound sense and good cheer. Sir EVELYN has had a vast experience and enjoys
+an evergreen vigour. What is rarer still, he has a kindly nature that
+admits no trace of the disappointments he must from time to time have
+suffered. As everyone knows, he was always an advocate of Compulsory
+Universal Service for Home Defence, but he casts no stone at those who so
+long and parlously delayed to learn their lesson. Like the true soldier
+that he is, he seems to have no time or taste for those recriminations
+which are best left to small political fry. And I rejoice that in a book of
+such authority the note is largely one of happiness and hope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Owing to congestion on the railways there is a food shortage in Petrograd,
+which has led some of the less irresponsible citizens to demonstrate during
+the session of the Council of the Empire and the Duma."--_Daily Sketch._
+
+Subsequent news shows that "less irresponsible" was not a misprint but a
+prophecy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Sympathetic Newsboy (to proprietor of Coffee Stall.)_ "WOT
+YER TRYIN' TO DO WIV THE OLD 'OTEL, GUVNER? TAKIN' IT 'OME FOR FEAR OF
+'AVIN' IT COMMANDEERED?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "It is claimed that about thirty Merman firms construct the Diesel
+    motors originally used for submarines."--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+We wish these motors a speedy return to the fishy scenes of their origin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Several eligible sires for workmen's dwellings, of which some 300 are
+    needed, have been selected by the Southport Town Planning
+    Committee."--_Daily Paper._
+
+They must not be confused with "the rude forefathers of the hamlet"
+mentioned by GRAY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume
+152, March 21, 1917, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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+  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
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+  <title>Punch, March 21st, 1917.</title>
+
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+
+  span.pagenum
+  {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt;}
+
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+  {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;}
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+  .poem p              {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+  .poem p.i2           {margin-left: 1em;}
+  .poem p.i4           {margin-left: 2em;}
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152,
+March 21, 1917, by Various
+
+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, Volume 152, March 21, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14455]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Keith Edkins and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+ <h1>PUNCH,<br />
+  OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+  <h2>Vol. 152.</h2>
+  <hr class="full" />
+
+  <h2>March 21st, 1917.</h2>
+  <hr class="full" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177"></a>[pg 177]</span>
+
+<h3>CHARIVARIA.</h3>
+
+  <p>There is a convict at Pentonville who is said to be exactly like the
+  KAISER. He feels that in view of the great inconvenience he has suffered
+  it is the KAISER'S duty at once to remove his moustache or grow side
+  whiskers.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>The KAISER is in a bit of a hole. Attending a special service for the
+  success of the War, he is reported to have "sung the <i>De Profundis</i>
+  at the top of his voice." All the rest of him, including the lower part
+  of his voice, seems to have been submerged.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>The revolutionary spirit in Germany seems to have extended to the
+  vegetable kingdom. In a riot at Barmen which occurred recently the chief
+  of police was "seriously wounded" by a turnip.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>The <i>Berliner Tageblatt</i> states that for appearing at a private
+  concert a famous opera singer has been paid in food, including sixty
+  eggs. The custom is not unknown to some of our own music-hall artistes,
+  who however are usually more than content with receiving "the bird."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>According to a <i>Globe</i> report Mr. CHARLES GULLIVER is giving at
+  the Palladium "a programme of real entertainers." Enterprise and
+  originality are always to be commended in a manager.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>A telegram from Mexico City announces that General CARRANZA has been
+  elected President of the Mexican Republic. It is expected that a full
+  list of the casualties will be published shortly.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>A Melbourne despatch states that Mr. HUGHES has been offered
+  thirty-four seats in the forthcoming elections. The Opposition, it is
+  understood, has expressed its willingness to allow Mr. HUGHES to occupy
+  all thirty-four.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>So effective has been the attempt to reduce circulation that we are
+  not surprised to find a provincial paper advertising in <i>The Daily
+  Telegraph</i> for "A Reader."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>"There is no monument more enduring than brass," writes Mr. GEORGE
+  BERNARD SHAW, War Correspondent. The general feeling, however, is that
+  there is a kind of brass that is beyond enduring.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>The idea of blaming <i>Queen Elizabeth</i> for the Dardanelles fiasco
+  is so entirely satisfactory to all parties concerned that it is being
+  freely asked why the Commission couldn't have thought of that itself.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>The new order prohibiting newspapers from printing contents bills is
+  bearing hardly in certain quarters, and it is rumoured that at least one
+  sensational contemporary has offered to forgo publishing itself in return
+  for the privilege of selling its posters.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>By order of the General Officer Commanding the London District the
+  Grafton Galleries have been placed out of bounds. Or, as they say in the
+  best War-time dancing circles, out of leaps and bounds.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;">
+      <a href="images/177.png"><img width="100%" src="images/177thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    PROGRESS.
+  </div>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>Kensington Council states that 300,000 tons of food are consumed
+  annually by thousands of dogs which serve no useful purpose. The dogs, on
+  the other hand, are asking what would become of the nation's womanhood if
+  there were no dogs to take it out for exercise in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>The Government, it appears, is determined to keep Charing Cross
+  Railway Station on the North side of the river. All the objections to the
+  present site, they point out, are easily outweighed by its proximity to
+  the National Gallery.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>At Highgate, says a news item, a man named YELLS was fined for having
+  in his possession pork which was not sound. It was suggested that
+  defendant had held back the squeal for his own purposes.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>An applicant recently informed the House of Commons' Tribunal that
+  cutting sandwiches was highly skilled work, which could not be done
+  satisfactorily by women. The difficulty appears to consist not in the
+  actual cutting, but in conveying the hammy taste from the knife to the
+  bread without actually parting with the ham itself.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>Skipping is recommended as a healthy recreation. Several Germans on
+  the Ancre say they already owe their lives to this practice.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>It is now proposed that Telephone Directories should be charged for.
+  The idea appears to be to bring them into line with other light
+  literature; but <i>Punch</i> fears no rivals.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>It has been decided by Mr. PAUL TAYLOR at Marylebone that bacon is
+  meat. Lord DEVONPORT, now that his suspicion has been judicially
+  confirmed, has announced his intention of going ahead on that basis.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>From a school-girl's examination paper:&mdash;"<i>Question.</i> What
+  do you know of Tantalus? <i>Answer</i>: Tantalus suffered from continual
+  hunger and thirst in internal regions."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>CHILDREN'S TALES FOR GROWN-UPS.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">III.</p>
+
+<p class="center">ITS OWN REWARD.</p>
+
+  <p>"What fun!" cried the wasp.</p>
+
+  <p>"Where?" asked the bee looking up with a subdued smile.</p>
+
+  <p>"I mean I can't help laughing," said the wasp.</p>
+
+  <p>"A disgusting habit," said the bee.</p>
+
+  <p>"Look at those people nearly out of their wits. Here goes for old
+  Bless-my-Soul again!" He flew off and buzzed round the old gentleman's
+  neck and then flew back to the bee, laughing louder than ever at his
+  purple rage.</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't know what you think of your conduct," said the bee severely,
+  "but I think it is insects like you who give us all a bad name."</p>
+
+  <p>"Be hanged to your bad name," scoffed the wasp. "A short life and a
+  merry one, say I."</p>
+
+  <p>"A busy life and a useful one, rather," said the bee. "I am proud to
+  be the friend of man."</p>
+
+  <p>"Good heavens!" shouted the wasp. "Here comes old Bless-my-Soul bent
+  on murder. Look out! I'm going for his neck."</p>
+
+  <p>Old Bless-my-Soul slashed wildly with his table-napkin and slew the
+  bee. He went back triumphantly with his spoil.</p>
+
+  <p>"A bee!" shouted everybody. "I thought it was a wasp. I didn't know
+  bees were like that."</p>
+
+  <p>"All insects are vicious," said old Bless-my-Soul.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h4>Another Impending Apology.</h4>
+
+  <blockquote>"LONDON PAVILION. CHEERIO! at 8.30.&mdash;'Just the thing for
+  a dull evening.'"&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"A few of the waiting women abandoned hope of getting
+  potatoes, and substituted the purchase by parsnips and
+  sweres."&mdash;<i>Daily Mirror.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>In the circumstances who shall blame them?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>NOTICE.</h3>
+
+  <p>In order to meet the national need for economy in the consumption of
+  paper, the Proprietors of <i>Punch</i> are compelled to reduce the number
+  of its pages, but propose that the amount of matter published in
+  <i>Punch</i> shall by condensation and compression be maintained and
+  even, it is hoped, increased.</p>
+
+  <p>It is further necessary that means should be taken to restrict the
+  circulation of <i>Punch</i>, and its price has been raised to Sixpence.
+  The Proprietors believe that the public will prefer an increase of price
+  to a reduction of matter.</p>
+
+  <p>Readers are urged to place an order with their Newsagent for the
+  regular delivery of copies, as <i>Punch</i> may otherwise be
+  unobtainable, the shortage of paper making imperative the withdrawal from
+  Newsagents of the "on-sale-or-return" privilege.</p>
+
+  <p>In consequence of the increase in the price of <i>Punch</i> the period
+  covered by subscriptions already paid direct to the <i>Punch</i> Office
+  will be proportionately shortened; or the unexpired value will be
+  refunded, if desired.</p>
+
+  <p>The next issue of <i>Punch</i> (March 28th) will be a Navy Double
+  Number, price Sixpence. The Proprietors regret that arrangements for this
+  Number were completed before the further drastic restrictions in the
+  paper supply were announced.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178"></a>[pg 178]</span>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:66%;">
+      <a href="images/178.png"><img width="100%" src="images/178thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <p><i>Unlucky One</i> (<i>after perusing latest list of honours</i>).
+    "NEVER HAVE HAD ANY LUCK. MONTHS AGO I SAVED A SERGEANT CHAP FROM A
+    ROTTEN PLACE&mdash;CARRIED THE FELLOW ALL THE WAY BACK&mdash;AND TOLD
+    HIM NOT TO SAY A WORD ABOUT IT!"</p>
+
+    <p><i>Friend.</i> "WELL, WHAT'S WRONG? HAS HE BEEN TALKING?"</p>
+
+    <p><i>Unlucky One.</i> "NOT A WORD, CURSE HIM!"</p>
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE MUD LARKS.</h3>
+
+  <p>When I was young, my parents sent me to a boarding school, not in any
+  hopes of getting me educated, but because they wanted a quiet home.</p>
+
+  <p>At that boarding school I met one Frederick Delane Milroy, a chubby
+  flame-coloured brat who had no claims to genius, excepting as a
+  <i>littérateur</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>The occasion that established his reputation with the pen was a
+  Natural History essay. We were given five sheets of foolscap, two hours
+  and our own choice of subject. I chose the elephant, I remember, having
+  once been kind to one through the medium of a bag of nuts.</p>
+
+  <p>Frederick D. Milroy headed his effort "THE FERT" in large capitals,
+  and began, "The fert is a noble animal&mdash;" He got no further, the
+  extreme nobility of the ferret having apparently blinded him to its other
+  characteristics.</p>
+
+  <p>The other day, as I was wandering about on the "line," dodging Bosch
+  crumps with more agility than grace, I met Milroy (Frederick Delane) once
+  more.</p>
+
+  <p>He was standing at the entrance of a cosy little funk-hole, his boots
+  and tunic undone, sniffing the morning nitro-glycerine. He had swollen
+  considerably since our literary days, but was wearing his hair as red as
+  ever, and I should have known it anywhere&mdash;on the darkest night. I
+  dived for him and his hole, pushed him into it, and re-introduced myself.
+  He remembered me quite well, shook my chilblains heartily, and invited me
+  further underground for tea and talk.</p>
+
+  <p>It was a nice hole, cramped and damp, but very deep, and with those
+  Bosch love-tokens thudding away upstairs I felt that the nearer Australia
+  the better. But the rats! Never before have I seen rats in such
+  quantities; they flowed unchidden all over the dug-out, rummaged in the
+  cupboards, played kiss-in-the-ring in the shadows, and sang and brawled
+  behind the old oak panelling until you could barely hear yourself shout.
+  I am fond of animals, but I do not like having to share my tea with a
+  bald-headed rodent who gets noisy in his cups, or having a brace of
+  high-spirited youngsters wrestle out the championship of the district on
+  my bread-and-butter.</p>
+
+  <p>Freddy apologised for them; they were getting a bit above themselves,
+  he was afraid, but they were seldom dangerous, seldom attacked one
+  unprovoked. "Live and let live" was their motto. For all that they
+  <i>did</i> get a trifle <i>de trop</i> sometimes; he himself had lost his
+  temper when he awoke one morning to find a brawny rat sitting on his face
+  combing his whiskers in mistake for his own (a pardonable error in the
+  dark); and, determining to teach them a lesson, had bethought him of his
+  old friend, the noble fert. He therefore sent home for two of the
+  best.</p>
+
+  <p>The ferrets arrived in due course, received the names Burroughs and
+  Welcome, were blessed and turned loose.</p>
+
+  <p>They had had a rough trip over at the bottom of the mail sack and were
+  looking for trouble. An old rat strolled out of his club to see what all
+  the noise was about, and got the excitement he needed. Seven friends came
+  to his funeral and never smiled again. There was great rejoicing in that
+  underground Mess that evening; Burroughs and Welcome were fêted on bully
+  beef and condensed milk, and made honorary members.</p>
+
+  <p>For three days the good work went on; there was weeping in the
+  cupboards and gnashing of teeth behind the old oak panelling. Then on the
+  fourth day Burroughs and Welcome disappeared, and the rats swarmed to
+  their own again. The deserters were found a week later; they had wormed
+  through a system of rat-holes into the next dug-out, inhabited by the
+  Atkinses, and had remained there, honoured guests.</p>
+
+  <p>It is the nature of the British Atkins to make a pet of anything, from
+  a toad to a sucking pig&mdash;he cannot help it. The story about St.
+  George, doyen of British soldiers, killing that dragon&mdash;nonsense! He
+  would have spanked it, may be, until it promised to reform, then given it
+  a cigarette, and taken it home to amuse the children. To return to our
+  ferrets, Burroughs and Welcome provided no exception to the rule; they
+  were taught to sit up and beg, and lie down and die, to turn handsprings
+  and play the mouth-organ; they were gorged with Maconochie, plum jam and
+  rum ration; it was doubtful if they ever went to bed sober. Times out of
+  number they were borne back to the Officers' Mess and exhorted to do
+  their bit, but they returned immediately to their friends the Atkinses,
+  <i>viâ</i> their private route, not unnaturally preferring a life of
+  continuous carousal and vaudeville among the flesh-pots to sapping and
+  mining down wet rat-holes.</p>
+
+  <p>Freddy was of opinion that, when the battalion proceeded up Unter den
+  Linden, Burroughs and Welcome would be with it as regimental mascots,
+  marching behind the band, bells on their fingers, rings on their toes. He
+  also assured me that if he ever again has to write an essay on the Fert,
+  its characteristics, the adjective "noble" will not figure so
+  prominently.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>HERBS OF GRACE.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">III.</p>
+
+<p class="center">SWEET MARJORAM.</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!"</i></p>
+      <p class="i2">(Sang an old dame standing on the kerb);</p>
+      <p>"You may hear a thousand ballads,</p>
+      <p>You may pick a thousand salads,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Ere you light on such another herb.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!</i></p>
+      <p class="i2">(Let its virtues evermore be sung);</p>
+      <p>Oh, 'twill make your Sunday clo'es gay,</p>
+      <p>If you wear it in a nosegay,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Pretty mistress, like when I was young.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!</i></p>
+      <p class="i2">(Sing of sweet old gardens all a-glow);</p>
+      <p>It will scent your dower drawer, dear,</p>
+      <p>Folk would strew it on the floor, dear,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Long ago&mdash;long ago&mdash;long ago.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!"</i></p>
+      <p class="i2"><i>(Sang the old dame standing on the kerb);</i></p>
+      <p><i>"You may hear a thousand ballads,</i></p>
+      <p><i>You may pick a thousand salads,</i></p>
+      <p class="i2"><i>Ere you light on such another herb."</i></p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+  <blockquote>"The recipients [of the medals] were:&mdash;Sergeant W.A.
