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<pre>
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159,
August 4th, 1920, 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, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920
Author: Various
Release Date: August 31, 2005 [EBook #16628]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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</pre>
<h1>PUNCH,<br />
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
<h2>Vol. 159.</h2>
<hr class="full" />
<h2>August 4th, 1920.</h2>
<hr class="full" />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" id="page81"></a>[pg 81]</span>
<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
<p>A drought is reported from India and Eastern Africa. Considering the
amount of water which has recently escaped from clouds over here it is
not surprising to find that they are feeling the pinch in other
countries.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>A correspondent writes to a weekly paper inquiring when Sir <font
class="sc">Eric Geddes</font> was born. We admire the fellow's restraint
in not asking "Why?"</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>We understand that one wealthy connoisseur has decided to give up
buying Old Masters in order to save up for the purchase of a railway
ticket.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p><i>The Daily Mail</i> points out that Lord <font
class="sc">Northcliffe</font> has left England for the Continent. Sir
<font class="sc">Eric Geddes</font> is said to have remarked that he will
catch his lordship coming back.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>A gentleman who is about to travel to a South Coast resort writes to
inquire what his position will be if some future Government reduces the
railway fares before he arrives at his destination.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>In view of the increased railway fares there is some talk of starting
a Mansion House Fund to convey Scotsmen home from England before it is
too late.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>Of the new railway rates it can be said that those who go farthest
will fare worse.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>With reference to the man who was seen laughing in the Strand the
other day, it should be pointed out that he is not an English tax-payer
but a Colonial who was catching the boat home next morning.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>A Christmas-card posted at Farnham in December, 1905, has just been
delivered at Ivychurch. The theory is that the postal authorities mistook
it for a business communication.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>The monocle is coming into fashion once again, and it is thought that
a motorist wearing one goggle will soon be quite a common sight.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>In view of their unwieldiness and size it is being urged that motor
charabancs should be required to carry a special form of hooter, to be
sounded only when there is no room for a vehicle coming in the other
direction to pass. A more elaborate system of signals is also suggested,
notably two short squawks and a long groan, to signify "My pedestrian, I
think."</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>According to a County Court judge it is the duty of every motorist who
knocks down a pedestrian to go back and ask the man if he is hurt. But
surely the victim cannot answer such a question off-hand without first
consulting his solicitor.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>A great pilgrimage of house-hunters has visited the enormous marrow
which is growing in an allotment at Ingatestone, but the strong military
guard sent to protect it has succeeded up to the present in frustrating
all attempts to occupy it.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>A motor fire-engine dashed into a draper's shop in the North of London
last Tuesday week. We understand that one of the firemen with great
presence of mind justified his action by immediately setting fire to the
building.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>A petrified fish about fifty feet long has been discovered in Utah.
This is said to be the largest sardine and the smallest whale America has
ever produced.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>Building operations were interrupted in North London last week, when a
couple of sparrows built a nest on some foundations just where a
bricklayer was due to lay a brick the next day.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>Six tourists motoring through the mountainous district of Ardèche
Department fell a thousand feet down a precipice, but escaped without
injury. We understand that in spite of many tempting offers from
cinematograph companies the motorists have decided not to repeat the
experiment.</p>
<hr />
<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;">
<a href="images/079.png"><img width="100%" src="images/079.png"
alt="Three wickets for six." /></a>
<p><i>The Girl.</i> "<font class="sc">Isn't that Mr. Jones
bowling?</font>"</p>
<p><i>The Enthusiast.</i> "<font class="sc">Yes. The other day he took
three wickets for six.</font>"</p>
<p><i>The Girl.</i> "<font class="sc">How dreadful! I'd no idea he
drank.</font>"</p>
</div>
<hr />
<h2>SOLVING THE HOLIDAY FARE PROBLEM.</h2>
<p>"None but the rich can pay the fare" is as true at this moment as when
the words were first penned.</p>
<p>The reference, of course, is to the return fare, for the single fare
of tomorrow is hardly more than we paid without complaint in years gone
by for the journey there and back.</p>
<p>How comparatively few people seem to be aware that the solution of the
difficulty lies in not returning. Could anything be simpler?</p>
<p>Nobody wants to return. In preparing for a holiday our thoughts are
concentrated on when to go, where to go and how to get there. Who bothers
himself about when to come back, where to come back from, and how to do
it? After all, holiday-making is not to be confused with
prize-fighting.</p>
<p>That we have come back in the past has been due as much to custom as
to anything. Someone introduced the silly fashion of returning from
holidays, and we have unthinkingly acquired the habit. Once we shake off
this holiday convention the problem of the return fare is solved.</p>
<p>Just stay where you are and all will be well. Sooner or later your
friends or your employer (if your return is really considered desirable)
will send a money-order. But that is their look-out. The point is that
the return fare need not trouble <i>you</i>. And you can please yourself
as to what you buy with the money-order.</p>
<p>Why all this outcry then about the cost of travelling in the holiday
season?</p>
<hr />
<blockquote>
<p>"M. Lappas, the young Greek tenor whose début last season won him a
host of fiends."—<i>Daily Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>As <i>Mephistopheles</i>, we presume.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"Lost, Monday, July 19th, silver purse containing 10s. note and
photographs; also lady's bathing costume."—<i>Local Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Wrapped up in the "Fisher," no doubt.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>I once knew a bowler named Patrick</p>
<p>Who, after performing the "hat-trick,"</p>
<p class="i4">Remarked, as he bowed</p>
<p class="i4">His respects to the crowd,</p>
<p>"It's nothing: I often do that trick!"</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82"></a>[pg 82]</span>
<h2>BADLY SYNGED.</h2>
<p>The scene is the morning-room of the Smith-Hybrows' South London
residence. It is the day following the final performance of the
Smith-Hybrows' strenuous season of J.M. <font class="sc">Synge</font>
drama, undertaken with the laudable intention of familiarising the suburb
with the <i>real</i> Irish temperament and the works of the dramatist in
question.</p>
<p>Mrs. Smith-Hybrow is seated at the breakfast-table, her head buried
behind the coffee urn. She is opening her letters and "keening" softly as
she rocks in her chair.</p>
<p><i>Mrs. Smith-Hybrow</i> (<i>scanning a letter</i>). Will I be helping
them with the sale of work? It's little enough the like of me will be
doing for them the way I was treated at the last Bazaar, when Mrs.
McGupperty and Mrs. Glyn-Jones were after destroying me with the cutting
of the sandwiches. And was I not there for three days, from the rising of
the blessed sun to the shining of the blessed stars, cutting and cutting,
and never a soul to bear witness to the destroying labour of it, and the
two legs of me like to give way with the great weariness (<i>keens</i>)?
I'll have no call this year to be giving in to their prayers and
beseechings, and I won't care the way the Curate will be after trying to
come round me, with his eyes looking at me the way the moon kisses the
drops of dew on the hedgerows when the road is white.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[<i>Opens another letter, keening the while in a slightly higher key.
Enter</i> Gertrude Smith-Hybrow. <i>She crosses to the window and stares
out.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p><i>Gertrude.</i> There are black clouds in the sky, and the wind is
breaking in the west and making a great stir with the trees, and they are
hitting one on the other. And there is rain falling, falling from the
clouds, and the roads be wet.</p>
<p><i>Mrs. S.-H.</i> It is your mackintosh you will be wanting when you
are after going to the Stores.</p>
<p><i>Gertrude</i> (<i>coming to the table and speaking with dull
resentment</i>). And why should I be going to the Stores the way I have
enough to do with a meeting of the League for Brighter Homes and a
luncheon of the Cubist Encouragement Society? Isn't it a queer hard thing
that Dora cannot be going to the Stores, and her with time enough on her
hands surely?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[<i>Sits in her place and begins keening. While she has been speaking
Dora has entered hurriedly, buttoning her jumper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p><i>Dora</i> (<i>vigorously</i>). And is it you, Gertrude Smith-Hybrow,
that will be talking about me having time on my hands? May the saints
forgive you for the hard words, and me having to cycle this blessed day
to Mrs. Montgomery's lecture on the Dadaist Dramatists, and the méringues
and the American creams to be made for to-night's Tchekoff Conversazione.