+  Norris, D.C.M. and Military Private A. Trichney, M.M., andtootompPUF.
+  Medal ..." <i>Daily Paper.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>Private TRICHNEY'S second distinction was awarded presumably for
+  something extra good in the bombing line.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"Lord Beauchamp, opening an Economy Exhibition at Gloucester
+  on Saturday, said that among many interesting exhibits was one described
+  as 'Frocks for the twins from Uncle's pyjamas.' He hoped that the child
+  who sent this exhibit would get the prize it deserved."&mdash;<i>Daily
+  Mail.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>Uncle has probably seen to that.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179" id="page179"></a>[pg 179]</span>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+      <a href="images/179.png"><img width="100%" src="images/179thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <h2>THE BREAKING OF THE FETTERS.</h2>
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180" id="page180"></a>[pg 180]</span>
+
+<h3>ELLA REEVE.</h3>
+
+  <p>One can't be too careful how one boasts, especially if there is the
+  chance of the boast being put quickly to the proof. In fact, it is better
+  perhaps not to boast at all.</p>
+
+  <p>I was sitting with a friend and a stranger in a London restaurant,
+  having joined their table for coffee. The stranger, on introduction,
+  turned out to be connected with the stage in some capacity as agent, and
+  among his regular clients were the managers of various big provincial
+  theatres, for whom he provided the leading lights of pantomime, or, as he
+  would call it, panto. Panto was indeed the mainstay of his business; it
+  was even the warp and woof of his life. He lived for panto, he thought
+  panto, and he talked panto. No one, according to him, had a more abysmal
+  knowledge of principal boys with adequate legs, principal (if that is
+  still the word) girls with sufficient voices, contralto fairy queens with
+  abundant bosoms, basso demon kings, Prince Dandinis, Widow Twankays, Ugly
+  Sisters, and all the other personages of this strange grease-paint
+  mythology of ours. Listening to him, I learned&mdash;as those who are
+  humble in spirit may learn of all men. I learned, for example, that Ugly
+  Sisters are at Christmas-time always Ugly Sisters, and very often use
+  again the same dialogue, merely transferring themselves from, say,
+  Glasgow to Wigan, or from Bristol to Dublin; and this will be their
+  destiny until they become such very old men that not even the kindly
+  British public will stand it any longer. England, it seems, is full of
+  performers who, touring the halls from March to December, are then
+  claimed for panto as her own, arriving a little before Christmas not less
+  regularly than the turkey; and the aim of all of them is as nearly as
+  possible to do the next Christmas what they did last Christmas.</p>
+
+  <p>Not only did my new acquaintance know all these people, their
+  capabilities and the lowest salary that could be offered to them with any
+  chance of acceptance, but he was also, it seemed, beloved by them all.
+  Between agent and client never in the history of the world had such
+  charming relations subsisted as between every pro. on his books and
+  himself.</p>
+
+  <p>It was then that Ella Reeve came in.</p>
+
+  <p>Accompanied by two expensive-looking men, whose ancestors had beyond
+  any doubt crossed the Red Sea with Moses, this new and glittering star,
+  who had but just "made good," or "got over," or "clicked" (my new
+  acquaintance used all these phrases indiscriminately when referring to
+  his own Herschellian triumphs as a watcher of the skies), walked
+  confidently to a distant table which was being held in reserve for her
+  party, and drew off her gloves with the happy anticipatory assurance of
+  one who is about to lunch a little too well. (All this, I should say,
+  happened before the War. I am reminded of it to-day by the circumstance
+  that I have just heard of the death of the agent whom I then met.)</p>
+
+  <p>The impact of the lady on this gentleman was terrific.</p>
+
+  <p>"Look, look!" he said. "That's Ella Reeve, one of my discoveries. She
+  was principal boy at Blackpool two years ago. I put her there. She got
+  fifteen pounds a week, and to-day she gets two hundred. I spotted her in
+  a chorus, asked her to call and see me, and this is the result. I made
+  her. There's nothing she wouldn't do for me, she's so grateful. If she
+  knew I was in the room she'd be over here in a jiffy."</p>
+
+  <p>Having told us all this, he, being a very normal man, told it again,
+  all the while craning his neck in the hope that his old client (she had
+  now, it seemed, passed out of his hands, having forsaken panto for London
+  and revue) might catch sight of his dear face. But she was far too much
+  occupied either with the lobster on her plate or with the yellow fluid,
+  strange to me, that moved restlessly in a long-stemmed shallow glass at
+  her side.</p>
+
+  <p>And then, being, as I say, not in any way an eccentric or exorbitant
+  character, the agent told it us a third time, with a digression here and
+  there as to the deep friendships that members of his profession could
+  form and cement if only they were decent fellows and not mere
+  money-grubbing machines out for nothing but their commission. "That's
+  what the wise man does," he concluded; "he makes real friends with his
+  clients, such as I did with Ella Reeve. The result is we never had any
+  hitches, and there's nothing she wouldn't do for me. She's a
+  darling!"</p>
+
+  <p>Getting a little tired of this, but obviously anything but unwilling
+  to shake the new star's slender hand and listen to the vivacious flow of
+  speech from such attractive lips, my friend said at last, "Well, as you
+  and she are such pals, and as she has only to know that you are here to
+  jump over the tables to get to you, why not send your card to her?"</p>
+
+  <p>The agent agreed, and we watched the waiter threading his way among
+  the tables towards that one at which the new and grateful star was seated
+  and hand the card to her.</p>
+
+  <p>The end of this story is so tragic that I should prefer not to tell
+  it.</p>
+
+  <p>Ella Reeve took the card, read it, laid it down, and resumed
+  conversation with her friends. She did not even glance in our
+  direction.</p>
+
+  <p>I felt sorry for the agent, whose mortification was very real, though
+  he made a brave effort to carry it off; and now that he is dead I feel
+  sorrier. As for Ella Reeve (which is not really her name, but one which
+  with great ingenuity I devised for her from the French: thus, <i>Elle
+  arrive</i>) I often see her, under her true style, in her triumphs, and I
+  always wonder whether her treatment of the agent, or his assurance of her
+  dependence on his cordiality, represents more nearly the truth. She looks
+  such a good sort. Some day, when the War is over, I must acquire a shiny
+  tall hat and a glossy shirt front and a youthful manner and get someone
+  to introduce me, and then, bit by bit, extract the truth.</p>
+
+  <p>Meanwhile the fact remains that it is dangerous to boast.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:40%;">
+      <a href="images/180.png"><img width="100%" src="images/180thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <p><i>Tommy (back from Blighty)</i>. "YUS, I GRANT YER A BIT O' LEAVE'S
+    ALL RIGHT. BUT IT'S AWFUL DEPRESSIN', TOO, AT HOME&mdash;NOTHIN' BUT
+    WAR&mdash;WAR! IT GIVES YER THE FAIR 'UMP."</p>
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">"JAPANESE POLITICS.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIME MINISTER'S ATTACK ON THE
+DIET."&mdash;<i>Daily Paper.</i></p>
+
+  <p>We wouldn't be the Food Controller in Japan for anything.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"Wanted situation as Groom Coachman or Coachman General;
+  disengaged early in March; can milk and care motor if
+  required."&mdash;<i>Irish Paper</i>.</blockquote>
+
+  <p>A modern improvement, we suppose, on "the cow with the iron tail."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"At a special meeting of the Duma held to-day, the Minister
+  for Agriculture, M. Rittich, in reply to an urgent question on the
+  measures for supplying Petrograd, stated the supplies were sufficient for
+  the present. Difficulties in purchase are due to excessive building and
+  storing by individuals in the shape of rusks."&mdash;<i>Daily
+  Chronicle</i>.</blockquote>
+
+  <p>No authority for this remarkable statement is given, but we suspect
+  the <i>Russky Invalid</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"A trifle of a trinket for his women-folk is the only saving
+  as an insurance for the poor against famine and starvation for a rainless
+  day."&mdash;<i>A Native Writer in "The Times of India."</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>KIPLING was right, East is East and West is West.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"The undersigned has great pleasure in informing all the
+  ladies, gentlemen and the other travellers in the Station that a very
+  nice comfortable motor car can be obtained on hire from him for a walk in
+  or out of the Station for any period of time at very reasonable
+  charges."&mdash;<i>Peshawar Daily News</i>.</blockquote>
+
+  <p>The petrol shortage evidently extends to India.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"Ireland is accustomed to disappointment; she is accustomed
+  to what she signalises as betrayal, but her spirit remains unbroken, and
+  she goes on her way undaunted to seek, it may be by new methods and a new
+  road, her appointed gaol."&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>Irishmen may justifiably resent this cynicism on the part of an old
+  friend.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181"></a>[pg 181]</span>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+      <a href="images/181a.png"><img width="100%" src="images/181athumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <h3>A MODIFIED SALIENT.</h3>
+
+    <p><i>The Old 'Un (surveying recently called-up warrior).</i> "WELL,
+    JARGE, YOU'M STILL TURR'BLE FAT, BUT THE ARMY DO ZEEM TO 'AVE
+    REARRANGED IT, LIKE."</p>
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<h3>GOLD BRAID.</h3>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Same old crossing, same old boat,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Same old dust round Rouen way,</p>
+      <p>Same old narsty one-franc note,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Same old "Mercy, sivvoo play;"</p>
+      <p>Same old scramble up the line,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Same old 'orse-box, same old stror,</p>
+      <p>Same old weather, wet or fine,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Same old blooming War.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4"><i>Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,</i></p>
+      <p class="i6"><i>It's just as it used to be, every bit;</i></p>
+      <p class="i4"><i>Same old whistle and same old bang,</i></p>
+      <p class="i6"><i>And me to stay 'ere till I'm 'it.</i></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Twas up by Loos I got me first;</p>
+      <p class="i2">I just dropped gently, crawled a yard</p>
+      <p>And rested sickish, with a thirst&mdash;</p>
+      <p class="i2">The 'eat, I thought, and smoking 'ard ...</p>
+      <p>Then someone offers me a drink,</p>
+      <p class="i2">What poets call "the cooling draft,"</p>
+      <p>And seeing 'im I done a think:</p>
+      <p class="i2">"<i>Blighty</i>," I thinks&mdash;and laughed.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>I'm not a soldier natural,</p>
+      <p class="i2">No more than most of us to-day;</p>
+      <p>I runs a business with a pal</p>
+      <p class="i2">(Meaning the Missis) Fulham way;</p>
+      <p>Greengrocery&mdash;the cabbages</p>
+      <p class="i2">And fruit and things I take meself,</p>
+      <p>And she has daffs and crocuses</p>
+      <p class="i2">A-smiling on a shelf.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Blighty," I thinks. The doctor knows;</p>
+      <p class="i2">'E talks of punctured damn-the-things.</p>
+      <p>It's me for Blighty. Down I goes;</p>
+      <p class="i2">I ain't a singer, but I sings;</p>
+      <p>"Oh, 'oo goes 'ome?" I sort of 'ums;</p>
+      <p class="i2">"Oh, 'oo's for dear old England's shores?"</p>
+      <p>And by-and-by Southampton comes&mdash;</p>
+      <p> "Blighty!" I says and roars.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>I s'pose I thort I done my bit;</p>
+      <p class="i2">I s'pose I thort the War would stop;</p>
+      <p>I saw myself a-getting fit</p>
+      <p class="i2">With Missis at the little shop;</p>
+      <p>The same like as it used to be,</p>
+      <p class="i2">The same old markets, same old crowd.</p>
+      <p>The same old marrers, same old me,</p>
+      <p class="i2">But 'er as proud as proud....</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>The regiment is where it was,</p>
+      <p class="i2">I'm in the same old ninth platoon;</p>
+      <p>New faces most, and keen becos</p>
+      <p class="i2">They 'ope the thing is ending soon;</p>
+      <p>I ain't complaining, mind, but still,</p>
+      <p class="i2">When later on some newish bloke</p>
+      <p>Stops one and laughs, "A blighty, Bill,"</p>
+      <p class="i2">I'll wonder, "Where's the joke?"</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Same old trenches, same old view,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Same old rats and just as tame,</p>
+      <p>Same old dug-outs, nothing new,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Same old smell, the very same,</p>
+      <p>Same old bodies out in front,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Same old <i>strafe</i> from 2 till 4,</p>
+      <p>Same old scratching, same old 'unt,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Same old bloody War.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4"><i>Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,</i></p>
+      <p class="i6"><i>It's just as it used to be, every bit;</i></p>
+      <p class="i4"><i>Same old whistle and same old bang</i></p>
+      <p class="i6"><i>And me out again to be 'it.</i></p>
+      <p class="i16">A.A.M.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:33%;">
+      <a href="images/181b.png"><img width="100%" src="images/181bthumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    THE NEW POSTER.
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+  <blockquote>"The important now development in the cotton situation is
+  that the ½ Prime Minister has consented to receive a
+  deputation."&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>All the same, he refused to adopt a ½ measure.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"The history of the development of the ¾eppelin is
+  well-known."&mdash;<i>Daily Chronicle.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>Particularly since our airmen ceased to give it any quarter.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>From an official notice of the sale of an enemy business:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <blockquote>"Lot 2. The goodwill of the business of the company attaching
+  to goods shipped from England to Nigeria, marked with the unregistered or
+  common-law trade-marks known as 'Eagle on Rocks' and 'Lion and
+  Flag.'"</blockquote>
+
+  <p>We are not surprised to hear of the "Eagle on Rocks" when it had the
+  "Lion and Flag" after it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id="page182"></a>[pg 182]</span>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+      <a href="images/182.png"><img width="100%" src="images/182thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <h3>TILLERS OF THE SOIL.</h3>
+
+    STUDY OF URBAN DWELLERS PREPARING FOR THE WORST.
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE JOY-RIDER AT THE FRONT.</h3>
+
+  <blockquote>(<i>Being a free version of Mr. BERNARD SHAW'S articles in
+  "The Daily Chronicle" on his visit to the seat of War</i>.)</blockquote>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Since the good man, RAMSAY MACDONALD, while touring in the East</p>
+      <p>Went out to shoot the tiger, that homicidal beast,</p>
+      <p>The most electrifying humanitarian stunt</p>
+      <p>Has been my khaki joy-ride along the British Front.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"It wasn't my own suggestion; I went as the Government's guest,</p>
+      <p>Invited to see how the brass-hats were running the show on the West;</p>
+      <p>I've never been sweet on soldiers, but I only went for a week,</p>
+      <p>And it gave me heaps of chances of studying war technique.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"If they really thought to convert me by the loan of a khaki suit,</p>
+      <p>Or by conferring upon me the right to claim a salute,</p>
+      <p>It wouldn't at all surprise me, for dullards have always tried</p>
+      <p>To bribe true men of genius to take the popular side.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Well, I went, I saw, I 'joy-rode,' and my verdict remains the same;</p>
+      <p>There's no use having a country unless she's always to blame;</p>
+      <p>For of all the appalling prospects that human life can lend</p>
+      <p>The worst is to be unable to play the candid friend.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Men talk of France, the Martyr; of her precious blood outpoured;</p>
+      <p>Of the innocent helpless victims of the brutal Hunnish horde;</p>
+      <p>Presuming, insensate idiots, to label as beast and brute</p>
+      <p>The race that has always held me in the very highest repute!</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"While France has failed completely, at least in those later days,</p>
+      <p>To show appreciation of my Prefaces and Plays;</p>
+      <p>It wouldn't be therefore worthy of a genuine superman</p>
+      <p>To show undue compassion for the sorrows of 'Marianne.'</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"And as for the sheer destruction of noble and ancient fanes</p>
+      <p>Which the prejudiced Hun-hater indignantly arraigns,</p>
+      <p>The simple truth compels me in honesty to state</p>
+      <p>That the style of some ruined buildings was utterly second-rate.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"But to quit these trivial matters&mdash;let weaklings wail and weep,</p>
+      <p>The loss of a few cathedrals will never affect my sleep&mdash;</p>
+      <p>What lifts this Armageddon to an altitude sublime</p>
+      <p>Is the crowning fact that it gave me a perfectly glorious time.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"As an ultra-neutral observer I entered the battle zone</p>
+      <p>And emerged unmoved, unshaken, with a heart as cool as a stone;</p>
+      <p>No sight could touch or daunt me, no sound my soul untune;</p>
+      <p>From pity or tears or sorrow I still remained immune.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"I own that before my arrival I felt an occasional qualm</p>
+      <p>Lest the shock of the unexpected might shatter my wonted calm;</p>
+      <p>But it gave me the richest rapture to find I was wholly free</p>
+      <p>From the crude and vulgar emotions that harass the plain V.C.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"I inspected the great war-engine, and, instead of its going strong,</p>
+      <p>I saw that in each of its workings there was always something wrong;</p>
+      <p>In fact, with the old black powder and the obsolete Brown Bess</p>
+      <p>The chances of missing your target were infinitely less.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"The so-called arm of precision scores only by lucky hits,</p>
+      <p>Though the 'heavies' and high explosives may possibly blow you to bits;</p>
+      <p>I saw one corpse on my 'joy-ride,' the head had been blown away,</p>
+      <p>And the thought of this painless ending produced in me no dismay."</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>Now he's back in the finest feather from his holiday with the Staff,</i></p>
+      <p><i>And we're sure that no one will grudge him the meed of this epitaph:</i></p>
+      <p><i>"He went through the fiery furnace, but never a hair was missed</i></p>
+      <p><i>From the heels of our most colossal Arch-Super-Egotist."</i></p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">"GREAT WHITE SALE.</p>
+
+<p class="center">UNREPEATABLE BARGAINS IN LINGERIE."&mdash;<i>Daily Paper.</i></p>
+
+  <p>We respect this reticence.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"The public are responding but slowly to the appeal of the
+  Post Office to facilitate the delay of correspondence in London by using
+  the new numbered addresses."&mdash;<i>Daily Mail.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>If that is really the object, why hurry?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>[pg 183]</span>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+      <a href="images/183.png"><img width="100%" src="images/183thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <h2>CANCELLED</h2>
+
+    BY ORDER OF THE COMPETENT MILITARY AUTHORITY.
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id="page184"></a>[pg 184]</span>
+
+<h3>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h3>
+
+  <p><i>Monday, March 12th.</i>&mdash;Having declared war upon the
+  Government the Nationalists are seeking a suitable plan of campaign. The
+  Home Rule demand never obtained much support among the Irish farmers
+  until FINTAN LALOR hitched it on to the Land question, and ever since Mr.
+  WYNDHAM'S Land Purchase Act turned the tenants into prospective owners it
+  has been steadily losing momentum. Mr. GINNELL, who made his reputation
+  as a perverse species of cowboy, now witnesses with grim satisfaction the
+  efforts of his colleagues to borrow his policy and break up the grass
+  farms. It was rather hard on him that the Parliamentary printer should
+  have ruined one of his questions on the subject by making him say "that
+  the reason"&mdash;instead of the season&mdash;"for breaking this land is
+  passing away."</p>
+
+  <p>The HOME SECRETARY is regarded by those who do not know him intimately
+  as a somewhat austere person, but given the right atmosphere he can be as
+  lively as anybody. Questioned about the reopening of Ciro's, he betrayed
+  a minute acquaintance with the details of its programme. I was beginning
+  to wonder if he were related to that famous Early-Victorian family, the
+  Caves of Harmony, when his knowledge broke down. On being asked by his
+  old friend Mr. BUTCHER to define a cabaret-entertainment he was
+  nonplussed, and could only refer him to Colonel LOCKWOOD as a probable
+  authority.</p>
+
+  <p>No one was more delighted at Mr. BONAR LAW'S announcement of the
+  capture of Baghdad than the Member for Cockermouth, who knows the region
+  well. Mesopotamia may or may not be the Garden of Eden, but Baghdad was
+  at one time unquestionably the abode of BLISS.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. CATHCART WASON was a little puzzled when Mr. FORSTER informed him
+  that the peeling of potatoes by Army cooks is strictly forbidden, "except
+  when the dietary of the troops makes it necessary." Why should there be
+  any exception at all, he wondered, until a neighbour, better informed
+  about the new meat-ration, whispered, "Sausages and <i>mashed</i>."</p>
+
+  <p>A grave statement by Mr. MACPHERSON as to the recent losses of the
+  Royal Flying Corps on the Western Front, and the increased activity of
+  the German airmen, created some natural depression, which might have been
+  more pronounced had not Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING seized the occasion to
+  reiterate his charges of "Murder" already condemned as baseless by two
+  judicial tribunals. The House will do anything in reason, but it refuses
+  to accompany Mr. BILLING in his flights of imagination.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Tuesday, March 13th.</i>&mdash;In the Lords, the Bill to deprive
+  enemy peers of their titles was supported by Lord MIDLETON, who nobly
+  offered to sacrifice his Red Eagle on the altar of patriotism. On the
+  other hand Lord COURTNEY condemned it; but there is no truth in the story
+  that the Yellow Waistcoat which he habitually wears was originally
+  conferred upon him by the KAISER. It is, I understand, an example of
+  protective colouring, designed to ward off the attacks of the Yellow
+  Press.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Wednesday, March 14th.</i>&mdash;The explosive qualities of cotton
+  when suitably combined with other ingredients are well known. Of these
+  ingredients the Lancashire spirit is perhaps the most potent. Mr. AUSTEN
+  CHAMBERLAIN began his defence of the proposed Indian cotton duties with
+  an appeal to Imperial sentiment based upon what India had done and was
+  doing. The Maharajah of BIKANIR, seated in the Distinguished Strangers'
+  Gallery, listened with appreciation to the praises of his famous Camel
+  Corps. Then followed what might be called the Home Rule argument&mdash;we
+  could not refuse what the Indian people so much desired&mdash;delivered
+  with so much earnestness that Mr. JEREMIAH MACVEAGH loudly invited Mr.
+  CHAMBERLAIN to "come over and sit on these benches."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+      <a href="images/184.png"><img width="100%" src="images/184thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <p>MEGAPHONES FOR MINISTERS. A SUGGESTION FROM THE PRESS GALLERY.</p>
+  </div>
+  <p>But his best card was his last, when, after a tribute to Mr. ASQUITH'S
+  "loyalty to colleagues," which roused tremendous cheering from the
+  Liberals, he invited the late Prime Minister to cast his vote with the
+  Government. Mr. ASQUITH did even more, for at the end of a speech,
+  critical but not censorious, he suggested an amendment to the Resolution
+  which enabled his Free Trade followers to "save their face." A few
+  stalwarts from Lancashire insisted none the less on taking a division,
+  and were joined on general principles by the Nationalists and other
+  habitual malcontents. But India, the Government and Mr. ASQUITH had the
+  comfortable majority of 140.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Thursday, March 15th.</i>&mdash;Under the present rules of
+  procedure (the products of Irish obstruction in the past) the
+  Nationalists find it difficult to put their declaration of war against
+  the Government to much effect. Their best chance comes during the first
+  hour of the sitting, and their most useful weapon is the Supplementary
+  Question. No sooner has Mr. DUKE read the official reply to the inquiry
+  on the Paper than there comes a strident "Arising out of that, Mr.
+  SPEAKER-R." Fortunately the CHIEF SECRETARY possesses a Job-like
+  patience, and is rarely betrayed into any departure from his polite if
+  somewhat ponderous manner. To badger Mr. BIRRELL was an exciting pastime
+  rather like punching the ball. To heckle Mr. DUKE is like hammering a
+  sandbag.</p>
+
+  <p>It would be interesting to know how many Members of the House of
+  Commons have volunteered under the National Service scheme. I only know
+  of one; that is Dr. MACNAMARA, who modestly avowed the fact when
+  challenged by Mr. PRINGLE, though I doubt whether the Admiralty will
+  consent to dispense with his services. On the other hand I only know of
+  one who has not; and that is Mr. PRINGLE himself, who, on the same
+  challenge being put to him, replied, "No, and don't intend." There is
+  evidently someone, possibly Mr. HOGGE, who thinks Mr. PRINGLE'S present
+  services indispensable to the winning of the War.</p>
+
+  <p>The debate on the new Vote of Credit dragged along in a thin and
+  somnolent House until Mr. BONAR LAW woke it up with the startling news
+  that there had been a revolution in Russia, and that the TSAR had
+  abdicated. Everybody seemed pleased, including Mr. DEVLIN, who was quite
+  statesmanlike in his appreciation. But no one noticed that henceforward
+  we must rank the late Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN among the prophets.
+  Addressing the Members of the Inter-parliamentary Conference assembled in
+  the Palace of Westminster on July 23rd, 1906, just after the dissolution
+  of Russia's first elected Parliament, he said, "<i>La Duma est morte;
+  vive la Duma!</i>" For a Prime Minister this outburst was regarded as a
+  little tactless; its essential wisdom has been justified by the
+  event.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Friday, March 16th.</i>&mdash;To-morrow being St. Patrick's Day,
+  Mr. BONAR LAW seized the opportunity to address a little homily to
+  Members from Ireland. Unless they mend their ways pretty soon they may
+  have to go back to their constituents and tackle the Sinn Feiners
+  themselves.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>WINGED VICTORY.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">"<i>Per ardua ad astra.</i>"</p>
+
+<p class="center">"One of our machines did not return."</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>I like to think it did not fall to earth,</p>
+      <p class="i2">A wounded bird that trails a broken wing,</p>
+      <p>But to the heavenly blue that gave it birth</p>
+      <p class="i2">Faded in silence, a mysterious thing,</p>
+      <p>Cleaving its radiant course where honour lies,</p>
+      <p>Like a winged victory mounting to the skies.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>The clouds received it and the pathless night;</p>
+      <p class="i2">Swift as a flame, its eager force unspent,</p>
+      <p>We saw no limit to its daring flight;</p>
+      <p class="i2">Only its pilot knew the way it went,</p>
+      <p>And how it pierced the maze of flickering stars</p>
+      <p>Straight to its goal in the red planet Mars.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>So to the entrance of that fiery gate,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Borne by no current, driven by no breeze,</p>
+      <p>Knowing no guide but some compelling fate,</p>
+      <p class="i2">Bold navigators of uncharted seas,</p>
+      <p>Courage and youth went proudly sweeping by,</p>
+      <p>To win the unchallenged freedom of the sky.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>[pg 185]</span>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+      <a href="images/185.png"><img width="100%" src="images/185thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <p><i>Curate (to unfailing supporter).</i> "OH, MISS TOOTSBY, IT'S GOOD
+    TO SEE YOU HERE AGAIN. IT WOULDN'T SEEM LIKE A JUMBLE SALE WITHOUT
+    YOU."</p>
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<h3>HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.</h3>
+
+  <p>(<i>Enter PASHA and the Sultan of TURKEY.</i>)</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> Then you want me to press the GERMAN KAISER to come
+  to Constantinople and pay me a visit. Is that it?</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> Yes, your Majesty, that is about it. It would produce a
+  splendid effect on the populace and would electrify the soldiers.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> But I've already told you that I cordially dislike
+  this KAISER of yours. Wherever he goes he turns everything upside down,
+  and there's not a moment's peace or repose for anybody. He must have
+  reviews of troops morning, noon and night, and it's all quite useless,
+  for our Generals tell me that he doesn't really understand anything about
+  soldiers and their movements. You know they've had to keep him away from
+  the fighting, both in France and Russia, because he would insist on
+  giving the most absurd orders, and when things didn't go right
+  immediately he always broke out into shouting and cursing, and praying
+  and crying until his Staff felt so ashamed of him and themselves that
+  they didn't know which way to look. There's never any knowing what a man
+  like that will do. He's as likely as not to want to preach a sermon in
+  St. Sophia, or to ride his horse up the steps of the Palace.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> These are certainly faults, but they are the faults of
+  an enthusiastic nature.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> Well, I don't like that kind of enthusiastic
+  nature. I prefer something quieter. Besides, I am told that his behaviour
+  in the house and his table-manners are dreadful. He's quite capable, if
+  he doesn't like a dish, of throwing it at the attendants. Then he gets so
+  angry when people don't agree with him; the least contradiction makes him
+  purple, absolutely purple, with passion. My dear ENVER, you would have to
+  pretend you knew nothing about Turkey when you talked with him&mdash;at
+  any rate nothing in comparison with his knowledge&mdash;and I'm sure you
+  wouldn't like that; nobody would. No, I can't say the prospect of having
+  him here as my guest allures me, but of course, if you say it <i>must</i>
+  be done, I'm ready to sacrifice myself. Only I warn you it will spoil
+  everything for me to have him here prancing about in a Turkish
+  uniform.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> I didn't know your Majesty's feelings were so strong on
+  the subject. Perhaps it will not, after all, be necessary. I will see
+  what can be done.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> Yes, do, there's a good fellow. If I had to
+  entertain that man for a week I should suffer from indigestion for the
+  rest of my life.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> If possible we will see that your Majesty is spared such
+  an affliction. With your Majesty's leave I will now withdraw.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> Do by all means. No&mdash;stop; you haven't given
+  me any of the War news. I keep on asking for it, but nobody pays any
+  attention to my requests. Honestly, I don't see much use in being a
+  Sultan if one can't get anyone to do what one asks.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> Oh, you want to hear some War news, do you? Well, I may
+  as well tell you now as later. Baghdad's gone.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> What&mdash;captured?</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> Yes, the infernal English have got it.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> I knew it was bound to happen. I told you so only
+  last Tuesday&mdash;at least, if it wasn't you it was somebody else.
+  "Baghdad," I said, "is sure to be captured. The English are in great
+  force, and if we don't watch it carefully they're sure to snatch it from
+  us." That's what I said; but you wouldn't have it. You were all so
+  cock-sure, and now where are you?</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> Who can fight against treachery?</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> Treachery? It's simply stupidity and incompetence.
+  You and your KAISER keep patting one another on the back, and then one
+  fine morning you wake up and discover that Baghdad has fallen. ENVER,
+  you'll find it rather difficult to explain this to the people. They know
+  my advice hasn't counted for anything in this; they'll put it all down to
+  you; and you can't murder them all, as you murdered poor old NAZIM.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> Silence, or&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> Yes, I know, but I will not keep silence. Rather, I
+  will ask again, why have you sent my best regiments to help the Austrians
+  and Germans on their own fronts? Even I could have managed better than
+  that. And why are we fighting in this War at all? Answer me that.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Enver.</i> We fight for the greatness of Turkey.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Sultan.</i> Well, we don't seem very successful. It was a good
+  deal bigger before we lost Erzerum and Baghdad...</p>
+
+  <p>(<i>Left wrangling.</i>)</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h4>Conscience-Money?</h4>
+
+  <blockquote>"The Commissioners of Inland Revenue acknowledge the receipt
+  of first half of £100 note from 'Berlin.'"&mdash;<i>Daily
+  Paper.</i></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"Half-a-dozen deer escaped from Hatfield Park some weeks ago
+  through a gate having been carelessly left open. A wholesale clearance of
+  vegetables followed in the district, and the damage was so serious that,
+  with the Marquis of Salisbury's approval, shooting parties of farmers
+  went out, and the raiders have now been run to
+  earth."&mdash;<i>Manchester Paper.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>It looks as if they were only rabbits, after all.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id="page186"></a>[pg 186]</span>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>AT THE PLAY.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">"REMNANT."</p>
+
+  <p>I wish now that I had not been compelled to postpone my visit to the
+  Royalty, for I think the fall of Baghdad must have put me a bit above
+  myself. Anyhow, I was less moved than usual by the triumph of virtue and
+  the downing of vice; and permitted myself to wonder how a play like
+  <i>Remnant</i> ever found its way into the Royalty (of all theatres), and
+  what Mr. DENNIS EADIE (of all actors) was doing in this galley, this
+  melted-butter boat. And indeed there were moments when I could see that
+  Mr. EADIE himself shared my wonder, if I rightly interpreted certain
+  signs of indifference and detachment in his performance. I even suspected
+  a sinister intention in the title, though, of course, Messrs. MORTON and
+  NICCODEMI didn't really get their play off in the course of a bargain
+  sale of superannuated goods.</p>
+
+  <p>Apart from the Second Act, where Miss MARIE LÖHR (looking rather like
+  a nice Dutch doll) delivered the blunt gaucheries of <i>Remnant</i> with
+  a delightfully stolid naïveté, the design of the play and its simple
+  little devices might almost have been the work of amateurs. The sordid
+  quarrels between <i>Tony</i> and his preposterous mistress (whom I took
+  to be a model, till I found that he was only an artist in steam
+  locomotives) were extraordinarily lacking in subtlety. In all this
+  Bohemian business one looked in vain for a touch of the art of MURGER.