Is it not enough for a girl to be destroyed with the play-acting, and the
wind like to be in my face the whole way and the rain falling,
falling?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[<i>Sits in her place and keens.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p><i>Mrs. S.-H.</i> (<i>after an interval of keening</i>). Is it your
father that will be missing his train this morning, Dora
Smith-Hybrow?</p>
<p><i>Dora</i> (<i>rousing herself and selecting an egg</i>). It is my
father that will be missing his train entirely, and it is his son that
would this minute be sleeping the blessed daylight away had I not let
fall upon him a sponge that I had picked out of the cold, cold water.</p>
<p><i>Gertrude.</i> It is a flapper you are, Dora Smith-Hybrow.</p>
<p><i>Dora.</i> It is a flapper you will never be again, Gertrude
Smith-Hybrow, though you be after doing your queer best to look like
one.</p>
<p><i>Mrs. S.-H.</i> Whisht! Is it the time for loose talk, with the wind
rising, rising, and the rain falling, falling, and the price of butter up
another threepence this blessed morning?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[<i>They all three recommence keening. Enter</i> Mr. Smith-Hybrow
<i>followed by</i> Cyril.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><i>Mr. S.-H.</i> (<i>staunching a gash in his chin</i>). Is it not a
hard thing for a man to be late for his breakfast and the rain falling,
falling, and the wind rising, rising. It's destroyed I am with the loss
of blood and no food in my stomach would keep the life in a flea.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[<i>Sits in his place and opens his letters savagely.</i> Cyril, <i>a
cadaverous youth, stares gloomily into the depths of the
marmalade.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p><i>Cyril</i> (<i>dreamily</i>). There's gold and gold and
gold—caverns of gold. And there's a woman with hair of gold and
eyes would pick the locks of a man's soul, and long shining hands like
pale seaweed. Is it not a terrible thing that a man would have to go to
the City when there is a woman with gold hair waiting for him in the
marmalade pot—waiting to draw him down into the cold, cold
water?</p>
<p><i>Dora.</i> Is it another spongeful you are wanting, Cyril
Smith-Hybrow, and myself destroyed entirely waiting for the
marmalade?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Cyril <i>blushes, passes the marmalade, sits down languidly and
selects an egg.</i> Mrs. S.-H. <i>pours out the coffee and resumes her
keening.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p><i>Mr. S.-H.</i> (<i>glaring at her</i>). Is it not a nice thing for
the wife of a respectable City stockbroker to sit at the breakfast-table
making a noise like that of a cow that is waiting to be milked?</p>
<p><i>Mrs. S.-H.</i> (<i>hurt</i>). It is keening I am.</p>
<p><i>Gertrude</i> (<i>passing him "The Morning Post"</i>). Is it not
enough that the price of butter is up another threepence this blessed
day, and the wind rising, rising, and the rain falling, falling?</p>
<p><i>Mr. S.-H.</i> It is destroyed we shall all be entirely.</p>
<p><i>Cyril</i> (<i>gazing into the depths of his egg</i>). There was a
strange queer dream I was after having the night that has gone. It was on
the rocks I was....</p>
<p><i>Mr. S.-H.</i> (<i>glaring at the market reports</i>). It is on the
rocks we shall all be.</p>
<p><i>Cyril.</i> ... on the rocks I was by the sea-shore ...</p>
<p><i>Dora</i> (<i>slightly hysterically</i>). With the wind rising,
rising?</p>
<p><i>Cyril</i> (<i>nodding</i>). ... and the rain falling, falling. And
a woman of the chorus drove up in a taxi, and the man that had the
driving of it was eating an orange. The woman came and sat by the side of
me, and the peroxide in her hair made it gleam like the pale gold coins
that were in the banks before the Great War (<i>more dreamily</i>). Never
a word said she when I hung a chain of cold, cold sausages about her
neck, but her eyes were shining, shining, and into my hands she put a tin
of corned beef. And it is destroyed I was with the love of her, and would
have kissed her lips but I saw the park-keeper coming, coming out of the
sea for tickets, and I fled from the strange queer terror of it, and
found myself by a lamp-post in Hackney Wick with the wind rising, rising,
and the rain falling, falling.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[<i>He stops. The others stare at him and at one another in piteous
inquiry. The women begin keening.</i> Mr. S.-H. <i>seizes the remaining
egg and cracks it viciously.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p><i>Mr. S.-H.</i> (<i>falling back in his chair</i>). Damnation!</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[<i>The air is filled with a pungent matter-of-fact odour.</i> Dora,
<i>holding her handkerchief to her nose, rushes valiantly at the offender
and hurls it out of the window on to a flower-bed. The</i> <font
class="sc">Synge</font> <i>spell is broken.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<p>Mr. Punch begs to thank the seven hundred and forty-three
correspondents who have so thoughtfully drawn his attention to the too
familiar fact that "there's many a slip 'twixt the Cup and the <font
class="sc">Lipton</font>."</p>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" id="page83"></a>[pg 83]</span>
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/081.png"><img width="100%" src="images/081.png"
alt="THE BLUE RIBBON OF THE SEA." /></a>
<h3>THE BLUE RIBBON OF THE SEA.</h3>
<p><font class="sc">Columbia.</font> "YOUR HEALTH, SIR THOMAS, AND
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME."</p>
<p><font class="sc">Sir Thomas Lipton.</font> "'BUT LEAVE A KISS WITHIN
THE CUP AND [<i>very tactfully</i>] I'LL NOT ASK FOR WINE.'"</p>
</div>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" id="page84"></a>[pg 84]</span>
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/082.png"><img width="100%" src="images/082.png"
alt="The self-made man." /></a>
<p><i>Professional</i> (<i>to self-made man having his first
lesson</i>). "<font class="sc">You've hit this one hard enough, Sir,
and no mistake. Why, I've never seen a ball gashed like that
before</font>."</p>
<p><i>Self-made Man.</i> "<font class="sc">Well, lad, Ah mostly do get
results from onything Ah takes oop</font>."</p>
</div>
<hr />
<h2>THE SUCCULENT COMEDIANS.</h2>
<p>Among the literary and artistic treasures of American collectors the
manuscript of <font class="sc">Lamb's</font> essay on Roast Pig is
eminent. I have seen this rarity, which is now in the strong room where
Mr. <font class="sc">Pierpont Morgan</font> keeps his autographs safe
equally from fire and from theft—if not from the desire to thieve.
Much did I covet in this realm of steel, and <font
class="sc">Lamb's</font> MS. not least. The essay occupies both sides of
large sheets of foolscap, written in a minute hand, with very few
corrections, both the paper and the time occupied in transcription, if
not also in actual composition, being, I should guess, the East India
Company's. It is not, I imagine, the first draft, but the first fair copy
after all the changes had been made and the form was fixed; and its
author, if he is in any position to know what is going forward on a
planet which he left some six-and-eighty years ago, must have been amused
when he heard that so much money—thousands and thousands of
dollars—had been given for it at auction the other day.</p>
<p>Reading the essay again, in the faded ink on the yellowing paper, I
realised once more that everything that can be said about little pigs,
dead and ripe for the eater, had been said here and said finally. But the
living? That very evening I was to find little live pigs working for
their maintenance under conditions of which I had never dreamed, in an
environment less conducive, one would suppose, to porcine activity than
any that could be selected.</p>
<p>It was at Coney Island, that astonishing permanent and magnified
Earl's Court Exhibition, summer Blackpool and
August-Bank-Holiday-Hampstead-Heath, which New York supports for its
beguilement. In this domain of switchbacks and chutes, merry-go-rounds
and shooting-galleries, dancing-halls and witching waves, vociferous and
crowded and lit by a million lamps, I came suddenly upon the Pig Slide
and had a new conception of what quadrupeds can do for man.</p>
<p>The Pig Slide, which was in one of the less noisy quarters of Luna
Park, consisted of an enclosure in which stood a wooden building of two
storeys, some five yards wide and three high. On the upper storey was a
row of six or eight cages, in each of which dwelt a little live pig, an
infant of a few weeks. In the middle of the row, descending to the
ground, was an inclined board, with raised edges, such as is often
installed in swimming-baths to make diving automatic, and beneath each
cage was a hole a foot in diameter. The spectators and participants
crowded outside the enclosure, and the thing was to throw balls, which
were hired for the purpose, into the holes. Nothing could exceed the
alert and eager interest taken by the little pigs in the efforts of the
ball-throwers. They quivered on their little legs; they pressed their
little noses against the bars of the cages; their little eyes sparkled;
their tails (the only corkscrews left in America) curled and uncurled and
curled again: and with reason, for whereas, if you missed—as was
only too easy—nothing happened, if you threw accurately the fun
began, and the fun was also theirs.</p>
<p>This is what occurred. First a bell rang and then a spring released
the door of the cage immediately over the hole which your ball had
entered, so that it swung open. The little pig within, after watching the
previous infirmity of your aim with dejection, if not contempt, had
pricked up his ears on the sound of the bell, and now smiled a gratified
smile, irresistible in infectiousness, and trotted out, and, with the
smile dissolving into an expression of <span class="pagenum"><a
name="page85" id="page85"></a>[pg 85]</span> absolute beatitude, slid
voluptuously down the plank: to be gathered in at the foot by an
attendant and returned to its cage all ready for another such
adventure.</p>
<p>It was for these moments and their concomitant changes of countenance
that you paid your money. To taste the triumph of good marksmanship was
only a fraction of your joy; the greater part of it consisted in
liberating a little prisoner and setting in motion so much ecstasy.</p>
<p>We do not use baby pigs in this entertaining way in England. At the
most we hunt them greased. But when other beguilements weary we might.