+  What would one not have given for something even distantly reminiscent of
+  the <i>Juliet</i> scene&mdash;"<i>et le pigeon chantait toujours</i>"?
+  And it wasn't as if this was supposed to be a sham Americanised
+  <i>quartier</i> of to-day. We were in the true period&mdash;under Louis
+  PHILIPPE. Indeed I know no other reason (costumes always excepted) why
+  the scene was the Paris of 1840. For the purposes of the play <i>Tony</i>
+  might just as well have been a British designer of tanks (London, 1916).
+  Nor was there anything even conventionally French about the girl
+  <i>Remnant</i>, who might have been born next-door to Bow Bells.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
+      <a href="images/186a.png"><img width="100%" src="images/186athumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <p>REMNANT BARGAIN DAY.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tony</i> ... MR. DENNIS EADIE.</p>
+
+    <p>"<i>Remnant</i>" ... MISS MARIE LÖHR.</p>
+  </div>
+  <p>Miss MARIE LÖHR was the life and soul of the party. Her true comedy
+  manner, when she was serious, was always fascinating. She said with great
+  discretion her little Barriesque piece about the desirability of babies,
+  and she did all she knew to keep the sentiment from being too
+  sickly-sweet. Here she had strong assistance from Mr. EADIE as her lover
+  <i>Tony</i>; for, though he got a fine flash out of the green eye of
+  jealousy when he suspected his patron, <i>Jules</i>, of jumping his
+  love-claim, it was obvious at the end that the success of his
+  professional ambitions was far more to him than any affair of the heart.
+  And, after all, when <i>Remnant</i> complained of a curious
+  <i>bourdonnement</i> in her ears, and <i>Tony</i> had to reply solemnly,
+  "That which you hear is the beating of your heart to the music of your
+  soul," you could hardly expect a man with Mr. EADIE'S sense of humour to
+  throw much conviction into the statement.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. C.M. LOWNE was a very passable <i>beau</i>, and made love to
+  <i>Remnant</i> with that rich fruitiness of voice of which he is a past
+  master. It was her business (as she explained to <i>Tony</i> when he
+  surprised their two faces within kissing distance of each other) to keep
+  <i>Jules</i> in good humour since <i>Tony's</i> chances depended upon his
+  patronage. But it couldn't have helped much to tell <i>Jules</i> with
+  such appalling candour that the shiver produced by his kiss was the same
+  kind as she had once felt when a rat ran over her face during sleep.
+  However, <i>Jules</i> was not a <i>beau</i> for nothing and could afford
+  this exceptional set-back to one of his many amours. There was, by the
+  way, an excellent little comedy scene between him and his wife, played by
+  Miss MURIEL POPE with a quiet humour as piquant as her gown.</p>
+
+  <p>As <i>Manon</i>, the querulous termagant that <i>Tony</i> had taken
+  for mistress, Miss HILDA MOORE was not very kindly served by her
+  part&mdash;so rudimentary that its highest flight was achieved when, with
+  a Parthian shot, she referred to <i>Tony</i> as a geni-ass.</p>
+
+  <p>I will not forecast a limited success for this play, for who would
+  dare to say that there is not always room in the broad British bosom for
+  yet another triumph of sentiment over ideas&mdash;I speak of the play
+  itself and not of the performance? If only for Miss LÖHR'S sake I could
+  wish that the best of fortune may attend it; for to have worn her hair as
+  she did in the Second Act, out of regard for the period, was a sacrifice
+  as fine as any that women have shown in the course of Armageddon (if I
+  may judge of them by their portraits in the Photographic Press), and she
+  ought to have her reward, bless her
+  heart!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;O.S.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="center">"GENERAL POST."</p>
+
+  <p>It would be easy to make fun of the exaggerations and
+  ultra-simplifications of Mr. TERRY'S new comedy. It is much pleasanter
+  (and juster) to dwell on its wholesomeness, its easy humour and its
+  effect of honest entertainment. Not a highbrow adventure, it is not to be
+  judged by highbrow standards. It is decently in key, and an exceptionally
+  clever cast carried it adroitly over any rough places. Remarkable, too,
+  as almost the first popular testimonial since the War began to the
+  too-much-taken-for-granted Territorials, who worked in the old days while
+  we scoffed and golfed. That's all to the good.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:66%;">
+      <a href="images/186b.png"><img width="100%" src="images/186bthumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <p>THE TAILOR WHO DID NOT NEED TO PRESS HIS SUIT.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Sir Dennys Broughton</i> ... MR. NORMAN MCKINNEL.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Broughton</i> ... MISS LILIAN BRAITHWAITE.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Edward Smith (tailor)</i> ... MR. GEORGE TULLY.</p>
+  </div>
+  <p>Our author's hero is an excellent provincial tailor, who is also keen
+  <i>Captain Smith</i> in the Sheffingham Terriers. As tailor his chief
+  customer, as soldier his contemptuous scandalised critic, is <i>Sir
+  Dennys Broughton</i>, whose wayward flapper daughter <i>Betty</i> is in
+  the early fierce stages of revolt against the stuffiness of life at
+  Grange Court, meets <i>Smith</i> over some boys' club work, and, finding
+  brains and dreams in him (a formidable contrast to her loafing brother),
+  falls into passionate first-love. <i>Smith</i> is just as badly if more
+  soberly hit, and recognising the impossibility of the situation (quite
+  apart from demonstrations by the alarmed <i>Broughtons</i>) decides to
+  take his tape and shears to his London house of business. The date of all
+  this being about the time of the misguided <i>Panther's</i> fateful leap
+  on Agadir.</p>
+
+  <p>Act II. brings us to the second year of the War. Young
+  <i>Broughton</i>, puppy no longer, is gloriously in it, and has just been
+  gazetted to a Territorial regiment whose Colonel bears the not uncommon
+  name of Smith. Our tailor, of course, and a rattling fine soldier too.
+  Having discovered this latter fact and also formed a remarkably cordial
+  relationship apparently in a single day, the enthusiastic cub subaltern
+  (distemper and snobbishness over and done with) motors up his C.O., who
+  is visiting his brother and partner, and brings him in to Grange Court on
+  the way. <i>Sir Dennys</i>, now a brassarded private and otherwise a
+  converted man, is still confoundedly embarrassed, and stands anything but
+  easy in the presence of his youngster's Colonel. <i>Lady Broughton</i>,
+  least malleable of the group, is frankly appalled by this new
+  <i>mésalliance</i>. Perhaps Mr. TERRY'S version of blue-blooded insolence
+  and fatuity is for his stage purpose rather crudely coloured, but who
+  shall say <span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id="page187"></a>[pg
+  187]</span> that the doctrine that a man in khaki who has been an
+  elementary schoolmaster or a tailor is a man for a' that, is quite
+  universally accepted in the best circles even in this year of grace?
+  <i>Betty</i>, now a grown girl in the cynical stage, revenges herself
+  with feline savagery on the knight of the shears for the imagined slight
+  of his defection.</p>
+
+  <p>Act III. is dated 19? just after peace is declared. The tailor is not
+  (as I half expected) back in his shop, but a <i>Brigadier-General Smith,
+  V.C.</i>, is being invested with the freedom of Sheffingham and is making
+  a spirited attack on the defences of <i>Betty</i>. She puts up enough of
+  a fight to ensure a good Third Act, and capitulates charmingly to the
+  delight, now, of all the <i>Broughton</i> household&mdash;butler
+  included. I hope Mr. TERRY is right and that the places taken in this
+  great war game of <i>General Post</i> and the values registered will have
+  permanence.</p>
+
+  <p>I won't deny that the excellent moral of the play goes far to disarm
+  one's critical faculty. Why not confess that one lost one's heart to the
+  nicest tailor since <i>Evan Harrington</i>? Indeed, Mr. TULLY (always, I
+  find, quite admirable in characterisation, and that no mere matter of
+  outward trick, but duly charged with feeling) made just such a decent,
+  lovable, sideless officer as it has been the pride of the nation of
+  shopkeepers to produce in the day of challenge. Whoever was it dared cast
+  Mr. MCKINNEL for the part of a weak kindly old ass of a baronet, without
+  any ruggedness or violence in his composition? Congratulations to the
+  unknown perspicacious hero and to Mr. MCKINNEL! Miss MADGE TITHERADGE
+  flapped prettily as a flapper; bit cleanly and cruelly in her biting
+  mood; surrendered most engagingly. This is less than justice. She used
+  her queer caressing voice and her reserves of emotional power to fine
+  effect. Miss LILIAN BRAITHWAITE made her <i>Lady Broughton</i> nearly
+  credible and less "unsympathetic" than was just. Mr. DANIELL is new to
+  me. He played one of those difficult foil parts with a really nice
+  discretion.</p>
+
+  <p>The audience was genuinely pleased. It dragged from the author a
+  becomingly modest acknowledgment. He <i>did</i> owe a great deal to his
+  players, but a writer of stage plays need not be ashamed of that. T.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+      <a href="images/187.png"><img width="100%" src="images/187thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <p><i>Ethel (playing at grown-ups).</i> "IS YOUR HUSBAND IN THE WAR,
+    MRS. BROWN?" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Mabel.</i> "OH YES, OF
+    COURSE, MRS. SMITH."</p>
+
+    <p><i>Ethel.</i> "IS HE IN FRANCE?" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+    <i>Mabel.</i> "NO, HE'S IN THE WAR LOAN."</p>
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE PLOT PRECAUTIONARY.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>The KAISER addresses his Transatlantic Faithful.</i>)</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">Ye stalwart Huns and strident,</p>
+      <p class="i8">Who can't come home again,</p>
+      <p class="i4">Because base Albion's trident,</p>
+      <p class="i8">Though largely on the wane,</p>
+      <p>Still occupies successfully the surface of the main;</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">Give ear, my gallant fellows,</p>
+      <p class="i8">While I the truth declare;</p>
+      <p class="i4">Britain's expiring bellows</p>
+      <p class="i8">Will shortly rend the air;</p>
+      <p>Wiping the earth up then will be a simplified affair.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">But, while at home our Hunnish</p>
+      <p class="i8">Valour obtains the day,</p>
+      <p class="i4">It must be yours to punish</p>
+      <p class="i8">The craven U.S.A.,</p>
+      <p>Debouching on them unawares from Sinaloa way.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">I make the rough suggestion,</p>
+      <p class="i8">And it shall be your care</p>
+      <p class="i4">To solve the minor question</p>
+      <p class="i8">Of how and when and where,</p>
+      <p>Aided by Gen. CARRANZA, the party with the hair.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">Some pesos and centavos</p>
+      <p class="i8">He will of course demand</p>
+      <p class="i4">Before he leads his bravos</p>
+      <p class="i8">Across the Rio Grande;</p>
+      <p>Offer the fellow all he wants&mdash;in German notes of hand.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">Meanwhile the Hyphenated,</p>
+      <p class="i8">Busy with bomb and knife,</p>
+      <p class="i4">Will likewise hand the hated</p>
+      <p class="i8">Gringos a taste of strife,</p>
+      <p>Starting with Colonel ROOSEVELT and the Editor of <i>Life</i>.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">These are, in brief, the vistas</p>
+      <p class="i8">That swim before my ken;</p>
+      <p class="i4">So tell the Carranzistas</p>
+      <p class="i8">To up and act like men;</p>
+      <p>And say the money's coming on, but do not mention when.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">Bid them with sword and fire wreck</p>
+      <p class="i8">The pale Pacific West;</p>
+      <p class="i4">And tell SYLVESTER VIERECK</p>
+      <p class="i8">And BARTHOLDT and the rest</p>
+      <p>To call the Lagerbund to arms and jump on WILSON'S chest.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i4">There'll be some opposition&mdash;</p>
+      <p class="i8">That I can quite foresee;</p>
+      <p class="i4">But bear in mind your mission</p>
+      <p class="i8">Must primarily be</p>
+      <p>To keep the swine-dog Yankees from jumping on to <i>me</i>!</p>
+      <p class="i16">ALGOL.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h4>Our Commercial Stylists.</h4>
+
+<p class="center">"&mdash;, SONS &amp; CO., LTD.,</p>
+
+<p class="center">ARE SHOWING A DELIGHTFUL RANGE OF CORSETS,
+EMBRACING THE MOST APPROVED MODELS."&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Dover: Gas up 5d. a 1,000.</p>
+      <p>Tunbridge Wells: Gas up 2d. a 1,000.</p>
+      <p>Lord Selborne is up again, after a chill."&mdash;<i>Evening News.</i></p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Good, but how much?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188" id="page188"></a>[pg 188]</span>
+
+<h3>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics.</i>)</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Snare</i> (SECKER) impressed me as a tale emphatically
+  prededicate to the footlights. Actually, by the way, Mr. RAFAEL SABATINI
+  has dedicated it "to LEON M. LEON, who told me this story"&mdash;which,
+  of course, only strengthens my belief. Anyhow, it has every mark of the
+  romantic drama&mdash;a picturesque setting, that of the Peninsular War,
+  rich in possibilities for the scenic and sartorial arts; and a strongly
+  emotional plot, leading up to a situation that could be relied upon to
+  bring down the house. I shall, of course, not tell you the plot. It
+  contains a jealous husband, an injudicious wife, a hero and heroine, a
+  villain (of foreign extraction) and a god in the machine, who is none
+  other than our IRON DUKE himself. And the situation in the last Act
+  offers as pretty a piece of table-turning as any audience need desire. I
+  wish I could explain how the DUKE plays with his enemies, and
+  finally&mdash;but no, I said I wouldn't, and I will keep my word. Two
+  little carpings, however. Surely it is wrong to speak of "catch
+  half-penny" journalism in the time of WELLINGTON. My impression is that
+  the journalists of those days caught at least fourpence by their wares.
+  And I confess to an emotion of disappointment when the heroine bounced up
+  at the court-martial and said that the hero couldn't have committed the
+  murder because he was "in her arms" at the time. Of course he hadn't
+  been; and I very much doubt whether any Court would have believed her for
+  two minutes. But leading ladies love saying it, so I suppose the very
+  out-worn device will have to be retained in the stage version. I look
+  forward to this with much pleasure.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>That clever lady, ELINOR MORDAUNT, has collected into the volume that
+  she calls <i>Before Midnight</i> (CASSELL) a series of short stories of a
+  psychic (though not always ghostly) character, which, while not very
+  eerie, or on the same high level, are at their best both original and
+  impressive. The first of them, which affords excuse for a
+  highly-intriguing cover-picture, is at once the most spooksome and the
+  least satisfactory. That is to say that, though it opens with a genuine
+  and quite horrible thrill, the "explanation" is obscure and tame. Far
+  more successful, to my mind, is "The Vision," a delicate little idyll of
+  a Midland schoolmarm, to whom is shown the death of Adonis and the
+  lamenting of his goddess-lover. The writing of this touches real beauty
+  (the high-fantastic, instead of the merely high-falutin', which in such
+  connection would have been so fatally easy). To sum up, though one at
+  least of these "dreams before midnight" may quite possibly become a
+  nightmare after it, I fancy that, to all lovers of the occult, the game
+  will be found well worth the bed-room candle.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>There are qualities in <i>The Bird of Life</i>, by GERTRUDE VAUGHAN
+  (CHAPMAN AND HALL), which cause me to look forward to this lady's future
+  work with very considerable interest. In the present novel she sets out
+  the life story of <i>Rachel</i> up to a point boldly given as being
+  beyond the conclusion of the War, in which, by the way, both her husband
+  and the man whom she ought to have married are killed on the same day.
+  The first eighty-four pages of the book raised my hopes very high. They
+  describe with great simplicity and sympathy the thoughts and feelings,
+  the romances and difficulties, of an affectionate and lonely little girl
+  living with her <i>Uncle Matthew</i> and her <i>Aunt Elizabeth</i>, and
+  loving them both with a childlike fervour. There is no exaggeration; the
+  writing goes true to its mark, and the effect designed by the writer is
+  admirably well made. Then <i>Uncle Matthew</i> dies and <i>Rachel</i>
+  finds a new home in the Vicarage of <i>Mr. Venning</i>, a family man if
+  ever there was one, for he has fifteen children. From this point the
+  interest is slightly diluted, and the excellence of the book diminishes.
+  One does not recognise in the more mature <i>Rachel</i> the girl one had
+  expected to find after one's initiation into the secrets of her baby
+  mind. She marries <i>Edward Venning</i>, and finds too late that he is,
+  like his father, made up of convention and narrowness. She plans a
+  disappearance, and leaves some of her belongings on the edge of a
+  bottomless tarn. Then, being hypothetically dead, she begins to live her
+  life in her own way. Later on she returns to <i>Edward</i>, "on approval
+  for six months"; but this period was apparently not sufficient to break
+  the chain that bound her to Another, and, the War intervening, she is
+  left almost doubly widowed. I feel that I have not quite done justice to
+  Miss VAUGHAN'S book, but, on the other hand, I am sure that she has not
+  quite done justice to her unquestionable talent.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>A volume entitled <i>Friends of France: The Field Service of the
+  American Ambulance</i> (SMITH, ELDER) has appeared in a happy hour to
+  remind one, if that were necessary, that in the great nation that awaits
+  Mr. WILSON'S call there have always been found some eager to give their
+  services and, if need be, life itself to prove their love for the other
+  great Republic. I don't think either you or I will grudge such an
+  affection at this date, founded historically though it may be on a mutual
+  dislike of ourselves, and consequently it is a very pleasant impression
+  that is produced by this record of American efficiency and courage in Red
+  Cross work on the French front. This being clearly remembered one need
+  not be afraid to admit that in detail the book will be of interest mainly
+  to the friends of those concerned, since the method of multiple
+  authorship adopted necessarily involves overlapping, and a good deal of
+  the volume is given up to monotonous, though undoubtedly well-earned,
+  "tributes and citations" from the French authorities. Neither is the bulk
+  of the matter, most generously illustrated though it is, particularly
+  intriguing, for by now one is sufficiently familiar with accounts of the
+  removal of wounded under fire and the sort of work at which these four
+  hundred American University men proved themselves so adept at
+  half-a-dozen points between Flanders and Alsace. Americans, long at odds
+  with "ruthlessness" (and at last forced to the inevitable logical
+  conclusion in regard to it), may well be glad to be able to point,
+  amongst other creditable things, to this history of service given without
+  hesitation in acknowledgment of their debt to the civilisation of the Old
+  World; and we also shall be no less glad to remember it.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>It is perhaps natural that in <i>Winnowed Memories</i> (CASSELL), by
+  Field-Marshal Sir EVELYN WOOD, V.C., one should look at first to see what
+  references they contain to modern events. On these matters, as on all
+  others covered by this volume, we are told nothing that is not
+  invigorating and to the point, and the tributes here paid to the fighting
+  qualities of our armies of to-day form a fitting conclusion to a book
+  that is full of sound sense and good cheer. Sir EVELYN has had a vast
+  experience and enjoys an evergreen vigour. What is rarer still, he has a
+  kindly nature that admits no trace of the disappointments he must from
+  time to time have suffered. As everyone knows, he was always an advocate
+  of Compulsory Universal Service for Home Defence, but he casts no stone
+  at those who so long and parlously delayed to learn their lesson. Like
+  the true soldier that he is, he seems to have no time or taste for those
+  recriminations which are best left to small political fry. And I rejoice
+  that in a book of such authority the note is largely one of happiness and
+  hope.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+  <p>"Owing to congestion on the railways there is a food shortage in
+  Petrograd, which has led some of the less irresponsible citizens to
+  demonstrate during the session of the Council of the Empire and the
+  Duma."&mdash;<i>Daily Sketch.</i></p>
+
+  <p>Subsequent news shows that "less irresponsible" was not a misprint but
+  a prophecy.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;">
+      <a href="images/188.png"><img width="100%" src="images/188thumb.png"
+      alt="" /></a>
+    <p><i>Sympathetic Newsboy (to proprietor of Coffee Stall.)</i> "WOT YER
+    TRYIN' TO DO WIV THE OLD 'OTEL, GUVNER? TAKIN' IT 'OME FOR FEAR OF
+    'AVIN' IT COMMANDEERED?"</p>
+  </div>
+<hr />
+
+  <blockquote>"It is claimed that about thirty Merman firms construct the
+  Diesel motors originally used for submarines."&mdash;<i>Daily
+  Telegraph.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>We wish these motors a speedy return to the fishy scenes of their
+  origin.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <blockquote>"Several eligible sires for workmen's dwellings, of which
+  some 300 are needed, have been selected by the Southport Town Planning
+  Committee."&mdash;<i>Daily Paper.</i></blockquote>
+
+  <p>They must not be confused with "the rude forefathers of the hamlet"
+  mentioned by GRAY.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume
+152, March 21, 1917, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,1828 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152,
+March 21, 1917, by Various
+
+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, Volume 152, March 21, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14455]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Keith Edkins and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 152.
+
+
+
+March 21st, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+There is a convict at Pentonville who is said to be exactly like the
+KAISER. He feels that in view of the great inconvenience he has suffered it
+is the KAISER'S duty at once to remove his moustache or grow side whiskers.
+
+       ***
+
+The KAISER is in a bit of a hole. Attending a special service for the
+success of the War, he is reported to have "sung the _De Profundis_ at the
+top of his voice." All the rest of him, including the lower part of his
+voice, seems to have been submerged.
+
+       ***
+
+The revolutionary spirit in Germany seems to have extended to the vegetable
+kingdom. In a riot at Barmen which occurred recently the chief of police
+was "seriously wounded" by a turnip.
+
+       ***
+
+The _Berliner Tageblatt_ states that for appearing at a private concert a
+famous opera singer has been paid in food, including sixty eggs. The custom
+is not unknown to some of our own music-hall artistes, who however are
+usually more than content with receiving "the bird."
+
+       ***
+
+According to a _Globe_ report Mr. CHARLES GULLIVER is giving at the
+Palladium "a programme of real entertainers." Enterprise and originality
+are always to be commended in a manager.
+
+       ***
+
+A telegram from Mexico City announces that General CARRANZA has been
+elected President of the Mexican Republic. It is expected that a full list
+of the casualties will be published shortly.
+
+       ***
+
+A Melbourne despatch states that Mr. HUGHES has been offered thirty-four
+seats in the forthcoming elections. The Opposition, it is understood, has
+expressed its willingness to allow Mr. HUGHES to occupy all thirty-four.
+
+       ***
+
+So effective has been the attempt to reduce circulation that we are not
+surprised to find a provincial paper advertising in _The Daily Telegraph_
+for "A Reader."
+
+       ***
+
+"There is no monument more enduring than brass," writes Mr. GEORGE BERNARD
+SHAW, War Correspondent. The general feeling, however, is that there is a
+kind of brass that is beyond enduring.
+
+       ***
+
+The idea of blaming _Queen Elizabeth_ for the Dardanelles fiasco is so
+entirely satisfactory to all parties concerned that it is being freely
+asked why the Commission couldn't have thought of that itself.
+
+       ***
+
+The new order prohibiting newspapers from printing contents bills is
+bearing hardly in certain quarters, and it is rumoured that at least one
+sensational contemporary has offered to forgo publishing itself in return
+for the privilege of selling its posters.
+
+       ***
+
+By order of the General Officer Commanding the London District the Grafton
+Galleries have been placed out of bounds. Or, as they say in the best
+War-time dancing circles, out of leaps and bounds.
+
+       ***
+
+[Illustration: PROGRESS.]
+
+       ***
+
+Kensington Council states that 300,000 tons of food are consumed annually
+by thousands of dogs which serve no useful purpose. The dogs, on the other
+hand, are asking what would become of the nation's womanhood if there were
+no dogs to take it out for exercise in the afternoon.
+
+       ***
+
+The Government, it appears, is determined to keep Charing Cross Railway
+Station on the North side of the river. All the objections to the present
+site, they point out, are easily outweighed by its proximity to the
+National Gallery.
+
+       ***
+
+At Highgate, says a news item, a man named YELLS was fined for having in
+his possession pork which was not sound. It was suggested that defendant
+had held back the squeal for his own purposes.
+
+       ***
+
+An applicant recently informed the House of Commons' Tribunal that cutting
+sandwiches was highly skilled work, which could not be done satisfactorily
+by women. The difficulty appears to consist not in the actual cutting, but
+in conveying the hammy taste from the knife to the bread without actually
+parting with the ham itself.
+
+       ***
+
+Skipping is recommended as a healthy recreation. Several Germans on the
+Ancre say they already owe their lives to this practice.
+
+       ***
+
+It is now proposed that Telephone Directories should be charged for. The
+idea appears to be to bring them into line with other light literature; but
+_Punch_ fears no rivals.
+
+       ***
+
+It has been decided by Mr. PAUL TAYLOR at Marylebone that bacon is meat.
+Lord DEVONPORT, now that his suspicion has been judicially confirmed, has
+announced his intention of going ahead on that basis.
+
+       ***
+
+From a school-girl's examination paper:--"_Question._ What do you know of
+Tantalus? _Answer_: Tantalus suffered from continual hunger and thirst in
+internal regions."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHILDREN'S TALES FOR GROWN-UPS.
+
+III.
+
+ITS OWN REWARD.
+
+"What fun!" cried the wasp.
+
+"Where?" asked the bee looking up with a subdued smile.
+
+"I mean I can't help laughing," said the wasp.
+
+"A disgusting habit," said the bee.
+
+"Look at those people nearly out of their wits. Here goes for old
+Bless-my-Soul again!" He flew off and buzzed round the old gentleman's neck
+and then flew back to the bee, laughing louder than ever at his purple
+rage.
+
+"I don't know what you think of your conduct," said the bee severely, "but
+I think it is insects like you who give us all a bad name."
+
+"Be hanged to your bad name," scoffed the wasp. "A short life and a merry
+one, say I."
+
+"A busy life and a useful one, rather," said the bee. "I am proud to be the
+friend of man."
+
+"Good heavens!" shouted the wasp. "Here comes old Bless-my-Soul bent on
+murder. Look out! I'm going for his neck."
+
+Old Bless-my-Soul slashed wildly with his table-napkin and slew the bee. He
+went back triumphantly with his spoil.
+
+"A bee!" shouted everybody. "I thought it was a wasp. I didn't know bees
+were like that."
+
+"All insects are vicious," said old Bless-my-Soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another Impending Apology.
+
+    "LONDON PAVILION. CHEERIO! at 8.30.--'Just the thing for a dull
+    evening.'"--_Daily News._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A few of the waiting women abandoned hope of getting potatoes, and
+    substituted the purchase by parsnips and sweres."--_Daily Mirror._
+
+In the circumstances who shall blame them?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTICE.
+
+In order to meet the national need for economy in the consumption of paper,
+the Proprietors of _Punch_ are compelled to reduce the number of its pages,
+but propose that the amount of matter published in _Punch_ shall by
+condensation and compression be maintained and even, it is hoped,
+increased.
+
+It is further necessary that means should be taken to restrict the
+circulation of _Punch_, and its price has been raised to Sixpence. The
+Proprietors believe that the public will prefer an increase of price to a
+reduction of matter.
+
+Readers are urged to place an order with their Newsagent for the regular
+delivery of copies, as _Punch_ may otherwise be unobtainable, the shortage
+of paper making imperative the withdrawal from Newsagents of the
+"on-sale-or-return" privilege.
+
+In consequence of the increase in the price of _Punch_ the period covered
+by subscriptions already paid direct to the _Punch_ Office will be
+proportionately shortened; or the unexpired value will be refunded, if
+desired.
+
+The next issue of _Punch_ (March 28th) will be a Navy Double Number, price
+Sixpence. The Proprietors regret that arrangements for this Number were
+completed before the further drastic restrictions in the paper supply were
+announced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Unlucky One_ (_after perusing latest list of honours_).
+"NEVER HAVE HAD ANY LUCK. MONTHS AGO I SAVED A SERGEANT CHAP FROM A ROTTEN
+PLACE--CARRIED THE FELLOW ALL THE WAY BACK--AND TOLD HIM NOT TO SAY A WORD
+ABOUT IT!"
+
+_Friend._ "WELL, WHAT'S WRONG? HAS HE BEEN TALKING?"
+
+_Unlucky One._ "NOT A WORD, CURSE HIM!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MUD LARKS.
+
+When I was young, my parents sent me to a boarding school, not in any hopes
+of getting me educated, but because they wanted a quiet home.
+
+At that boarding school I met one Frederick Delane Milroy, a chubby
+flame-coloured brat who had no claims to genius, excepting as a
+_litterateur_.
+
+The occasion that established his reputation with the pen was a Natural
+History essay. We were given five sheets of foolscap, two hours and our own
+choice of subject. I chose the elephant, I remember, having once been kind
+to one through the medium of a bag of nuts.
+
+Frederick D. Milroy headed his effort "THE FERT" in large capitals, and
+began, "The fert is a noble animal--" He got no further, the extreme
+nobility of the ferret having apparently blinded him to its other
+characteristics.
+
+The other day, as I was wandering about on the "line," dodging Bosch crumps
+with more agility than grace, I met Milroy (Frederick Delane) once more.
+
+He was standing at the entrance of a cosy little funk-hole, his boots and
+tunic undone, sniffing the morning nitro-glycerine. He had swollen
+considerably since our literary days, but was wearing his hair as red as
+ever, and I should have known it anywhere--on the darkest night. I dived
+for him and his hole, pushed him into it, and re-introduced myself. He
+remembered me quite well, shook my chilblains heartily, and invited me
+further underground for tea and talk.
+
+It was a nice hole, cramped and damp, but very deep, and with those Bosch
+love-tokens thudding away upstairs I felt that the nearer Australia the
+better. But the rats! Never before have I seen rats in such quantities;
+they flowed unchidden all over the dug-out, rummaged in the cupboards,
+played kiss-in-the-ring in the shadows, and sang and brawled behind the old
+oak panelling until you could barely hear yourself shout. I am fond of
+animals, but I do not like having to share my tea with a bald-headed rodent
+who gets noisy in his cups, or having a brace of high-spirited youngsters
+wrestle out the championship of the district on my bread-and-butter.
+
+Freddy apologised for them; they were getting a bit above themselves, he
+was afraid, but they were seldom dangerous, seldom attacked one unprovoked.
+"Live and let live" was their motto. For all that they _did_ get a trifle
+_de trop_ sometimes; he himself had lost his temper when he awoke one
+morning to find a brawny rat sitting on his face combing his whiskers in
+mistake for his own (a pardonable error in the dark); and, determining to
+teach them a lesson, had bethought him of his old friend, the noble fert.
+He therefore sent home for two of the best.
+
+The ferrets arrived in due course, received the names Burroughs and
+Welcome, were blessed and turned loose.
+
+They had had a rough trip over at the bottom of the mail sack and were
+looking for trouble. An old rat strolled out of his club to see what all
+the noise was about, and got the excitement he needed. Seven friends came
+to his funeral and never smiled again. There was great rejoicing in that
+underground Mess that evening; Burroughs and Welcome were feted on bully
+beef and condensed milk, and made honorary members.
+
+For three days the good work went on; there was weeping in the cupboards
+and gnashing of teeth behind the old oak panelling. Then on the fourth day
+Burroughs and Welcome disappeared, and the rats swarmed to their own again.
+The deserters were found a week later; they had wormed through a system of
+rat-holes into the next dug-out, inhabited by the Atkinses, and had
+remained there, honoured guests.