The R.S.P.C.A. could not object, the little pets are so happy. And what a
privilege is theirs, both alive and dead, to enchant creation's lord.</p>
<hr />
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/083.png"><img width="100%" src="images/083.png"
alt="The Ultra-Modern artist." /></a>
<p><i>Ordinary Artist</i> (<i>to Ultra-Modern ditto</i>). "<font
class="sc">How topping those kiddies look with the sun on them! Oh, I
forgot—I mean those things splashing about over there. Of course
you don't see them as human beings</font>."</p>
</div>
<hr />
<blockquote>
<p>"In order to give a lead in economy King George and Queen Mary and a
number of peeresses have decided not to wear plumes or tulle veils at the
opening of Parliament."—<i>Australian Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Very self-sacrificing of <font class="sc">His Majesty</font>.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"'My husband says I must leavee teo-night,' said a wife at Acton. 'Oh,
hee eceanee't givee you ... notice to quit,' said the
magistrate."—<i>Evening Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>His worship seems to have settled the matter with e's.</p>
<hr />
<h3>THE MINISTERING ANGEL.</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>[Yawning, it is now claimed, is an excellent thing for the
health.]</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>Stretched prone upon my couch of pain,</p>
<p class="i2">An ache in every limb,</p>
<p>Fell influenza having slain</p>
<p class="i2">My customary <i>vim</i>,</p>
<p>I mused, disconsolate, about</p>
<p class="i2">The pattern of my pall,</p>
<p>When lo! I heard a step without</p>
<p class="i2">And Thomson came to call.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>"Your ruddy health," I told him, "mocks</p>
<p class="i2">A hand too weak to grip</p>
<p>The tea-cup with its captive ox</p>
<p class="i2">And raise it to my lip;"</p>
<p>To which he answered he had come</p>
<p class="i2">To bring for my delight</p>
<p>Red posies of geranium</p>
<p class="i2">And roses pink and white.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>'Twas kind of Thomson thus to seek</p>
<p class="i2">To mitigate my gloom,</p>
<p>But why did he proceed to speak</p>
<p class="i2">Of how he'd reared each bloom,</p>
<p>Telling in language far from terse</p>
<p class="i2">On what his blossoms fed</p>
<p>And how he made the greenfly curse</p>
<p class="i2">The day that it was bred?</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>He told me how he rose at dawn</p>
<p class="i2">To titivate the land</p>
<p>('Twas here that I began to yawn</p>
<p class="i2">Behind a courteous hand),</p>
<p>And how he thought his favourite pea</p>
<p class="i2">Had found the soil too dry</p>
<p>(And here I feared my yawns would be</p>
<p class="i2">Apparent to his eye).</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>On fruit and blossom good and bad</p>
<p class="i2">He rambled on unchecked,</p>
<p>Until his conversation had</p>
<p class="i2">Such curative effect</p>
<p>That in the end it drove away</p>
<p class="i2">My weak despondent mood.</p>
<p>I clasped his hand and blessed the day</p>
<p class="i2">He came to do me good.</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<blockquote>
<p>"MORE DEARER PUBLICATIONS."—<i>Daily Mail.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>More dearer nor what they was? Dear, dear!</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>From <i>Young India</i>, the organ of Mr. <font
class="sc">Gandhi</font>:—</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"In our last issue the number of those in receipt of relief is given
at 500. This is a printer's devil. The number is 5,000."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mr. <font class="sc">Gandhi</font> ought to exorcise that devil.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"The tests were entirely satisfactory, and the pilot manœuvred
for a quarter of an hour at a height of 500 metres and a speed of 150
millimetres an hour."—<i>Aeronautics.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is believed to be the nearest approach to "hovering" that has yet
been achieved by a machine.</p>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id="page86"></a>[pg 86]</span>
<h2>NITRATES.</h2>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>All alone I went a-walking by the London Docks one day,</p>
<p>For to see the ships discharging in the basins where they lay;</p>
<p>And the cargoes that I saw there they were every sort and kind,</p>
<p>Every blessed brand of merchandise a man could bring to mind;</p>
<p>There were things in crates and boxes, there was stuff in bags and bales,</p>
<p>There were tea-chests wrapped in matting, there were Eastern-looking frails,</p>
<p>There were baulks of teak and greenheart, there were stacks of spruce and pine,</p>
<p>There was cork and frozen carcasses and casks of Spanish wine,</p>
<p>There was rice and spice and cocoa-nuts, and rum enough was there</p>
<p>For to warm all London's innards up and leave a drop to spare;</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>But of all the freights I found there, gathered in from far and wide,</p>
<p>All the smells both nice and nasty from the Pool to Barkingside,</p>
<p>All the harvest of the harbours from Bombay to Montreal,</p>
<p>There was one that took my fancy first and foremost of them all;</p>
<p>It was neither choice nor costly, it was neither rich nor rare</p>
<p>And, in most ways you can think of, it was neither here nor there,</p>
<p>It was nothing over-beautiful to smell nor yet to see—</p>
<p>Only bags of stuffy nitrate—but it meant a lot to me.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>I forgot the swarming stevedores, I forgot the dust and din,</p>
<p>And the rattle of the winches hoisting cargo out and in,</p>
<p>And the rusty tramp before me with her hatches open wide,</p>
<p>And the grinding of her derricks as the sacks went overside;</p>
<p>I forgot the murk of London and the dull November sky—</p>
<p>I was far, ay, far from England, in a day that's long gone by.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>I forgot the thousand changes years have brought in ships and men,</p>
<p>And the knots on Time's old log-line that have reeled away since then,</p>
<p>And I saw a fast full-rigger with her swelling canvas spread,</p>
<p>And the steady trade-wind droning in her royals overhead,</p>
<p>Fleecy trade-clouds on the sky-line—high above the Tropic blue—</p>
<p>And the curved arch of her foresail and the ocean gleaming through;</p>
<p>I recalled the Cape Stiff weather, when your soul-case seemed to freeze,</p>
<p>And the trampling, cursing watches and the pouring, pooping seas,</p>
<p>And the ice on spar and jackstay, and the cracking, volleying sail,</p>
<p>And the tatters of our voices blowing down the roaring gale ...</p>
<p>I recalled the West Coast harbours just as plain as yesteryear—</p>
<p>Nitrate ports, all dry and dusty, where they sell fresh water-dear—</p>
<p>Little cities white and wicked by a bleak and barren shore,</p>
<p>With an anchor on the cliff-side for to show you where to moor;</p>
<p>And the sour red wine we tasted, and the foolish songs we sung,</p>
<p>And the girls we had our fun with in the days when we were young;</p>
<p>And the dancing in the evenings down at Dago Bill's saloon,</p>
<p>And the stars above the mountains and the sea's eternal tune.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Only bags of stuffy nitrate from a far Pacific shore,</p>
<p>From a dreary West Coast harbour that I'll surely fetch no more;</p>
<p>Only bags of stuffy nitrate, with its faint familiar smell</p>
<p>Bringing back the ships and shipmates that I used to know so well;</p>
<p>Half a lifetime lies between us and a thousand leagues of sea,</p>
<p>But it called the days departed and my boyhood back to me.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i16">C.F.S.</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<h3>ROSES ALL THE WAY.</h3>
<p>Fired by an Irish rose-grower's pictures of some of his beautiful new
seedlings we are tempted to describe one or two of our own favourite
flowers in language similar to his own. This is an example of the way he
does it:—</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"<font class="sc">Lady Maureen Stewart</font> (<i>Hybrid
Tea</i>).—A gloriously-finished globular slightly imbricated cupped
bloom with velvety black scarlet cerise shell-shaped petals, whose reflex
is solid pure orangey maroon without veining. An excellent bloom, ideal
shape, brilliant and non-fading colour with heavy musk rose odour. Erect
growth and flower-stalk. Foliage wax and leathery and not too large. A
very floriferous and beautiful rose. 21<i>s.</i> each."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Why not also these?—</p>
<p><font class="sc">David</font> (<i>Hybrid Tory-Lib.</i>).—A
gloriously-finished true-blue-slightly-imbricated-with-red-flag coalition
rose whose deep globular head with ornate decorative calyx retains its
perfect exhibition-cross-question-hostile-amendment symmetry of form
without blueing or burning in the hottest Westminster sun. Its smiling
peach and cerise endearments terminating in black scarlet shell-shaped
waxy Berlin ultimata are carried on an admirably rigid peduncle. Equally
vigorous in all parts of Europe. Superbly rampant. Not on sale.</p>
<p><font class="sc">Austen</font> (<i>Tea and most other
things</i>).—This bottomless-cupped
bank-paper-white-edged-and-rimmed-with-tape-pink-margin bloom, the reflex
of whose never-fading demand notes is velvety black thunder-cloud with
lightning-flash six-months-in-the-second-division veinations, has never
been known to be too full. It is supported by a landlordly stalk of the
utmost excess-profits-war-profits-minor-profits rigidity. A decorative,
acquisitive and especially captivating rose, and already something more
than a popular favourite. 18<i>s.</i> in £1.</p>
<p><font class="sc">Sir Thomas</font> (<i>Ceylon and India
Tea</i>).—This true sport from the British bull-dog rose has a
slightly globular double-hemisphere-popular
greatly-desiring-and-deserving-to-be-cupped bloom whose pearly preserved
cream flesh is delicately flushed and mottled with tinned salmon and
dried apricot. Rich golden and banking-account stamina, foliage deep navy
blue with brass buttons and a superb fragrance of western ocean. Its
marvellous try-try-try-again floriferousness in all weathers is the
admiration of all beholders. Price no object.</p>
<hr />
<p>From a weather forecast:—</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"General Outlook.—It appears probable that further expressions
will arrive from the westward or north-westward before long, and that
after a temporary improvement the weather will again become unsettled;
with much cloud and occasional rain."—<i>Evening Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In which event further expressions (of a sultry character) may be
expected from all round the compass.</p>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" id="page87"></a>[pg 87]</span>
<h3>"COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS."</h3>
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/085-1.png"><img width="100%" src="images/085-1.png"
alt="COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS." /></a>
"<font class="sc">Come unto these yellow sands and then—</font>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/085-2.png"><img width="100%" src="images/085-2.png"
alt="Take Hands." /></a>
—<font class="sc">take hands</font>."—[<i>The Tempest</i>,
Act I., Sc. 2.
</div>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" id="page88"></a>[pg 88]</span>
<h2>QUEEN'S COUNSEL.</h2>
<p>The Fairy Queen shook her head in answer to my question. "No," she
said, "I have no favourite flower."</p>
<p>She had dropped in after dinner, as was her occasional habit, and at
the moment sat perched on a big red carnation which stood in a
flower-glass on the top of my desk.</p>
<p>"You see," she continued, floating across to where I was sitting and
lowering her voice confidentially, for there were a good many flowers
about—"you see it would never do. Just think of the trouble it
would cause. Imagine the state of mind of the lilies if I were to show a
preference for roses. There's always been a little jealousy there, and
they're all frightfully touchy. The artistic temperament, you know. Why,
I daren't even sleep in the same flower two nights running."</p>
<p>"Yes, I see," I said. "It must be very awkward."</p>
<p>I lapsed into silence; I had had a worrying day and was feeling tired
and a little depressed. The Queen fluttered about the room, pausing a
moment on the mantel-shelf for a word or two with her old friend the
Dresden china shepherdess. Then she came back to the desk and performed a
brief <i>pas seul</i> on the shining smooth cover of my pass-book. My
mind flew instantly to my slender bank-balance and certain recent
foolishnesses.</p>
<p>"Talking of favourites," I said—"talking of favourites, do you
take any interest in racing?"</p>
<p>Instantly the Queen subsided on to my rubber stamp damper, which was
fortunately dry.</p>
<p>"Oh, yes," she replied, "I take a <i>great</i> interest in racing. I
love it. I can give you all sorts of hints."</p>
<p>I thought it was a pity she hadn't called a week or two earlier. I
might have been a richer woman by a good many pounds.</p>
<p>"And there are so many kinds," continued the Queen earnestly. "Now in
a butterfly race it's always best just to hold on and let them do as they
like. It's not a bit of use trying to make them go straight. Rabbits are
better in that way, but even rabbits are a little uncertain at times.