+
+It is the nature of the British Atkins to make a pet of anything, from a
+toad to a sucking pig--he cannot help it. The story about St. George, doyen
+of British soldiers, killing that dragon--nonsense! He would have spanked
+it, may be, until it promised to reform, then given it a cigarette, and
+taken it home to amuse the children. To return to our ferrets, Burroughs
+and Welcome provided no exception to the rule; they were taught to sit up
+and beg, and lie down and die, to turn handsprings and play the
+mouth-organ; they were gorged with Maconochie, plum jam and rum ration; it
+was doubtful if they ever went to bed sober. Times out of number they were
+borne back to the Officers' Mess and exhorted to do their bit, but they
+returned immediately to their friends the Atkinses, _via_ their private
+route, not unnaturally preferring a life of continuous carousal and
+vaudeville among the flesh-pots to sapping and mining down wet rat-holes.
+
+Freddy was of opinion that, when the battalion proceeded up Unter den
+Linden, Burroughs and Welcome would be with it as regimental mascots,
+marching behind the band, bells on their fingers, rings on their toes. He
+also assured me that if he ever again has to write an essay on the Fert,
+its characteristics, the adjective "noble" will not figure so prominently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HERBS OF GRACE.
+
+III.
+
+SWEET MARJORAM.
+
+  _"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!"_
+    (Sang an old dame standing on the kerb);
+  "You may hear a thousand ballads,
+  You may pick a thousand salads,
+    Ere you light on such another herb.
+
+  _Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!_
+    (Let its virtues evermore be sung);
+  Oh, 'twill make your Sunday clo'es gay,
+  If you wear it in a nosegay,
+    Pretty mistress, like when I was young.
+
+  _"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!_
+    (Sing of sweet old gardens all a-glow);
+  It will scent your dower drawer, dear,
+  Folk would strew it on the floor, dear,
+    Long ago--long ago--long ago.
+
+  _"Sweet Marjoram! Sweet Marjoram!"_
+    _(Sang the old dame standing on the kerb);_
+  _"You may hear a thousand ballads,_
+  _You may pick a thousand salads,_
+    _Ere you light on such another herb."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The recipients [of the medals] were:--Sergeant W.A. Norris, D.C.M. and
+    Military Private A. Trichney, M.M., andtootompPUF. Medal ..." _Daily
+    Paper._
+
+Private TRICHNEY'S second distinction was awarded presumably for something
+extra good in the bombing line.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lord Beauchamp, opening an Economy Exhibition at Gloucester on
+    Saturday, said that among many interesting exhibits was one described
+    as 'Frocks for the twins from Uncle's pyjamas.' He hoped that the child
+    who sent this exhibit would get the prize it deserved."--_Daily Mail._
+
+Uncle has probably seen to that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE BREAKING OF THE FETTERS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ELLA REEVE.
+
+One can't be too careful how one boasts, especially if there is the chance
+of the boast being put quickly to the proof. In fact, it is better perhaps
+not to boast at all.
+
+I was sitting with a friend and a stranger in a London restaurant, having
+joined their table for coffee. The stranger, on introduction, turned out to
+be connected with the stage in some capacity as agent, and among his
+regular clients were the managers of various big provincial theatres, for
+whom he provided the leading lights of pantomime, or, as he would call it,
+panto. Panto was indeed the mainstay of his business; it was even the warp
+and woof of his life. He lived for panto, he thought panto, and he talked
+panto. No one, according to him, had a more abysmal knowledge of principal
+boys with adequate legs, principal (if that is still the word) girls with
+sufficient voices, contralto fairy queens with abundant bosoms, basso demon
+kings, Prince Dandinis, Widow Twankays, Ugly Sisters, and all the other
+personages of this strange grease-paint mythology of ours. Listening to
+him, I learned--as those who are humble in spirit may learn of all men. I
+learned, for example, that Ugly Sisters are at Christmas-time always Ugly
+Sisters, and very often use again the same dialogue, merely transferring
+themselves from, say, Glasgow to Wigan, or from Bristol to Dublin; and this
+will be their destiny until they become such very old men that not even the
+kindly British public will stand it any longer. England, it seems, is full
+of performers who, touring the halls from March to December, are then
+claimed for panto as her own, arriving a little before Christmas not less
+regularly than the turkey; and the aim of all of them is as nearly as
+possible to do the next Christmas what they did last Christmas.
+
+Not only did my new acquaintance know all these people, their capabilities
+and the lowest salary that could be offered to them with any chance of
+acceptance, but he was also, it seemed, beloved by them all. Between agent
+and client never in the history of the world had such charming relations
+subsisted as between every pro. on his books and himself.
+
+It was then that Ella Reeve came in.
+
+Accompanied by two expensive-looking men, whose ancestors had beyond any
+doubt crossed the Red Sea with Moses, this new and glittering star, who had
+but just "made good," or "got over," or "clicked" (my new acquaintance used
+all these phrases indiscriminately when referring to his own Herschellian
+triumphs as a watcher of the skies), walked confidently to a distant table
+which was being held in reserve for her party, and drew off her gloves with
+the happy anticipatory assurance of one who is about to lunch a little too
+well. (All this, I should say, happened before the War. I am reminded of it
+to-day by the circumstance that I have just heard of the death of the agent
+whom I then met.)
+
+The impact of the lady on this gentleman was terrific.
+
+"Look, look!" he said. "That's Ella Reeve, one of my discoveries. She was
+principal boy at Blackpool two years ago. I put her there. She got fifteen
+pounds a week, and to-day she gets two hundred. I spotted her in a chorus,
+asked her to call and see me, and this is the result. I made her. There's
+nothing she wouldn't do for me, she's so grateful. If she knew I was in the
+room she'd be over here in a jiffy."
+
+Having told us all this, he, being a very normal man, told it again, all
+the while craning his neck in the hope that his old client (she had now, it
+seemed, passed out of his hands, having forsaken panto for London and
+revue) might catch sight of his dear face. But she was far too much
+occupied either with the lobster on her plate or with the yellow fluid,
+strange to me, that moved restlessly in a long-stemmed shallow glass at her
+side.
+
+And then, being, as I say, not in any way an eccentric or exorbitant
+character, the agent told it us a third time, with a digression here and
+there as to the deep friendships that members of his profession could form
+and cement if only they were decent fellows and not mere money-grubbing
+machines out for nothing but their commission. "That's what the wise man
+does," he concluded; "he makes real friends with his clients, such as I did
+with Ella Reeve. The result is we never had any hitches, and there's
+nothing she wouldn't do for me. She's a darling!"
+
+Getting a little tired of this, but obviously anything but unwilling to
+shake the new star's slender hand and listen to the vivacious flow of
+speech from such attractive lips, my friend said at last, "Well, as you and
+she are such pals, and as she has only to know that you are here to jump
+over the tables to get to you, why not send your card to her?"
+
+The agent agreed, and we watched the waiter threading his way among the
+tables towards that one at which the new and grateful star was seated and
+hand the card to her.
+
+The end of this story is so tragic that I should prefer not to tell it.
+
+Ella Reeve took the card, read it, laid it down, and resumed conversation
+with her friends. She did not even glance in our direction.
+
+I felt sorry for the agent, whose mortification was very real, though he
+made a brave effort to carry it off; and now that he is dead I feel
+sorrier. As for Ella Reeve (which is not really her name, but one which
+with great ingenuity I devised for her from the French: thus, _Elle
+arrive_) I often see her, under her true style, in her triumphs, and I
+always wonder whether her treatment of the agent, or his assurance of her
+dependence on his cordiality, represents more nearly the truth. She looks
+such a good sort. Some day, when the War is over, I must acquire a shiny
+tall hat and a glossy shirt front and a youthful manner and get someone to
+introduce me, and then, bit by bit, extract the truth.
+
+Meanwhile the fact remains that it is dangerous to boast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Tommy (back from Blighty)_. "YUS, I GRANT YER A BIT O'
+LEAVE'S ALL RIGHT. BUT IT'S AWFUL DEPRESSIN', TOO, AT HOME--NOTHIN' BUT
+WAR--WAR! IT GIVES YER THE FAIR 'UMP."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"JAPANESE POLITICS.
+
+PRIME MINISTER'S ATTACK ON THE DIET."--_Daily Paper._
+
+We wouldn't be the Food Controller in Japan for anything.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Wanted situation as Groom Coachman or Coachman General; disengaged
+    early in March; can milk and care motor if required."--_Irish Paper_.
+
+A modern improvement, we suppose, on "the cow with the iron tail."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "At a special meeting of the Duma held to-day, the Minister for
+    Agriculture, M. Rittich, in reply to an urgent question on the measures
+    for supplying Petrograd, stated the supplies were sufficient for the
+    present. Difficulties in purchase are due to excessive building and
+    storing by individuals in the shape of rusks."--_Daily Chronicle_.
+
+No authority for this remarkable statement is given, but we suspect the
+_Russky Invalid_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A trifle of a trinket for his women-folk is the only saving as an
+    insurance for the poor against famine and starvation for a rainless
+    day."--_A Native Writer in "The Times of India."_
+
+KIPLING was right, East is East and West is West.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The undersigned has great pleasure in informing all the ladies,
+    gentlemen and the other travellers in the Station that a very nice
+    comfortable motor car can be obtained on hire from him for a walk in or
+    out of the Station for any period of time at very reasonable
+    charges."--_Peshawar Daily News_.
+
+The petrol shortage evidently extends to India.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Ireland is accustomed to disappointment; she is accustomed to what she
+    signalises as betrayal, but her spirit remains unbroken, and she goes
+    on her way undaunted to seek, it may be by new methods and a new road,
+    her appointed gaol."--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+Irishmen may justifiably resent this cynicism on the part of an old friend.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A MODIFIED SALIENT.
+
+_The Old 'Un (surveying recently called-up warrior)._ "WELL, JARGE, YOU'M
+STILL TURR'BLE FAT, BUT THE ARMY DO ZEEM TO 'AVE REARRANGED IT, LIKE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GOLD BRAID.
+
+  Same old crossing, same old boat,
+    Same old dust round Rouen way,
+  Same old narsty one-franc note,
+    Same old "Mercy, sivvoo play;"
+  Same old scramble up the line,
+    Same old 'orse-box, same old stror,
+  Same old weather, wet or fine,
+    Same old blooming War.
+
+      _Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,_
+        _It's just as it used to be, every bit;_
+      _Same old whistle and same old bang,_
+        _And me to stay 'ere till I'm 'it._
+
+
+  'Twas up by Loos I got me first;
+    I just dropped gently, crawled a yard
+  And rested sickish, with a thirst--
+    The 'eat, I thought, and smoking 'ard ...
+  Then someone offers me a drink,
+    What poets call "the cooling draft,"
+  And seeing 'im I done a think:
+    "_Blighty_," I thinks--and laughed.
+
+  I'm not a soldier natural,
+    No more than most of us to-day;
+  I runs a business with a pal
+    (Meaning the Missis) Fulham way;
+  Greengrocery--the cabbages
+    And fruit and things I take meself,
+  And she has daffs and crocuses
+    A-smiling on a shelf.
+
+  "Blighty," I thinks. The doctor knows;
+    'E talks of punctured damn-the-things.
+  It's me for Blighty. Down I goes;
+    I ain't a singer, but I sings;
+  "Oh, 'oo goes 'ome?" I sort of 'ums;
+    "Oh, 'oo's for dear old England's shores?"
+  And by-and-by Southampton comes--
+   "Blighty!" I says and roars.
+
+  I s'pose I thort I done my bit;
+    I s'pose I thort the War would stop;
+  I saw myself a-getting fit
+    With Missis at the little shop;
+  The same like as it used to be,
+    The same old markets, same old crowd.
+  The same old marrers, same old me,
+    But 'er as proud as proud....
+
+  The regiment is where it was,
+    I'm in the same old ninth platoon;
+  New faces most, and keen becos
+    They 'ope the thing is ending soon;
+  I ain't complaining, mind, but still,
+    When later on some newish bloke
+  Stops one and laughs, "A blighty, Bill,"
+    I'll wonder, "Where's the joke?"
+
+  Same old trenches, same old view,
+    Same old rats and just as tame,
+  Same old dug-outs, nothing new,
+    Same old smell, the very same,
+  Same old bodies out in front,
+    Same old _strafe_ from 2 till 4,
+  Same old scratching, same old 'unt,
+    Same old bloody War.
+
+      _Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,_
+        _It's just as it used to be, every bit;_
+      _Same old whistle and same old bang_
+        _And me out again to be 'it._
+                  A.A.M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW POSTER.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The important now development in the cotton situation is that the 1/2
+    Prime Minister has consented to receive a deputation."--_Manchester
+    Guardian._
+
+All the same, he refused to adopt a 1/2 measure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The history of the development of the 3/4eppelin is well-known."--_Daily
+    Chronicle._
+
+Particularly since our airmen ceased to give it any quarter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an official notice of the sale of an enemy business:--
+
+    "Lot 2. The goodwill of the business of the company attaching to goods
+    shipped from England to Nigeria, marked with the unregistered or
+    common-law trade-marks known as 'Eagle on Rocks' and 'Lion and Flag.'"
+
+We are not surprised to hear of the "Eagle on Rocks" when it had the "Lion
+and Flag" after it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: TILLERS OF THE SOIL.
+
+STUDY OF URBAN DWELLERS PREPARING FOR THE WORST.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE JOY-RIDER AT THE FRONT.
+
+    (_Being a free version of Mr. BERNARD SHAW'S articles in "The Daily
+    Chronicle" on his visit to the seat of War_.)
+
+  "Since the good man, RAMSAY MACDONALD, while touring in the East
+  Went out to shoot the tiger, that homicidal beast,
+  The most electrifying humanitarian stunt
+  Has been my khaki joy-ride along the British Front.
+
+  "It wasn't my own suggestion; I went as the Government's guest,
+  Invited to see how the brass-hats were running the show on the West;
+  I've never been sweet on soldiers, but I only went for a week,
+  And it gave me heaps of chances of studying war technique.
+
+  "If they really thought to convert me by the loan of a khaki suit,
+  Or by conferring upon me the right to claim a salute,
+  It wouldn't at all surprise me, for dullards have always tried
+  To bribe true men of genius to take the popular side.
+
+  "Well, I went, I saw, I 'joy-rode,' and my verdict remains the same;
+  There's no use having a country unless she's always to blame;
+  For of all the appalling prospects that human life can lend
+  The worst is to be unable to play the candid friend.
+
+  "Men talk of France, the Martyr; of her precious blood outpoured;
+  Of the innocent helpless victims of the brutal Hunnish horde;
+  Presuming, insensate idiots, to label as beast and brute
+  The race that has always held me in the very highest repute!
+
+  "While France has failed completely, at least in those later days,
+  To show appreciation of my Prefaces and Plays;
+  It wouldn't be therefore worthy of a genuine superman
+  To show undue compassion for the sorrows of 'Marianne.'
+
+  "And as for the sheer destruction of noble and ancient fanes
+  Which the prejudiced Hun-hater indignantly arraigns,
+  The simple truth compels me in honesty to state
+  That the style of some ruined buildings was utterly second-rate.
+
+  "But to quit these trivial matters--let weaklings wail and weep,
+  The loss of a few cathedrals will never affect my sleep--
+  What lifts this Armageddon to an altitude sublime
+  Is the crowning fact that it gave me a perfectly glorious time.
+
+  "As an ultra-neutral observer I entered the battle zone
+  And emerged unmoved, unshaken, with a heart as cool as a stone;
+  No sight could touch or daunt me, no sound my soul untune;
+  From pity or tears or sorrow I still remained immune.
+
+  "I own that before my arrival I felt an occasional qualm
+  Lest the shock of the unexpected might shatter my wonted calm;
+  But it gave me the richest rapture to find I was wholly free
+  From the crude and vulgar emotions that harass the plain V.C.
+
+  "I inspected the great war-engine, and, instead of its going strong,
+  I saw that in each of its workings there was always something wrong;
+  In fact, with the old black powder and the obsolete Brown Bess
+  The chances of missing your target were infinitely less.
+
+  "The so-called arm of precision scores only by lucky hits,
+  Though the 'heavies' and high explosives may possibly blow you to bits;
+  I saw one corpse on my 'joy-ride,' the head had been blown away,
+  And the thought of this painless ending produced in me no dismay."
+
+  _Now he's back in the finest feather from his holiday with the Staff,_
+  _And we're sure that no one will grudge him the meed of this epitaph:_
+  _"He went through the fiery furnace, but never a hair was missed_
+  _From the heels of our most colossal Arch-Super-Egotist."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"GREAT WHITE SALE.
+
+UNREPEATABLE BARGAINS IN LINGERIE."--_Daily Paper._
+
+We respect this reticence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The public are responding but slowly to the appeal of the Post Office
+    to facilitate the delay of correspondence in London by using the new
+    numbered addresses."--_Daily Mail._
+
+If that is really the object, why hurry?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CANCELLED
+
+BY ORDER OF THE COMPETENT MILITARY AUTHORITY.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+_Monday, March 12th._--Having declared war upon the Government the
+Nationalists are seeking a suitable plan of campaign. The Home Rule demand
+never obtained much support among the Irish farmers until FINTAN LALOR
+hitched it on to the Land question, and ever since Mr. WYNDHAM'S Land
+Purchase Act turned the tenants into prospective owners it has been
+steadily losing momentum. Mr. GINNELL, who made his reputation as a
+perverse species of cowboy, now witnesses with grim satisfaction the
+efforts of his colleagues to borrow his policy and break up the grass
+farms. It was rather hard on him that the Parliamentary printer should have
+ruined one of his questions on the subject by making him say "that the
+reason"--instead of the season--"for breaking this land is passing away."
+
+The HOME SECRETARY is regarded by those who do not know him intimately as a
+somewhat austere person, but given the right atmosphere he can be as lively
+as anybody. Questioned about the reopening of Ciro's, he betrayed a minute
+acquaintance with the details of its programme. I was beginning to wonder
+if he were related to that famous Early-Victorian family, the Caves of
+Harmony, when his knowledge broke down. On being asked by his old friend
+Mr. BUTCHER to define a cabaret-entertainment he was nonplussed, and could
+only refer him to Colonel LOCKWOOD as a probable authority.
+
+No one was more delighted at Mr. BONAR LAW'S announcement of the capture of
+Baghdad than the Member for Cockermouth, who knows the region well.
+Mesopotamia may or may not be the Garden of Eden, but Baghdad was at one
+time unquestionably the abode of BLISS.
+
+Mr. CATHCART WASON was a little puzzled when Mr. FORSTER informed him that
+the peeling of potatoes by Army cooks is strictly forbidden, "except when
+the dietary of the troops makes it necessary." Why should there be any
+exception at all, he wondered, until a neighbour, better informed about the
+new meat-ration, whispered, "Sausages and _mashed_."
+
+A grave statement by Mr. MACPHERSON as to the recent losses of the Royal
+Flying Corps on the Western Front, and the increased activity of the German
+airmen, created some natural depression, which might have been more
+pronounced had not Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING seized the occasion to reiterate
+his charges of "Murder" already condemned as baseless by two judicial
+tribunals. The House will do anything in reason, but it refuses to
+accompany Mr. BILLING in his flights of imagination.
+
+_Tuesday, March 13th._--In the Lords, the Bill to deprive enemy peers of
+their titles was supported by Lord MIDLETON, who nobly offered to sacrifice
+his Red Eagle on the altar of patriotism. On the other hand Lord COURTNEY
+condemned it; but there is no truth in the story that the Yellow Waistcoat
+which he habitually wears was originally conferred upon him by the KAISER.
+It is, I understand, an example of protective colouring, designed to ward
+off the attacks of the Yellow Press.
+
+_Wednesday, March 14th._--The explosive qualities of cotton when suitably
+combined with other ingredients are well known. Of these ingredients the
+Lancashire spirit is perhaps the most potent. Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN began
+his defence of the proposed Indian cotton duties with an appeal to Imperial
+sentiment based upon what India had done and was doing. The Maharajah of
+BIKANIR, seated in the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery, listened with
+appreciation to the praises of his famous Camel Corps. Then followed what
+might be called the Home Rule argument--we could not refuse what the Indian
+people so much desired--delivered with so much earnestness that Mr.
+JEREMIAH MACVEAGH loudly invited Mr. CHAMBERLAIN to "come over and sit on
+these benches."
+
+[Illustration: MEGAPHONES FOR MINISTERS. A SUGGESTION FROM THE PRESS
+GALLERY.]
+
+But his best card was his last, when, after a tribute to Mr. ASQUITH'S
+"loyalty to colleagues," which roused tremendous cheering from the
+Liberals, he invited the late Prime Minister to cast his vote with the
+Government. Mr. ASQUITH did even more, for at the end of a speech, critical
+but not censorious, he suggested an amendment to the Resolution which
+enabled his Free Trade followers to "save their face." A few stalwarts from
+Lancashire insisted none the less on taking a division, and were joined on
+general principles by the Nationalists and other habitual malcontents. But
+India, the Government and Mr. ASQUITH had the comfortable majority of 140.
+
+_Thursday, March 15th._--Under the present rules of procedure (the products
+of Irish obstruction in the past) the Nationalists find it difficult to put
+their declaration of war against the Government to much effect. Their best
+chance comes during the first hour of the sitting, and their most useful
+weapon is the Supplementary Question. No sooner has Mr. DUKE read the
+official reply to the inquiry on the Paper than there comes a strident
+"Arising out of that, Mr. SPEAKER-R." Fortunately the CHIEF SECRETARY
+possesses a Job-like patience, and is rarely betrayed into any departure
+from his polite if somewhat ponderous manner. To badger Mr. BIRRELL was an
+exciting pastime rather like punching the ball. To heckle Mr. DUKE is like
+hammering a sandbag.
+
+It would be interesting to know how many Members of the House of Commons
+have volunteered under the National Service scheme. I only know of one;
+that is Dr. MACNAMARA, who modestly avowed the fact when challenged by Mr.
+PRINGLE, though I doubt whether the Admiralty will consent to dispense with
+his services. On the other hand I only know of one who has not; and that is
+Mr. PRINGLE himself, who, on the same challenge being put to him, replied,
+"No, and don't intend." There is evidently someone, possibly Mr. HOGGE, who
+thinks Mr. PRINGLE'S present services indispensable to the winning of the
+War.
+
+The debate on the new Vote of Credit dragged along in a thin and somnolent
+House until Mr. BONAR LAW woke it up with the startling news that there had
+been a revolution in Russia, and that the TSAR had abdicated. Everybody
+seemed pleased, including Mr. DEVLIN, who was quite statesmanlike in his
+appreciation. But no one noticed that henceforward we must rank the late
+Sir HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN among the prophets. Addressing the Members of
+the Inter-parliamentary Conference assembled in the Palace of Westminster
+on July 23rd, 1906, just after the dissolution of Russia's first elected
+Parliament, he said, "_La Duma est morte; vive la Duma!_" For a Prime
+Minister this outburst was regarded as a little tactless; its essential
+wisdom has been justified by the event.
+
+_Friday, March 16th._--To-morrow being St. Patrick's Day, Mr. BONAR LAW
+seized the opportunity to address a little homily to Members from Ireland.
+Unless they mend their ways pretty soon they may have to go back to their
+constituents and tackle the Sinn Feiners themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WINGED VICTORY.
+
+"_Per ardua ad astra._"
+
+"One of our machines did not return."
+
+  I like to think it did not fall to earth,
+    A wounded bird that trails a broken wing,
+  But to the heavenly blue that gave it birth
+    Faded in silence, a mysterious thing,
+  Cleaving its radiant course where honour lies,
+  Like a winged victory mounting to the skies.
+
+  The clouds received it and the pathless night;
+    Swift as a flame, its eager force unspent,
+  We saw no limit to its daring flight;
+    Only its pilot knew the way it went,
+  And how it pierced the maze of flickering stars
+  Straight to its goal in the red planet Mars.
+
+  So to the entrance of that fiery gate,
+    Borne by no current, driven by no breeze,
+  Knowing no guide but some compelling fate,
+    Bold navigators of uncharted seas,
+  Courage and youth went proudly sweeping by,
+  To win the unchallenged freedom of the sky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Curate (to unfailing supporter)._ "OH, MISS TOOTSBY, IT'S
+GOOD TO SEE YOU HERE AGAIN. IT WOULDN'T SEEM LIKE A JUMBLE SALE WITHOUT
+YOU."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.
+
+(_Enter PASHA and the Sultan of TURKEY._)
+
+_The Sultan._ Then you want me to press the GERMAN KAISER to come to
+Constantinople and pay me a visit. Is that it?
+
+_Enver._ Yes, your Majesty, that is about it. It would produce a splendid
+effect on the populace and would electrify the soldiers.
+
+_The Sultan._ But I've already told you that I cordially dislike this
+KAISER of yours. Wherever he goes he turns everything upside down, and
+there's not a moment's peace or repose for anybody. He must have reviews of
+troops morning, noon and night, and it's all quite useless, for our
+Generals tell me that he doesn't really understand anything about soldiers
+and their movements. You know they've had to keep him away from the
+fighting, both in France and Russia, because he would insist on giving the
+most absurd orders, and when things didn't go right immediately he always
+broke out into shouting and cursing, and praying and crying until his Staff
+felt so ashamed of him and themselves that they didn't know which way to
+look. There's never any knowing what a man like that will do. He's as
+likely as not to want to preach a sermon in St. Sophia, or to ride his
+horse up the steps of the Palace.
+
+_Enver._ These are certainly faults, but they are the faults of an
+enthusiastic nature.
+
+_The Sultan._ Well, I don't like that kind of enthusiastic nature. I prefer
+something quieter. Besides, I am told that his behaviour in the house and
+his table-manners are dreadful. He's quite capable, if he doesn't like a
+dish, of throwing it at the attendants. Then he gets so angry when people
+don't agree with him; the least contradiction makes him purple, absolutely
+purple, with passion. My dear ENVER, you would have to pretend you knew
+nothing about Turkey when you talked with him--at any rate nothing in
+comparison with his knowledge--and I'm sure you wouldn't like that; nobody
+would. No, I can't say the prospect of having him here as my guest allures
+me, but of course, if you say it _must_ be done, I'm ready to sacrifice
+myself. Only I warn you it will spoil everything for me to have him here
+prancing about in a Turkish uniform.
+
+_Enver._ I didn't know your Majesty's feelings were so strong on the
+subject. Perhaps it will not, after all, be necessary. I will see what can
+be done.
+
+_The Sultan._ Yes, do, there's a good fellow. If I had to entertain that
+man for a week I should suffer from indigestion for the rest of my life.
+
+_Enver._ If possible we will see that your Majesty is spared such an
+affliction. With your Majesty's leave I will now withdraw.
+
+_The Sultan._ Do by all means. No--stop; you haven't given me any of the
+War news. I keep on asking for it, but nobody pays any attention to my
+requests. Honestly, I don't see much use in being a Sultan if one can't get
+anyone to do what one asks.
+
+_Enver._ Oh, you want to hear some War news, do you? Well, I may as well
+tell you now as later. Baghdad's gone.
+
+_The Sultan._ What--captured?
+
+_Enver._ Yes, the infernal English have got it.
+
+_The Sultan._ I knew it was bound to happen. I told you so only last
+Tuesday--at least, if it wasn't you it was somebody else. "Baghdad," I
+said, "is sure to be captured. The English are in great force, and if we
+don't watch it carefully they're sure to snatch it from us." That's what I
+said; but you wouldn't have it. You were all so cock-sure, and now where
+are you?
+
+_Enver._ Who can fight against treachery?
+
+_The Sultan._ Treachery? It's simply stupidity and incompetence. You and
+your KAISER keep patting one another on the back, and then one fine morning
+you wake up and discover that Baghdad has fallen. ENVER, you'll find it
+rather difficult to explain this to the people. They know my advice hasn't
+counted for anything in this; they'll put it all down to you; and you can't
+murder them all, as you murdered poor old NAZIM.
+
+_Enver._ Silence, or--
+
+_The Sultan._ Yes, I know, but I will not keep silence. Rather, I will ask
+again, why have you sent my best regiments to help the Austrians and
+Germans on their own fronts? Even I could have managed better than that.
+And why are we fighting in this War at all? Answer me that.
+
+_Enver._ We fight for the greatness of Turkey.
+
+_The Sultan._ Well, we don't seem very successful. It was a good deal
+bigger before we lost Erzerum and Baghdad...
+
+(_Left wrangling._)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Conscience-Money?
+
+    "The Commissioners of Inland Revenue acknowledge the receipt of first
+    half of L100 note from 'Berlin.'"--_Daily Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Half-a-dozen deer escaped from Hatfield Park some weeks ago through a
+    gate having been carelessly left open. A wholesale clearance of
+    vegetables followed in the district, and the damage was so serious
+    that, with the Marquis of Salisbury's approval, shooting parties of
+    farmers went out, and the raiders have now been run to
+    earth."--_Manchester Paper._
+
+It looks as if they were only rabbits, after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"REMNANT."
+
+I wish now that I had not been compelled to postpone my visit to the
+Royalty, for I think the fall of Baghdad must have put me a bit above
+myself. Anyhow, I was less moved than usual by the triumph of virtue and
+the downing of vice; and permitted myself to wonder how a play like
+_Remnant_ ever found its way into the Royalty (of all theatres), and what
+Mr. DENNIS EADIE (of all actors) was doing in this galley, this
+melted-butter boat. And indeed there were moments when I could see that Mr.
+EADIE himself shared my wonder, if I rightly interpreted certain signs of
+indifference and detachment in his performance. I even suspected a sinister
+intention in the title, though, of course, Messrs. MORTON and NICCODEMI
+didn't really get their play off in the course of a bargain sale of
+superannuated goods.
+
+Apart from the Second Act, where Miss MARIE LOeHR (looking rather like a
+nice Dutch doll) delivered the blunt gaucheries of _Remnant_ with a
+delightfully stolid naivete, the design of the play and its simple little
+devices might almost have been the work of amateurs. The sordid quarrels
+between _Tony_ and his preposterous mistress (whom I took to be a model,
+till I found that he was only an artist in steam locomotives) were
+extraordinarily lacking in subtlety. In all this Bohemian business one
+looked in vain for a touch of the art of MURGER. What would one not have
+given for something even distantly reminiscent of the _Juliet_ scene--"_et
+le pigeon chantait toujours_"? And it wasn't as if this was supposed to be
+a sham Americanised _quartier_ of to-day. We were in the true period--under
+Louis PHILIPPE. Indeed I know no other reason (costumes always excepted)
+why the scene was the Paris of 1840. For the purposes of the play _Tony_
+might just as well have been a British designer of tanks (London, 1916).
+Nor was there anything even conventionally French about the girl _Remnant_,
+who might have been born next-door to Bow Bells.
+
+[Illustration: REMNANT BARGAIN DAY.
+
+_Tony_ ... MR. DENNIS EADIE.
+
+"_Remnant_" ... MISS MARIE LOeHR.]
+
+Miss MARIE LOeHR was the life and soul of the party. Her true comedy manner,
+when she was serious, was always fascinating. She said with great
+discretion her little Barriesque piece about the desirability of babies,
+and she did all she knew to keep the sentiment from being too sickly-sweet.
+Here she had strong assistance from Mr. EADIE as her lover _Tony_; for,
+though he got a fine flash out of the green eye of jealousy when he
+suspected his patron, _Jules_, of jumping his love-claim, it was obvious at
+the end that the success of his professional ambitions was far more to him
+than any affair of the heart. And, after all, when _Remnant_ complained of
+a curious _bourdonnement_ in her ears, and _Tony_ had to reply solemnly,
+"That which you hear is the beating of your heart to the music of your
+soul," you could hardly expect a man with Mr. EADIE'S sense of humour to
+throw much conviction into the statement.