Full of nerves. But have you ever tried swallow-racing?" she went on
enthusiastically. "It's simply splendid. You give them their heads and
you never know <i>where</i> you may get to. But, anyway, it doesn't
really matter in the least afterwards who wins; it's only while it's
happening that you feel so thrilled, isn't it?"</p>
<p>I didn't acquiesce very whole-heartedly. I'm afraid my thoughts were
with my lost guineas. It <i>had</i> rather mattered afterwards. I really
had been very foolish.</p>
<p>"You look depressed," said the Fairy Queen. "Can I help you? I'm
really extremely practical. You know, don't you," she leaned forward and
looked at me earnestly, "that I should be delighted if I could assist you
with any advice?"</p>
<p>I hesitated. Just before she came I had been anxiously considering as
to how I was going to make one hundred pounds do the work of two during
the next few weeks; but somehow I didn't quite like to mention such
material matters to the Queen; it didn't seem suitable.</p>
<p>I looked up and met her kind eyes fixed on mine with an expression of
the gentlest interest and solicitude.</p>
<p>"I wonder," I said, still hesitating, "whether you know anything about
stocks and shares?"</p>
<p>"Stocks and shares," she repeated slowly, looking just a little vague
and puzzled. And then—"Oh, yes, of course I do, if that's all you
want to know."</p>
<p>I felt quite pleased now that I had really got it out.</p>
<p>"If you could just give me a useful hint or two I should be
tremendously grateful," I said. Already thousands loomed entrancingly
before me. Already I saw myself settled in that darling cottage on the
windy hill above Daccombe Wood. Already—</p>
<p>"I think I had better get a pencil and paper," I said. "My memory's
dreadful."</p>
<p>But the Fairy Queen shook her head.</p>
<p>"I'll write it down for you," she said, "and you can read it when I'm
gone. That's so much more fun. But I don't need paper."</p>
<p>She drew a tiny shining implement from her pocket and, picking up a
couple of rose-petals which had fallen upon the table, she busied herself
with them for a moment at my desk, her mouth pursed up, her brows
contracted in an expression of intense seriousness.</p>
<p>"There," she said, "that's that. And now show me <i>all</i> your new
clothes."</p>
<p>We spent quite a pleasant evening over one thing and another, and I
forgot all about the rose-leaves until after she had gone; but when I
came back to my empty sitting-room they shone in the dusk with a soft
radiance which came, I discovered, from the writing on them. It glowed
like those luminous figures on watches which were so entrancing when they
first appeared. I had never realised before that they were fairy
figures.</p>
<p>I spread the petals out on my palm, feeling quite excited at the
prospect of making my fortune by such means, though I was a little
anxious as to how I was going to make use of the information I was about
to acquire.</p>
<p>"I will ask Cousin Fred," I decided (Cousin Fred being a stockbroker),
and I smiled a little to myself as I thought how amazed and possibly
amused my dapper cousin would be when he learnt the source of my
knowledge. He might even refuse to believe in it—and then where
should I be?</p>
<p>I needn't have troubled. When I unfolded my rose-petals this is what I
read:—</p>
<p>"<i>Stocks.</i>—The white ones are much the best and have by far
the sweetest scent.</p>
<p><i>Shares.</i>—<i>Always</i> go shares."</p>
<p class="author">R.F.</p>
<hr />
<h2>HEART OF MINE.</h2>
<p class="center">(<i>Being a rather hysterical contribution
from our Analytical Novelist.</i>)</p>
<p><i>Friday.</i>—I suppose one never realises till one is actually
dead how nearly dead one can be without actually being it. You see what I
mean? No. Well, how blithely, how recklessly one rollicks through life,
fondly believing that one is in the best of health, in the prime of
condition, and all the time one is the unconscious victim of some fatal
infirmity or disease. I mean, take my own case. I went to see my doctor
in order to be cured of hay fever. He examined my heart. He made me take
off my shirt. He hammered my chest; he rapped my ribs with his knuckles
to see if they sounded hollow. I don't know why he did this, but I think
he was at one time attached to a detective and has got into the habit of
looking for secret passages and false panels and so on.</p>
<p>Anyhow, he suspected my chest, and he listened at it for so long that
any miscreant who had been concealed in it would have had to give himself
away by coughing or blowing his nose.</p>
<p>After a long time he said, "Your heart's dilated. You want a complete
rest. Don't work. Don't smoke. Don't drink. Don't eat. Don't do anything.
Take plenty of exercise. Sit perfectly still. Don't mope. Don't rush
about. Take this before and after every meal. Only don't have any meals."
I laughed at him. I knew my heart was perfectly sound, much sounder than
most men's. I went home. I didn't even have the prescription made up.</p>
<p><i>Saturday.</i>—Now comes the tragic thing. <i>That very night
I realised that he was right.</i> There <i>is</i> something wrong with my
heart. It is too long. It is too wide. It is too thick. It is out of
place. It would be difficult to say <i>exactly</i> where the measurements
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id="page89"></a>[pg 89]</span> are
wrong, but one has a sort of <i>sense</i> ... you know?... One can feel
that it is too large.... A swollen feeling.... Somehow I never felt this
before; I never even felt that it was there ... but now I always know
that it is there—trying to get out.... I put my hand on it and can
feel it definitely expanding—like a football bladder. Sometimes I
think it wants to get out at my collar-bone; sometimes I think it will
blow out under my bottom rib; sometimes some other way. It is
terrible....</p>
<p>I have had the prescription made up.</p>
<p><i>Sunday.</i>—The way it beats! Sometimes very fast and heavy
and emphatic, like a bad barrage of 5.9's. Fortunately my watch has a
second-hand, so that I can time it—forty-five to the half-minute,
ninety-five to the full minute. Then I know that the end is very near;
everyone knows that the normal rate for a healthy adult heart is
seventy-two. Then sometimes it goes very slow, very dignified and faint,
as when some great steamer glides in at slow speed to her anchorage, and
the engines thump in a subdued and profound manner very far away, or as
when at night the solemn tread of some huge policeman is heard, remote
and soft and dilated—I mean dilatory, or as when—But you see
what I mean.</p>
<p><i>Monday.</i>—How was it, I wonder, that all this was hidden
from me for so long? And now what am I to do? I am a doomed man. With a
heart like this I cannot last long. I have resigned my clubs; I have
given up my work. I can think of nothing but this dull pain, this heavy
throbbing at my side. My work—ha! Yesterday I met another young
doctor at tea. He asked me if there was any "murmur." I said I did not
know—no one had told me. But after tea I went away and listened.
Yes, there was a murmur; I could hear it plainly. I told the young
doctor. He said that murmurs were not considered so important nowadays.
What matters is "the reaction of the heart to work." By that test I am
doomed indeed. But the murmur is better.</p>
<p><i>Tuesday.</i>—I have told Anton Gregorovitch Gregorski. He
says he has a heart too.</p>
<p><i>Wednesday.</i>—I have been learning things to-day. I am worse
even than the doctor thought. In a reference book in the dining-room
there is a medical dictionary. It says: "Dilatation leads to dropsy,
shortness of breath and blueness of the face." I have got some of those
already. I have never seen a face so blue. It is like the sea in the
early morning.</p>
<p><i>Thursday.</i>—The heart is bigger again to-day—about an
inch each way. The weight of it is terrible to carry.... I have to take
taxis.... This evening it was going at thirty-two to the minute....</p>
<p><i>Friday.</i>—Last night, when I tried to count the beats, I
could not find it.... It must have stopped.... Anton Gregorovitch says it
is the end.... This is my last entry....</p>
<p><i>Saturday.</i>—My face is very blue. It is like a
forget-me-not ... it is like a volume of <i>Hansard</i>....</p>
<p>I shall go to see the doctor as I promised ... he can do nothing, but
it will interest him to see how much bigger the heart has grown in the
last few days....</p>
<p>No more....</p>
<p><i>Sunday.</i>—The doctor said it was much better.... It is
undilated again.... After all I am not going to die. But the reaction to
work is still bad. This evening I make it sixty to the minute....</p>
<p><i>Monday.</i>—This morning's count was seventy-two. It is
terrible....</p>
<p class="author">A.P.H.</p>
<hr />
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/087.png"><img width="100%" src="images/087.png"
alt="Going down for the third time." /></a>
<p><i>Sympathetic Old Lady.</i> "<font class="sc">And when you went
down for the third time the whole of your past life of course flashed
before your eyes</font>?"</p>
<p><i>Longshore Billy.</i> "<font class="sc">I expect it did, Mum, but
I 'ad 'em shut at the time, so I missed it</font>."</p>
</div>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" id="page90"></a>[pg 90]</span>
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/088.png"><img width="100%" src="images/088.png"
alt="Don't cats go to heaven?" /></a>
<p><i>Mollie.</i> "<font class="sc">Auntie, don't cats go to
heaven</font>?"</p>
<p><i>Auntie.</i> "<font class="sc">No, my dear. Didn't you hear the
Vicar say at the Children's Service that animals hadn't souls and
therefore could not go to heaven</font>?"</p>
<p><i>Mollie.</i> "<font class="sc">Where do they get the strings for
the harps, then</font>?"</p>
</div>
<hr />
<h3>FLOWERS' NAMES.</h3>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i8"><font class="sc">Shepherd's Purse</font>.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>There was a silly shepherd lived out at Taunton Dene</p>
<p class="i2">(Hey-nonny-nonny-no for Taunton in the summer!)</p>
<p>And oh, but he was bitter cold! and oh, but he was mean!</p>
<p>The maidens vowed a bitterer had never yet been seen</p>
<p class="i12">At Taunton in the summer.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>He lived to gather in the gold—he loved to hear it chink</p>
<p class="i2">(Hey-nonny-nonny-no for Taunton in the summer!),</p>
<p>And he could only dream of gold—of gold could only think;</p>
<p>And all the fairies watched him, and they watched him with a wink</p>
<p class="i12">At Taunton in the summer.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>At last one summer noonday, when the sky was blue and deep</p>
<p class="i2">(Hey-nonny-nonny-no for Taunton in the summer!),</p>
<p>They made him heavy-headed as he watched beside his sheep</p>
<p>And all the little Taunton elves came stealing out to peep</p>
<p class="i12">At Taunton in the summer.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>They opened wide his wallet and they stole the coins away</p>
<p class="i2">(Hey-nonny-nonny-no for Taunton in the summer!),</p>
<p>They took the round gold pieces and they used them for their play,</p>
<p>They rolled and chased and tumbled them and lost them in the hay</p>
<p class="i12">At Taunton in the summer.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>And when they'd finished playing they used all their magic powers</p>