+
+Mr. C.M. LOWNE was a very passable _beau_, and made love to _Remnant_ with
+that rich fruitiness of voice of which he is a past master. It was her
+business (as she explained to _Tony_ when he surprised their two faces
+within kissing distance of each other) to keep _Jules_ in good humour since
+_Tony's_ chances depended upon his patronage. But it couldn't have helped
+much to tell _Jules_ with such appalling candour that the shiver produced
+by his kiss was the same kind as she had once felt when a rat ran over her
+face during sleep. However, _Jules_ was not a _beau_ for nothing and could
+afford this exceptional set-back to one of his many amours. There was, by
+the way, an excellent little comedy scene between him and his wife, played
+by Miss MURIEL POPE with a quiet humour as piquant as her gown.
+
+As _Manon_, the querulous termagant that _Tony_ had taken for mistress,
+Miss HILDA MOORE was not very kindly served by her part--so rudimentary
+that its highest flight was achieved when, with a Parthian shot, she
+referred to _Tony_ as a geni-ass.
+
+I will not forecast a limited success for this play, for who would dare to
+say that there is not always room in the broad British bosom for yet
+another triumph of sentiment over ideas--I speak of the play itself and not
+of the performance? If only for Miss LOeHR'S sake I could wish that the best
+of fortune may attend it; for to have worn her hair as she did in the
+Second Act, out of regard for the period, was a sacrifice as fine as any
+that women have shown in the course of Armageddon (if I may judge of them
+by their portraits in the Photographic Press), and she ought to have her
+reward, bless her heart!     O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"GENERAL POST."
+
+It would be easy to make fun of the exaggerations and ultra-simplifications
+of Mr. TERRY'S new comedy. It is much pleasanter (and juster) to dwell on
+its wholesomeness, its easy humour and its effect of honest entertainment.
+Not a highbrow adventure, it is not to be judged by highbrow standards. It
+is decently in key, and an exceptionally clever cast carried it adroitly
+over any rough places. Remarkable, too, as almost the first popular
+testimonial since the War began to the too-much-taken-for-granted
+Territorials, who worked in the old days while we scoffed and golfed.
+That's all to the good.
+
+[Illustration: THE TAILOR WHO DID NOT NEED TO PRESS HIS SUIT.
+
+_Sir Dennys Broughton_ ... MR. NORMAN MCKINNEL.
+
+_Lady Broughton_ ... MISS LILIAN BRAITHWAITE.
+
+_Edward Smith (tailor)_ ... MR. GEORGE TULLY.]
+
+Our author's hero is an excellent provincial tailor, who is also keen
+_Captain Smith_ in the Sheffingham Terriers. As tailor his chief customer,
+as soldier his contemptuous scandalised critic, is _Sir Dennys Broughton_,
+whose wayward flapper daughter _Betty_ is in the early fierce stages of
+revolt against the stuffiness of life at Grange Court, meets _Smith_ over
+some boys' club work, and, finding brains and dreams in him (a formidable
+contrast to her loafing brother), falls into passionate first-love. _Smith_
+is just as badly if more soberly hit, and recognising the impossibility of
+the situation (quite apart from demonstrations by the alarmed _Broughtons_)
+decides to take his tape and shears to his London house of business. The
+date of all this being about the time of the misguided _Panther's_ fateful
+leap on Agadir.
+
+Act II. brings us to the second year of the War. Young _Broughton_, puppy
+no longer, is gloriously in it, and has just been gazetted to a Territorial
+regiment whose Colonel bears the not uncommon name of Smith. Our tailor, of
+course, and a rattling fine soldier too. Having discovered this latter fact
+and also formed a remarkably cordial relationship apparently in a single
+day, the enthusiastic cub subaltern (distemper and snobbishness over and
+done with) motors up his C.O., who is visiting his brother and partner, and
+brings him in to Grange Court on the way. _Sir Dennys_, now a brassarded
+private and otherwise a converted man, is still confoundedly embarrassed,
+and stands anything but easy in the presence of his youngster's Colonel.
+_Lady Broughton_, least malleable of the group, is frankly appalled by this
+new _mesalliance_. Perhaps Mr. TERRY'S version of blue-blooded insolence
+and fatuity is for his stage purpose rather crudely coloured, but who shall
+say that the doctrine that a man in khaki who has been an elementary
+schoolmaster or a tailor is a man for a' that, is quite universally
+accepted in the best circles even in this year of grace? _Betty_, now a
+grown girl in the cynical stage, revenges herself with feline savagery on
+the knight of the shears for the imagined slight of his defection.
+
+Act III. is dated 19? just after peace is declared. The tailor is not (as I
+half expected) back in his shop, but a _Brigadier-General Smith, V.C._, is
+being invested with the freedom of Sheffingham and is making a spirited
+attack on the defences of _Betty_. She puts up enough of a fight to ensure
+a good Third Act, and capitulates charmingly to the delight, now, of all
+the _Broughton_ household--butler included. I hope Mr. TERRY is right and
+that the places taken in this great war game of _General Post_ and the
+values registered will have permanence.
+
+I won't deny that the excellent moral of the play goes far to disarm one's
+critical faculty. Why not confess that one lost one's heart to the nicest
+tailor since _Evan Harrington_? Indeed, Mr. TULLY (always, I find, quite
+admirable in characterisation, and that no mere matter of outward trick,
+but duly charged with feeling) made just such a decent, lovable, sideless
+officer as it has been the pride of the nation of shopkeepers to produce in
+the day of challenge. Whoever was it dared cast Mr. MCKINNEL for the part
+of a weak kindly old ass of a baronet, without any ruggedness or violence
+in his composition? Congratulations to the unknown perspicacious hero and
+to Mr. MCKINNEL! Miss MADGE TITHERADGE flapped prettily as a flapper; bit
+cleanly and cruelly in her biting mood; surrendered most engagingly. This
+is less than justice. She used her queer caressing voice and her reserves
+of emotional power to fine effect. Miss LILIAN BRAITHWAITE made her _Lady
+Broughton_ nearly credible and less "unsympathetic" than was just. Mr.
+DANIELL is new to me. He played one of those difficult foil parts with a
+really nice discretion.
+
+The audience was genuinely pleased. It dragged from the author a becomingly
+modest acknowledgment. He _did_ owe a great deal to his players, but a
+writer of stage plays need not be ashamed of that. T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Ethel (playing at grown-ups)._ "IS YOUR HUSBAND IN THE WAR,
+MRS. BROWN?"       _Mabel._ "OH YES, OF COURSE, MRS. SMITH."
+
+_Ethel._ "IS HE IN FRANCE?"       _Mabel._ "NO, HE'S IN THE WAR LOAN."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PLOT PRECAUTIONARY.
+
+(_The KAISER addresses his Transatlantic Faithful._)
+
+      Ye stalwart Huns and strident,
+          Who can't come home again,
+      Because base Albion's trident,
+          Though largely on the wane,
+  Still occupies successfully the surface of the main;
+
+      Give ear, my gallant fellows,
+          While I the truth declare;
+      Britain's expiring bellows
+          Will shortly rend the air;
+  Wiping the earth up then will be a simplified affair.
+
+      But, while at home our Hunnish
+          Valour obtains the day,
+      It must be yours to punish
+          The craven U.S.A.,
+  Debouching on them unawares from Sinaloa way.
+
+      I make the rough suggestion,
+          And it shall be your care
+      To solve the minor question
+          Of how and when and where,
+  Aided by Gen. CARRANZA, the party with the hair.
+
+      Some pesos and centavos
+          He will of course demand
+      Before he leads his bravos
+          Across the Rio Grande;
+  Offer the fellow all he wants--in German notes of hand.
+
+      Meanwhile the Hyphenated,
+          Busy with bomb and knife,
+      Will likewise hand the hated
+          Gringos a taste of strife,
+  Starting with Colonel ROOSEVELT and the Editor of _Life_.
+
+      These are, in brief, the vistas
+          That swim before my ken;
+      So tell the Carranzistas
+          To up and act like men;
+  And say the money's coming on, but do not mention when.
+
+      Bid them with sword and fire wreck
+          The pale Pacific West;
+      And tell SYLVESTER VIERECK
+          And BARTHOLDT and the rest
+  To call the Lagerbund to arms and jump on WILSON'S chest.
+
+      There'll be some opposition--
+          That I can quite foresee;
+      But bear in mind your mission
+          Must primarily be
+  To keep the swine-dog Yankees from jumping on to _me_!
+                  ALGOL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Commercial Stylists.
+
+"--, SONS & CO., LTD.,
+
+ARE SHOWING A DELIGHTFUL RANGE OF CORSETS, EMBRACING THE MOST APPROVED
+MODELS."--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Dover: Gas up 5d. a 1,000.
+  Tunbridge Wells: Gas up 2d. a 1,000.
+  Lord Selborne is up again, after a chill."--_Evening News._
+
+Good, but how much?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
+
+_The Snare_ (SECKER) impressed me as a tale emphatically prededicate to the
+footlights. Actually, by the way, Mr. RAFAEL SABATINI has dedicated it "to
+LEON M. LEON, who told me this story"--which, of course, only strengthens
+my belief. Anyhow, it has every mark of the romantic drama--a picturesque
+setting, that of the Peninsular War, rich in possibilities for the scenic
+and sartorial arts; and a strongly emotional plot, leading up to a
+situation that could be relied upon to bring down the house. I shall, of
+course, not tell you the plot. It contains a jealous husband, an
+injudicious wife, a hero and heroine, a villain (of foreign extraction) and
+a god in the machine, who is none other than our IRON DUKE himself. And the
+situation in the last Act offers as pretty a piece of table-turning as any
+audience need desire. I wish I could explain how the DUKE plays with his
+enemies, and finally--but no, I said I wouldn't, and I will keep my word.
+Two little carpings, however. Surely it is wrong to speak of "catch
+half-penny" journalism in the time of WELLINGTON. My impression is that the
+journalists of those days caught at least fourpence by their wares. And I
+confess to an emotion of disappointment when the heroine bounced up at the
+court-martial and said that the hero couldn't have committed the murder
+because he was "in her arms" at the time. Of course he hadn't been; and I
+very much doubt whether any Court would have believed her for two minutes.
+But leading ladies love saying it, so I suppose the very out-worn device
+will have to be retained in the stage version. I look forward to this with
+much pleasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That clever lady, ELINOR MORDAUNT, has collected into the volume that she
+calls _Before Midnight_ (CASSELL) a series of short stories of a psychic
+(though not always ghostly) character, which, while not very eerie, or on
+the same high level, are at their best both original and impressive. The
+first of them, which affords excuse for a highly-intriguing cover-picture,
+is at once the most spooksome and the least satisfactory. That is to say
+that, though it opens with a genuine and quite horrible thrill, the
+"explanation" is obscure and tame. Far more successful, to my mind, is "The
+Vision," a delicate little idyll of a Midland schoolmarm, to whom is shown
+the death of Adonis and the lamenting of his goddess-lover. The writing of
+this touches real beauty (the high-fantastic, instead of the merely
+high-falutin', which in such connection would have been so fatally easy).
+To sum up, though one at least of these "dreams before midnight" may quite
+possibly become a nightmare after it, I fancy that, to all lovers of the
+occult, the game will be found well worth the bed-room candle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are qualities in _The Bird of Life_, by GERTRUDE VAUGHAN (CHAPMAN AND
+HALL), which cause me to look forward to this lady's future work with very
+considerable interest. In the present novel she sets out the life story of
+_Rachel_ up to a point boldly given as being beyond the conclusion of the
+War, in which, by the way, both her husband and the man whom she ought to
+have married are killed on the same day. The first eighty-four pages of the
+book raised my hopes very high. They describe with great simplicity and
+sympathy the thoughts and feelings, the romances and difficulties, of an
+affectionate and lonely little girl living with her _Uncle Matthew_ and her
+_Aunt Elizabeth_, and loving them both with a childlike fervour. There is
+no exaggeration; the writing goes true to its mark, and the effect designed
+by the writer is admirably well made. Then _Uncle Matthew_ dies and
+_Rachel_ finds a new home in the Vicarage of _Mr. Venning_, a family man if
+ever there was one, for he has fifteen children. From this point the
+interest is slightly diluted, and the excellence of the book diminishes.
+One does not recognise in the more mature _Rachel_ the girl one had
+expected to find after one's initiation into the secrets of her baby mind.
+She marries _Edward Venning_, and finds too late that he is, like his
+father, made up of convention and narrowness. She plans a disappearance,
+and leaves some of her belongings on the edge of a bottomless tarn. Then,
+being hypothetically dead, she begins to live her life in her own way.
+Later on she returns to _Edward_, "on approval for six months"; but this
+period was apparently not sufficient to break the chain that bound her to
+Another, and, the War intervening, she is left almost doubly widowed. I
+feel that I have not quite done justice to Miss VAUGHAN'S book, but, on the
+other hand, I am sure that she has not quite done justice to her
+unquestionable talent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A volume entitled _Friends of France: The Field Service of the American
+Ambulance_ (SMITH, ELDER) has appeared in a happy hour to remind one, if
+that were necessary, that in the great nation that awaits Mr. WILSON'S call
+there have always been found some eager to give their services and, if need
+be, life itself to prove their love for the other great Republic. I don't
+think either you or I will grudge such an affection at this date, founded
+historically though it may be on a mutual dislike of ourselves, and
+consequently it is a very pleasant impression that is produced by this
+record of American efficiency and courage in Red Cross work on the French
+front. This being clearly remembered one need not be afraid to admit that
+in detail the book will be of interest mainly to the friends of those
+concerned, since the method of multiple authorship adopted necessarily
+involves overlapping, and a good deal of the volume is given up to
+monotonous, though undoubtedly well-earned, "tributes and citations" from
+the French authorities. Neither is the bulk of the matter, most generously
+illustrated though it is, particularly intriguing, for by now one is
+sufficiently familiar with accounts of the removal of wounded under fire
+and the sort of work at which these four hundred American University men
+proved themselves so adept at half-a-dozen points between Flanders and
+Alsace. Americans, long at odds with "ruthlessness" (and at last forced to
+the inevitable logical conclusion in regard to it), may well be glad to be
+able to point, amongst other creditable things, to this history of service
+given without hesitation in acknowledgment of their debt to the
+civilisation of the Old World; and we also shall be no less glad to
+remember it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is perhaps natural that in _Winnowed Memories_ (CASSELL), by
+Field-Marshal Sir EVELYN WOOD, V.C., one should look at first to see what
+references they contain to modern events. On these matters, as on all
+others covered by this volume, we are told nothing that is not invigorating
+and to the point, and the tributes here paid to the fighting qualities of
+our armies of to-day form a fitting conclusion to a book that is full of
+sound sense and good cheer. Sir EVELYN has had a vast experience and enjoys
+an evergreen vigour. What is rarer still, he has a kindly nature that
+admits no trace of the disappointments he must from time to time have
+suffered. As everyone knows, he was always an advocate of Compulsory
+Universal Service for Home Defence, but he casts no stone at those who so
+long and parlously delayed to learn their lesson. Like the true soldier
+that he is, he seems to have no time or taste for those recriminations
+which are best left to small political fry. And I rejoice that in a book of
+such authority the note is largely one of happiness and hope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Owing to congestion on the railways there is a food shortage in Petrograd,
+which has led some of the less irresponsible citizens to demonstrate during
+the session of the Council of the Empire and the Duma."--_Daily Sketch._
+
+Subsequent news shows that "less irresponsible" was not a misprint but a
+prophecy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Sympathetic Newsboy (to proprietor of Coffee Stall.)_ "WOT
+YER TRYIN' TO DO WIV THE OLD 'OTEL, GUVNER? TAKIN' IT 'OME FOR FEAR OF
+'AVIN' IT COMMANDEERED?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "It is claimed that about thirty Merman firms construct the Diesel
+    motors originally used for submarines."--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+We wish these motors a speedy return to the fishy scenes of their origin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Several eligible sires for workmen's dwellings, of which some 300 are
+    needed, have been selected by the Southport Town Planning
+    Committee."--_Daily Paper._
+
+They must not be confused with "the rude forefathers of the hamlet"
+mentioned by GRAY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume
+152, March 21, 1917, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
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