<p class="i2">(Hey-nonny-nonny-no for Taunton in the summer!);</p>
<p>The silly shepherd woke and wept, he sought his gold for hours,</p>
<p>And all he found was drifts and drifts of tiny greenish flowers</p>
<p class="i12">At Taunton in the summer.</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<h4>More Work for His Majesty's Judges.</h4>
<blockquote>
<p>"Potato disease has unfortunately made its appearance in the
—— district, the early and second early crops being seriously
attacked. The late crops are free from disease up to the present, and it
is hoped by judicial spraying to save them."—<i>Local
Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<hr class="short" />
<p>From an interview with the Superintendent of Regent's Park:—</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"'People seem surprised,' he said, 'when I tell them that within a few
minutes' walk of Baker Street Station, and the incessant din of
Marylebone Road, such birds as the cuckoo, flycatcher, robin and wren
have reared their young.'"—<i>Observer.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>To hear of the cuckoo bringing up its own family in any circumstances
was, we confess, a little bit of a shock.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"'Idling, my dear fellow!' was Mr. Jerome K. Jerome's decisive answer
to my question: 'What do you most like doing at holiday-time?'</p>
<p>'But if, and only when, I am really driven to exertion, let me have a
horse between my legs, a pair of oars, and a billiard-table, and I ask
nothing more of the gods.'"—<i>Answers.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The next time Mr. <font class="sc">Jerome</font> indulges in this
performance may we be there to see.</p>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91"></a>[pg 91]</span>
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/089.png"><img width="100%" src="images/089.png"
alt="THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH." /></a>
<h3>THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH.</h3>
<p><font class="sc">War-weary World</font> (<i>at the Jamboree</i>). "I
WAS NEARLY LOSING HOPE, BUT THE SIGHT OF ALL YOU BOYS GIVES IT BACK TO
ME."</p>
</div>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id="page93"></a>[pg 93]</span>
<h2>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h2>
<p><i>Monday, July 26th.</i>—When the Peers were about to discuss
the Law of Property Bill, which seeks to abolish the distinction between
land and other property, Lord <font class="sc">Cave</font> dropped a
bombshell into the Committee by moving to omit the whole of Part I. Lords
<font class="sc">Haldane</font> and <font class="sc">Buckmaster</font>
were much upset and loudly protested against the proposal to cut out "the
very heart and substance of the measure." The <font class="sc">Lord
Chancellor</font> was less perturbed by the explosion and was confident
that after further discussion he could induce the <font
class="sc">Cave</font>-dwellers to come into line with modern
requirements. Thirty-four clauses thus disappeared with a bang; and of
the hundred and odd remaining only one gave much trouble. Objection was
taken to Clause 101, granting the public full rights of access to
commons, on the grounds <i>inter alia</i> that it would give too much
freedom to gipsies and too little to golfers. Lord <font
class="sc">Salisbury</font>, who, like the counsel in a famous legal
story, claimed to "know a little about manors," was sure that only the
lord could deal faithfully with the Egyptians, but, fortified by Lord
<font class="sc">Haldane's</font> assurance that the clause gave the
public no more rights and the lords of the manor no less than they had
before, the House passed it by 42 to 29.</p>
<p>Mr. <font class="sc">Bridgeman</font>, for the Board of Trade, bore
the brunt of the early questioning in the House of Commons. He sustained
with equal imperturbability the assaults of the Tariff Reformers, who
asserted that British toy-making—an "infant industry" if ever there
was one—was being stifled by foreign imports: and those of the Free
Traders, who objected to the Government's efforts to resuscitate the
dyeing trade.</p>
<p>The alarming rumours in the Sunday papers about the <font
class="sc">Prime Minister's</font> state of health were effectively
dispelled by his appearance on the Front Opposition, a little
weary-looking, no doubt, but as alert as ever to seize the weak point in
the adversary's case and to put his own in the most favourable light.
From the enthusiasm of his announcement that the Soviet Government had
accepted our invitation to attend a Conference in London, one would have
thought that the Bolshevists had agreed to the British proposals
unconditionally and that peace—"that is what the world
wants"—was now assured.</p>
<div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
<a href="images/090.png"><img width="100%" src="images/090.png"
alt="This little pig went to market." /></a>
<p><i>David.</i> "<font class="sc">You know the rhyme, Grandmama, that
says—</font></p>
<div class="i16">
<p>'<font class="sc">This little pig went to market,</font></p>
<p><font class="sc">And this little pig stayed at home'</font>?"</p>
</div>
<p><i>The Mother of Parliaments.</i> "<font class="sc">Yes, David,
dear. Why do you mention it</font>?"</p>
<p><i>David.</i> "<font class="sc">Oh, I was merely wondering what was
to be done about it</font>."</p>
</div>
<p>Abhorrence of the Government of Ireland Bill is the one subject on
which all Irishmen appear to think alike. It is, no doubt, with the
desire to preserve that unanimity that the <font class="sc">Prime
Minister</font> announced his intention of pressing the measure forward
after the Recess "with all possible despatch."</p>
<p>But before that date it looks as if Irishmen would have despatched one
another. The little band of Nationalists had handed in a batch of
private-notice Questions arising out of the disturbances in Belfast.
Their description of them as the outcome of an organised attack upon
Catholics was indignantly challenged by the Ulstermen, and the <font
class="sc">Speaker</font> had hard work to maintain order. The contest
was renewed on a motion for the adjournment. As a means of bringing peace
to Ireland the debate was absolutely futile. But it enabled Mr. <font
class="sc">Devlin</font> to fire off one of his tragical-comical
orations, and Sir H. <font class="sc">Greenwood</font> to disclaim the
accusation that he had treated the Irish problem with levity. "There is
nothing light and airy about me," he declared; and no one who has heard
his pronunciation of the word "Belfast" would doubt it.</p>
<p>Before and after this melancholy interlude good progress was made with
the Finance Bill, and Mr. <font class="sc">Chamberlain</font> made
several further concessions to the "family-man."</p>
<p><i>Tuesday, July 27th.</i>—The Lords rejected the Health Resorts
and Watering Places Bill under which local authorities could have raised
a penny rate for advertising purposes. Lord <font
class="sc">Southwark's</font> well-meant endeavour to support the Bill by
reminding the House that Irish local authorities had enjoyed this power
since 1909 was perhaps the proximate cause of its defeat, for it can
hardly be said that the last few weeks have enhanced the reputation of
Ireland as a health resort.</p>
<p>Mr. <font class="sc">Harmsworth</font> utterly confounded the critics
of the Passport Office. Its staff may appear preposterously large and its
methods unduly dilatory, but the fact remains that it is one of the few
public departments that actually pays its way. Last year it spent
thirty-seven thousand pounds and took ninety-one thousand pounds in fees.
"See the world and help to pay for the War" should be the motto over its
portals.</p>
<p>It is, of course, quite proper that soldiers who wreck the property of
civilians—albeit under great provocation—should receive
suitable punishment. But a sailor is hardly the man to press for it.
Lieutenant-Commander <font class="sc">Kenworthy</font> received a
much-needed lesson in etiquette when Major <font
class="sc">Jameson</font> gravely urged, in his penetrating Scotch voice,
that soldiers in Ireland should be ordered not to distract the prevailing
peace and quiet of that country, but should keep to their proper function
of acting as targets for Sinn Fein bullets.</p>
<p>Mr. <font class="sc">Chamberlain</font> dealt very gingerly with Sir
<font class="sc">Arthur Fell's</font> inquiry as to whether "any ordinary
individual can understand the forms now sent out by the Income Tax
Department?" Fearing that if he replied in the affirmative he would be
asked to solve some particularly abstruse conundrum, he contented himself
with saying that the forms were complicated because the tax was
complicated, and the tax was complicated because of the number and
variety of the reliefs granted to the taxpayer. It does not seem to have
occurred <span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94"></a>[pg
94]</span> to him that it is the duty of the <font class="sc">Chancellor
of the Exchequer</font> to make the tax simple as well as equitable. Is
it conceivable that he can have forgotten <font class="sc">Adam
Smith'</font>s famous maxims on the subject, and particularly this: "The
time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought
all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other
person"?</p>
<div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
<a href="images/091.png"><img width="100%" src="images/091.png"
alt="MR. BONAR LAW PACKS HIS TRUNKS." /></a>
<p>MR. BONAR LAW PACKS HIS TRUNKS.</p>
</div>
<p>The House did not rise till half-past one this morning, and was again
faced with a long night's work. In vain Sir <font class="sc">Donald
Maclean</font> protested against the practice of taking wee sma' Bills in
the wee sma' oors. Mr. <font class="sc">Bonar Law</font> was obdurate. He
supposed the House had not abandoned all hope of an Autumn recess. Well,
then, had not the poet said that the best of all ways to lengthen our
days was to steal a few hours from the night?</p>
<p>The Report stage of the Finance Bill was finished off, but not until
the Government had experienced some shocks. The Corporation tax, intended
partially to fill the yawning void which will be caused some day by the
disappearance of E.P.D.—on the principle that one bad tax deserves
another—was condemned with equal vigour, but for entirely different
reasons, by Colonel <font class="sc">Wedgwood</font> and Sir F. <font
class="sc">Banbury</font>. They "told" together against it and had the
satisfaction of bringing the Government majority down to fifty-five.</p>
<p>The champions of the Co-operative Societies also put up a strong fight
against the proposal to make their profits, for the first time, subject
to taxation. Mr. <font class="sc">Chamberlain</font> declined, however,
to put them in a privileged position as compared with other traders, but
carried his point only by sixty-one votes.</p>
<p><i>Wednesday, July 28th.</i>—In spite of the limitation of
Questions the Member for Central Hull still manages to extract a good
deal of information from the Treasury Bench. This afternoon he learned
from Mr. <font class="sc">Long</font> that the Board of Admiralty was not
created solely for the purpose of satisfying his curiosity; and from Mr.
<font class="sc">Kellaway</font> that the equipment of even the most
versatile Under-Secretary does not include the gift of prophecy.</p>
<p>At long last the House learned the Government decision regarding the
increase in railway fares. It is to come into force on August 6th, by
which time the most belated Bank-Holiday-maker should have returned from
his revels. Mr. <font class="sc">Bonar Law</font> appended to the
announcement a surely otiose explanation of the necessity of the
increase. Everybody knows that railways are being run at a loss, due in
the main to the increased wages of miners and railway-men. Mr. <font
class="sc">Thomas</font> rather weakly submitted that an important factor
was the larger number of men employed, and was promptly met with the
retort that that was because of the shorter hours worked.</p>
<p>Cheered by the statement of its Leader that he still hoped to get the
adjournment by August 14th the House plunged with renewed zest into the
final stage of the Finance Bill. Mr. <font class="sc">Bottomley</font>,
whose passion for accuracy is notorious, inveighed against the lack of
this quality in the Treasury Estimates. As for the war-debt, since the
Government had failed to "make Germany pay," he urged that the principal
burden should be left for posterity to shoulder.</p>
<p>These sentiments rather shocked Mr. <font class="sc">Asquith</font>,
who, while mildly critical of Government methods, was all in favour of
"severe, stringent, drastic taxation." Mr. <font
class="sc">Chamberlain</font> repeated his now familiar lecture to the
House of Commons, which, while accusing the Government of extravagance,
was always pressing for new forms of expenditure. In the study of economy
he dislikes abstractions—except from the pockets of the
taxpayer.</p>
<hr />
<blockquote>
<p>"Company's water is on to the house and cowshed."—<i>Advert. in
Daily Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now we know why our water is sometimes contaminated with milk.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"One of the most striking of the collection of exhibits of fascinating
interest [at the Imperial War Museum] is the Air Force map for carrying
out the British plan for bombing Berlin. Specimens of the bombs, weighing
3,000 pounds each, are also included in this museum of war souvenirs with
the object of demonstrating the resources of the Empire and giving a
stimulus to its trade."—<i>South African Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Motto for British traders: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try
trinitrotoluene."</p>
<hr />
<h2>THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT.</h2>
<p>I went into the morning-room with a worried frown upon my brow.
Kathleen was doing the accounts at the table.</p>
<p>"Kathleen," I said, "it's Veronica's birthday on Wednesday
and—"</p>
<p>"What did you say seven eighths were?" said Kathleen. "I asked you
last week."</p>
<p>"I can't possibly carry complicated calculations in my head from week
to week," I said; "you should have made a note of it at the time. It's
Veronica's birthday on Wednesday, and what do you think she wants?"</p>
<p>But Kathleen was enthralled by the greengrocer's book. "Have we really
had eight cabbages this week?" she said. "We must, I suppose.
Greengrocers are generally honest; they live so near to nature. Well,
now," she shut up her books, "what were you saying, dear?"</p>
<p>I sighed, cleared my throat and began again. "It's Veronica's birthday
on Wednesday, and what do you think she wants? She wants," I said
dramatically, "a 'frush' from the bird-shop in the village. The ones that
hang in cages outside the door."</p>
<p>"Well," said Kathleen, "why not?"</p>
<p>"Why not?" I became more than serious. "A daughter of ours has
demanded for a plaything a caged bird. Psychologically it is an important
occasion. Now or never must she learn to look upon a caged bird with
horror. What I am thinking of is the psychological effect upon the
child's character. The psychological—"</p>
<p>"You needn't worry about Veronica's psychology," said Kathleen.
"Veronica's psychology is in the right place."</p>
<p>"You misunderstand the meaning of the word," I said loftily. "However,
if you wish to wash your hands of Veronica's training, if you refuse to
cope with your own child, I must take it upon myself."</p>
<p>"Do," said Kathleen sweetly; "I'll listen."</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>It was Veronica's birthday. We were outside the bird-shop. The
thrushes in cages hung around the door.</p>
<p>Veronica lifted grave blue eyes to me trustingly. "You promised me a
frush, darlin'," she said.</p>
<p>Veronica is small for her name and has a disarming habit of
introducing terms of endearment into her conversation.</p>
<p>"You didn't quite understand me," I said gently. "I said I'd think
about it."</p>
<p>"Yes, but that means promising, doesn't it? Finking about it
<i>means</i> promising. I <i>fought</i> you meant promising. <span
class="pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95"></a>[pg 95]</span> I fought
all night you meant promising. Darlin'." The last word was a sentence all
by itself.</p>
<p>Kathleen raised her eyebrows when we came out with the bird in the
cage.</p>
<p>"This isn't quite the moment," I said with dignity; "it's best to let
her get it first and realise afterwards."</p>
<p>"Let's all go to Crown Hill now," said Veronica in a voice that
admitted of no denial.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>We were on Crown Hill. Veronica had hugged the cage to her small bosom
all the way, making little reassuring noises to its occupant.</p>
<p>"Now," said Kathleen, "hadn't you better begin? Isn't this the
psycho—you know what moment?"</p>
<p>I took a deep breath and began.</p>
<p>"Veronica," I said, "listen to me for a moment. If you were a little
bird—"</p>
<p>But she wasn't listening to me. She had held up the little wooden
cage, opened the clasp of the door and, with a rapt smile on her small
shining face, was watching the "frush" as he soared into the air with a
sudden burst of song.</p>
<p>We none of us spoke till he had vanished from sight. Then Veronica
broke the silence.</p>
<p>"It's all my very own plan," she said proudly. "I planned it all by
myself. An' all my birfdays I'm going to have one of that nasty man's
frushes for a present, and we'll all free come up here and let it
out—always an' always an' for ever an' ever—right up till I'm
a hundred."</p>
<p>"Why stop at a hundred?" I murmured, recovering myself with an
effort.</p>
<p>But I could not escape Kathleen's eye.</p>
<p>"I hope you feel small," it said.</p>
<p>I did.</p>
<hr />
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/092.png"><img width="100%" src="images/092.png"
alt="The unworthy yachtsman." /></a>
<p><i>The Colonel.</i> "<font class="sc"><i>Anyone</i> may miss the
tide or get stuck upon a mud-bank; but to lose the matches and forget
the whisky is to prove yourself unworthy of the name of
'yachtsman'!</font>"</p>
</div>
<hr />
<h2>RHYMES OF THE UNDERGROUND.</h2>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i16">I.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>I never heard of Ruislip, I never saw its name,</p>
<p>Till Underground advertisements had brought it into fame;</p>
<p>I've never been to Ruislip, I never yet have heard</p>
<p>The true pronunciation of so singular a word.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>I'd like to go to Ruislip; I'd like to feast my eyes</p>
<p>On "scenes of sylvan beauty" that the posters advertise;</p>
<p>But, though I long to view the spot, while I am in the dark</p>
<p>About its name I dare not face the booking-office clerk.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Suppose I ventured "Riz-lip" and in answer to his "Eh?"</p>
<p>Stammered "Ruse-lip, Rise-lip, Rees-lip," just imagine how he'd say,</p>
<p>"Well, where <i>do</i> you want to book to?" and the voices from behind,</p>
<p>"Must we wait until this gentleman has ascertained his mind?"</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i16">II.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>The trains that stop at Down Street—(Sing willow-waly-O!)—</p>
<p>They run through Hyde Park Corner as fast as they can go;</p>
<p>And trains at Hyde Park Corner that stop—(Oh dearie me!)—</p>
<p>Contrariwise at Down Street are "non-stop" as can be.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>There's a man at Down Street Station—he came there years ago</p>
<p>To get to Hyde Park Corner—(Sing willow-waly-O!)—</p>
<p>And, as the trains go past him, 'tis pitiful to see</p>
<p>Him beat his breast and murmur, "Oh dearie, dearie me!"</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<blockquote>
<p>'"The Rev. R.S. —— has accepted the post of librarian of
Pussy House, Oxford."—<i>Local Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>And will soon get to work on the catalogue.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"<font class="sc">Wanted</font>—a middle-aged Witty Indian to
read Bengali religious books and capable of telling witty and fairy tales
from 12 to 3 p.m."—<i>Indian Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This might suit Mr. <font class="sc">Gandhi</font>. If not witty, he
is very good at fairy-tales.</p>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id="page96"></a>[pg 96]</span>
<h2>VADE MECUMS.</h2>
<p>I have invented a new sort of patience. It is called Vade Mecums. The
rules are quite simple and all the plant you need for it is a "Vade
Mecum" traveller's handbook and a complete ignorance of all languages but
your own. Get one of these fascinating little classics, a passport and a
single to Boulogne, and you can begin at once.</p>
<p>The game consists in firing off (in the local lingo) every single
phrase that occurs in the book. The only other rule in the game is that
the occasion for making each remark must be reasonably apposite. You need
not keep to the order in the book and no points are awarded for
pronunciation, provided that the party addressed shows by word or deed
that he (or she) has understood you. By way of illustration I will give
some account of my first experiments in this enthralling pastime.</p>
<p>As it happened I was able to start at once—too soon, in fact, to
be altogether comfortable. We had scarcely put out from Folkestone before
I got my chance. The sea was distinctly rough, but I just had time to
open my Vade Mecum at page 228 (sub-heading, "On embarking and what
happens at sea"), and to read to a passing French steward the first
sentence that caught my eye. It was as follows: "The wind is very
violent; the sea is very rough; the waves are very high; the rolling of
the vessel makes my head ache; I am very much inclined to be sick."</p>
<p>After that I made no more progress till we reached Boulogne; but from
the steward's subsequent actions I judged that he had understood; so I
was one up.</p>
<p>My Vade Mecum, like most of its kind, was unfortunately compiled many
years ago and had never been brought up to date. This, of course, saved
me the expense of having to hire aeroplanes or even motor-cars, but it
landed me in quite a number of difficulties at the opposite extreme, as
you will see.</p>
<p>For instance, in order to polish off the heading, "Of what may happen
on the road," I was compelled to obtain a carriage. Judge then my joy
when, on reaching a carriage builder's, I discovered a whole section
tucked away in a corner of the book dealing exclusively with that very
topic. I can think of no other conceivable circumstances under which I
could have said, "The wheels are in a miserable state; the body is too
heavy; the springs are too light; the shafts are too short; the pole is
too thin; the shape is altogether old-fashioned, and the seats are both
high and uncomfortable."</p>
<p>Yet now I said it all—in two halves, it is true, and in two
different shops; but still I said it all. The first half cost me three
front teeth, which fell out while the outraged <i>carrossier</i> was
ejecting me; the second cost me a large sum of money, because somehow or
other I found I had <i>bought</i> the vehicle in question. This I fancy
must have been occasioned by my turning over two pages at once, so that I
suppose I really said, "Mr. X., you are an honest man; I will give you
ten thousand francs, but on condition that you furnish splinter-bars and
traces also for that price."</p>
<p>Still one must pay for one's pleasures, and once <i>en route</i> I
made short work of the "What-may-happen-on-the-road" section. The
sentence from which I anticipated most trouble was this: "Postilion,
stop. A spoke of one of the wheels is broken; some of the harness is
undone; a spring is also broken and one of the horses' shoes is come
off." I got out all this (without having to tell a lie too) and was just
looking feverishly through the book to find phrases to describe the
ricketty state of every other part of the vehicle when the off hind-wheel
came in half, the front axle snapped and the carriage rolled over on its
side stone dead. When I came to myself I found that I was comfortably
seated in a ditch, my driver beside me and my Vade Mecum still open in my
hand; so I had the gratification of being able to continue the
conversation where I had left off. "We should do well," I read, "to get
out."</p>
<p>I will not detain you long over the difficulties that I had with the
"Society" section. But I feel I ought to mention the business of the
Countess, if only to put intending players on their guard. There is a
puzzling phrase which occurs in answer to the observation, "Pray come
nearer the fire; I am sure you must be cold." The proper answer is, "No,
I thank you. I am very well placed here beside the Countess." It took me
a month to find a Countess, two to meet her in the drawing-room of a
mutual friend, and four to recover from the hole which the irascible
little Count made in me when we met next morning on the field of
honour.</p>
<p>So I pass sadly and with tears of chagrin to my ultimate defeat. I met
my Waterloo, my friends, in the section labelled "The Tailor." Requests
within reason I can comply with, for the fun of the thing. Eatables and
drinks, suites of rooms and carriages, when ordered on the lavish scale
of my Vade Mecum, are not exactly <i>cheap</i> now-a-days. But it's about
the limit when one's Mecum expects one to squander the savings of a
lifetime in ordering several suits of clothes at once. And yet there it
was as large as life, the accursed sentence that made me shut the book
with a snap and come home:—"These coats fit me well, though the cut
is not fashionable. I shall require also three pairs of trousers, three
nankeen pantaloons and four waistcoats."</p>
<p>If anyone feels inclined to try my patience—and theirs—I
should like to mention that I have a nice annotated Mecum and a good
second-hand carriage for disposal at a very moderate figure.</p>
<hr />
<h2>A VICTIM OF FASHION.</h2>
<p>Like everybody else that one knows, Kidger is an ex-service man.
During the last year of that war on the Continent some time ago he had
the acting rank of captain, as second in command of a six-mangle army
laundry.</p>
<p>When I knew him in pre-war days he was an amiable character, with only
two serious weaknesses. One of these was an exaggerated fastidiousness
about clothes, and the other an undue deference to the dicta of the
Press. A leader in <i>The Tailor and Cutter</i> would make him thoughtful
for days. This fatal concern about clothing amounted to a mania where
neckwear was concerned.</p>
<p>In pre-war days he wore the ordinary single, perpendicular variety of
collar, with sharp turn-over points, starched and white to match his
shirts.</p>
<p>Before leaving England to join his laundry, Kidger, with a magnificent
gesture, abandoned his fine collection of collars to his aunt, bidding
her convert them to some patriotic end. The fond lady, however, fearing
lest anything should befall her nephew if a hot sector of the line moved
up to the laundry, preserved them carefully, and Kidger was very glad to
reclaim them on his demobilisation.</p>
<p>One unfortunate day Kidger's morning paper contained one of those
Fashions for Men columns, where he learned that the best people were
wearing only soft collars, as they couldn't stand being cooped up in
starch after the freedom of uniform. Kidger felt that as an ex-army man
it was up to him to maintain any military tradition, and he immediately
bought several dozen, soft white collars with long sharp points. The
fellow in the shop said they were correct.</p>
<p>A week later another expert mentioned in print that no man who had any
self-respect wore collars with sharp corners.</p>
<p>Kidger is not a manual worker. He reduced his cigarette allowance and
bought some round-cornered ones, white as before. And then his aunt
directed the poor fellow's attention to <span class="pagenum"><a
name="page97" id="page97"></a>[pg 97]</span> a paragraph by an authority
signing himself "The Colonel," which stated that none but the profiteer
was wearing white collars, and that you might know the man who had done
his bit by the fact that he wore a blue one with slightly rounded
corners, accompanied by a self-coloured tie of a darker shade, tied in a
neat butterfly bow.</p>
<p>This was a blow to Kidger, but he resigned from his golf club and laid
in some haberdashery in accordance with "The Colonel's" orders.
Recommendations would be too mild a word. I saw the paragraph—most
peremptory.</p>
<p>But in a rival paper "Brigadier" mentioned only three days later that
none but the most noxious bounder and tout would be found dead in a blue
collar with a white shirt. Kidger saw the truth of this at once; he had
receptivity if not intuition. After a trying interview with his banker he
bought several blue shirts.</p>
<p>Then the General who contributes "Sartorial Tips" to several leading
journals remarked that, since all kinds of people were wearing coloured
shirts and collars, the man who desired to retain or achieve that touch
of distinction which means so much must at any cost wear white ones; and
that, further, Society was frowning on the slovenly unstarched neck-wear
of the relapsed temporary gentleman.</p>
<p>Kidger began to show signs of neurasthenia. His stock of pre-war
collars was exhausted, or rather eroded. His faithful aunt, however,
remembered a neglected birthday and gave him a dozen new ones, of the
up-and-down model, to save Kidger's delicate neck. These, with his nice
butterfly-bow ties, looked really well, and Kidger recovered his old
form.</p>
<p>I warned him to keep to the police and Parliamentary news in the
papers, but his eyes would wander. The result was that he learned from
"Brigade Major" that the wearing of a butterfly bow with a double event
collar was a solecism past forgiveness or repentance, and that its smart
appearance was the deadly bait which caught the miserable bumpkin who
ignorantly fancied that a man could dress by the light of nature.</p>
<p>Kidger collapsed. His aunt volunteered to sell her annuity and help
him, but the innate nobility of the man forbade him to accept this
useless sacrifice.</p>
<p>His medical attendant tells me that he is now allowed to read only
poetry, wearing a sweater meanwhile, and that arrangements are being made
for him to join a sheep-farming cousin in Patagonia, where collars are
despised and newspapers invariably out of date.</p>
<p class="author">W.K.H.</p>
<hr />
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/094.png"><img width="100%" src="images/094.png"
alt="I told 'ee to grease the wheels." /></a>
<div class="i16">
<p><i>She.</i> "<font class="sc">I told 'ee to grease the wheels afore
we come out</font>."</p>
<p><i>He.</i> "<font class="sc">It be as much as I can do to keep up
with it as 'tis</font>."</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<blockquote>
<h4>A Superfluous Announcement.</h4>
<p>"The Government have found it impossible to proceed with the
Government of Ireland before the Autumn Session."—<i>Daily
Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"Clerk (Junior) Wanted for Spinners' Office, age
1617.—<i>Yorkshire Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>"Junior," we take it, is a misprint.</p>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id="page98"></a>[pg 98]</span>
<h3>EDWARD AND THE B.O.F.</h3>
<p>It was the first Sunday of the season, and the select end of
Folkesbourne revealed in each carefully curled geranium leaf, in each
carefully-combed blade of grass, the thought and labour expended by the
B.O.F. (Borough of Folkesbourne).</p>
<p>Upon the greensward stood orderly rows of well-washed chairs, each
with B.O.F. neatly stencilled upon its back. On this day, however, and at
this hour (12.30 <font class="sc">p.m.</font>) scarce a B.O.F. was
visible; each was hidden by a well-dressed visitor. And between the
orderly rows of well-dressed visitors paraded orderly pairs of
superbly-dressed visitors.</p>
<p>I was standing at the corner by the steps leading to the lower parade
and thence to the beach and the rocks where the common people (myself on
week-days, for instance) go to paddle with their children. I was wearing
my new pale-grey suit which cost—but you will know more or less
what it cost; I need not labour an unpleasant subject—and I was
actually talking at the time to a member of the B.O.F.</p>
<p>"This is Peace at last," he was saying; "the place really begins to
look—"</p>
<p>It was at this moment that Edward appeared. His route was the very
centre of the lawn. He was wearing a battered Panama hat, a much-darned
brownish jersey, and his nether man—or rather boy, for Edward's
years are but four—was encased in paddling drawers made of the same
material as a sponge-bag. Black sand-shoes completed his outfit, and a
broken shrimping-net trailed behind him. At the moment when Edward first
caught my horrified eye a particularly well-groomed young gentleman of
about his own age caught Edward's eye in turn. Edward paused to survey
this silken wonder with interest. Then, as if prompted thereto by the
sight, he snatched off his hat and, casting it upon the ground, kicked it
vigorously across the grass.</p>
<p>The removal of the hat was the last straw, for Edward's hair is
provocatively red. My friend of the B.O.F. advanced towards him with the
intention of exerting authority and restoring discipline. Edward turned
at the sound of a stern voice. Possibly he might have put out his
tongue—you never know with Edward. But, what was worse, far worse,
he saw me. With a glad cry of "Daddy" he rushed to me and, regardless of
the fact that his front was covered with green slime, the result of going
<i>ventre à pierre</i> over the rocks, he flung his arms round my
legs.</p>
<p>I would gladly have sunk into the ground. All eyes were upon us, and
remained, as I felt, upon me, even when a breathless nursery-maid had
retrieved Edward and borne him seawards once more.</p>
<p>One especially I had noticed, a very superbly dressed female visitor
who had paused to witness the whole scene and was now resuming her
promenade. I dreaded the comment which I felt I should overhear as she
passed me—"What a horrible child!" it would be at the very least.
But women are strangely unaccountable, even in so highly civilised an
atmosphere as this. I distinctly heard her say, "What a darling!"</p>
<hr />
<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;">
<a href="images/095.png"><img width="100%" src="images/095.png"
alt="Those who tell untruths never get to Heaven." /></a>
<p><i>Mother.</i> "<font class="sc">It is very naughty to tell
untruths, Kitty. Those who do so never get to Heaven</font>."</p>
<p><i>Kitty.</i> "<font class="sc">Didn't you ever tell an untruth,
Mummy</font>?"</p>
<p><i>Mother.</i> "<font class="sc">No, dear—never</font>."</p>
<p><i>Kitty.</i> "<font class="sc">Well, you'll be fearfully lonely,
won't you, with only George Washington</font>?"</p>
</div>
<hr />
<h4>The Horrors of Peace.</h4>
<blockquote>
<p>"Wanted.—Boy for Butchering, about 15 years old."—<i>Local
Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Extract from a solicitor's letter:—</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The sale of the above premises is now nearing completion and we
expect to have the conveyance ready for execution in the course of a
short period the length of which depends to some extent upon how soon we
can obtain the execution of the Bishop."</p>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3>NEO-TOPICS.</h3>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>There was a young neo-<font class="sc">Delane</font></p>
<p>Whose writing was frequently sane;</p>
<p class="i4">But the name of <font class="sc">Lloyd George</font></p>
<p class="i4">So uplifted his gorge</p>
<p>That it threatened to swallow his brain.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>There was an adored neo-Queen</p>
<p>Who ruled the whole world on the screen;</p>
<p class="i4">She simply knocked spots</p>
<p class="i4">Off poor <font class="sc">Mary of Scots</font>,</p>
<p>But she doubled the gloom of our Dean.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>There was an advanced neo-Georgian,</p>
<p>Or perhaps we should say Georgy-Porgian,</p>
<p class="i4">When asked to declare</p>
<p class="i4">What his principles were,</p>
<p>He invariably answered, "Pro-Borgian."</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>There was a great neo-Art critic</p>
<p>Whose style was extremely mephitic;</p>
<p class="i4">He treated <font class="sc">van Gogh</font></p>
<p class="i4">And <font class="sc">Cézanne</font> as dead dog,</p>
<p>And <font class="sc">John</font> as a growth parasitic.</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<h4>Our Bloated Pluralists.</h4>
<blockquote>
<p>"Wanted, Organist. Small country church. Salary £20. Good lodgings.
(Could be held with post of Milker on Manor Farm; permanent work; Sundays
free; ample salary.)"—<i>Church Times.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"The Grimsby trawler Silurian has towed Sir George Grahame, Minister
Plenipotentiary in Paris, to be his Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary to the King of the Belgians."—<i>Provincial
Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>We really think the Government might have provided him with a
torpedo-boat.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"The one thing which the Cabinet does not intend to do is to authorise
the proclamation of marital law. It would engage far too many
troops."—<i>Provincial Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Irish girls are <i>so</i> attractive.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"A friend of mine bought from a bookseller who was also, oddly enough,
a bibliophile himself, a copy of Arnold's very rare book, <i>The Strayed
Revetter</i>, by A. He gave 6d. It is worth £5."—<i>Book
Post.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Surely more than that!</p>
<hr class="short" />
<blockquote>
<p>"An Ipswichomnibus pushed its bonnet through the window of a millinery
shop."—<i>Daily Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This intelligent animal (believed to be the female of the
Brontosaurus) was probably seeking a change of headgear.</p>
<hr />
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" id="page99"></a>[pg 99]</span>
<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/096.png"><img width="100%" src="images/096.png"
alt="The profiteer." /></a>
<div class="i16">
<p><i>Tripper.</i> "<font class="sc">I've a bloomin' good mind to
report you for profiteering.</font>"</p>
<p><i>Old Salt.</i> "<font class="sc">What yer talkin'
about?</font>"</p>
<p><i>Tripper.</i> "<font class="sc">Well, them shrimps I bought off
you. One of em's got only one eye.</font>"</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
<p class="center">(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</p>
<p>I rather wish that the publishers of <i>Invincible Minnie</i> (<font
class="sc">Hodder and Stoughton</font>) had not permitted themselves to
print upon the wrapper either their own comments or those of Miss <font
class="sc">Elisabeth Sanxay Holding</font>, the author. Because for my
part, reading these, I formed the idea (entirely wrong) that the book
would be in some way pretentious and affected; whereas it is the simple
truth to call it the most mercilessly impersonal piece of fiction that I
think I ever read. There is far too much plot for me to give you any but
a suggestion of it. The story is of the lives of two sisters,
<i>Frances</i> and <i>Minnie</i>; mostly (as the title implies) of
<i>Minnie</i>. To say that no one but a woman would have dared to imagine
such a heroine, much less to follow her, through every phase of
increasing hatefulness, to her horrid conclusion is to state an obvious
truism. It is incidentally also to give you some idea of the kind of
person <i>Minnie</i> is, that female Moloch, devastating,
all-sacrificing, beyond restraint.... As for Miss <font
class="sc">Holding</font>, the publishers turned out to be within the
mark in claiming for her "a new voice." I don't, indeed, for the moment
recall any voice in the least like it, or any such method; too honest for
irony, too detached for sentiment and, as I said above, entirely
merciless. Towards the end I found myself falling back on the old
frightened protest, "People don't do these things." I still cling to this
belief, but the fact remains that Miss <font class="sc">Holding</font>
has a haunting trick of persuading one that they might. Minor faults,
such as an irritating idiom and some carelessness of form, she will no
doubt correct; meanwhile you have certainly got to read—"to suffer"
would be the apter word—this remarkable book, whose reception I
await with curiosity.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>A much misunderstood man is Count <font class="sc">Bernstorff</font>,
formerly German Ambassador at Washington. While we were all supposing him
to be a bomb-laden conspirator, pulling secret strings in Mexico or
Canada or Japan from the safe protection afforded to his embassy, really
he was the most innocent of men, anxious for nothing but to keep
unsophisticated America from being trapped by the wiles of the villain
Britisher. One has it all on the best of authority—his own—in
<i>My Three Years in America</i> (<font class="sc">Skeffington</font>).
Of course awkward incidents did occur, which have to be explained away or
placidly ignored, but really, if the warlords at home had not been so
invincibly tactless in the matter of drowning citizens of the United
States, this simple and ingenuous diplomat might very well have
succeeded, he would have us believe, in persuading President <font
class="sc">Wilson</font> to declare in favour of a peace-loving
All-Highest. As an essay in special pleading the book does not lack
ingenuity, and as an example of the familiar belief that other peoples
will shut their eyes and swallow whatever opinions the Teuton thinks good
to offer them, it may have interest for the psychologist. For the rest it
is a very prosy piece of literature, only saved occasionally in its
dulness by the unconscious crudity of the hatreds lurking beneath its
mask of plausibility. One of these hatreds is clearly directed against
Ambassador <font class="sc">Gerard</font>, to whose well-known book this
volume is in some sort a counter-blast. Neither a historian seeking truth
nor a plain reader seeking recreation will have any difficulty in
choosing between them.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>Mr. D.A. <font class="sc">Barker</font>, in <i>The Great Leviathan</i>
(<font class="sc">Lane</font>), doesn't merely leave you to make the
obvious remark about his having taken Mr. H.G. <font
class="sc">Well's</font> loose, tangential and, for a beginner,
extraordinarily dangerous method as a model, <span class="pagenum"><a
name="page100" id="page100"></a>[pg 100]</span> but rubs it in (stout
fellow!) by transplanting his hero to India, seemingly in order to have
excuse for writing a passage which one would say was obviously inspired
by that gorgeous description of the jungle in <i>The Research
Magnificent</i>. Mr. <font class="sc">Barker</font> has enough matter for
two (or three) novels and enough skill in portraiture to make them more
coherent and plausible than this. The theme is old but freshly seen.
<i>Tom Seton</i>, resolved to avoid risking for his beloved the
unhappiness which his mother had found in the bondage of marriage, offers
her—indeed imposes on her—a free union. How the pressure of
<i>The Great Leviathan</i> (<i>Mrs. Grundy</i>—well, that's not
perhaps quite the whole of the idea, but it will serve) drove her into
the shelter of a formal marriage with a devoted don, I leave you to
gather. I don't think the author quite succeeds in making <i>Mary's</i>
defection inevitable, nor do I see the significance of the apparently
quite irrelevant background of Indian philosophy and intrigue. But here's
a well-written book, with sound positive qualities outweighing the
defects of inexperience.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>Captain <font class="sc">Alan Bott</font> ("Contact") has a literary
gift of a high order, the gift of getting the very last thrill out of his
experiences while telling his tale in the simplest and most
straightforward way. In <i>Eastern Nights</i> (<font
class="sc">Blackwood</font>) he describes his adventures as a prisoner of
the Turks, first in Damascus and Asia Minor and finally in
Constantinople. The narrative, which is purely one of action, the action
being supplied by the efforts, finally successful, of the author and
various brother-officers to escape from their most unattractive
captivity, nevertheless offers a most vivid picture of the social fabric
of the Near East and in particular of the attitude of the <i>mélange</i>
of Oriental peoples that comprised the Turkish Empire towards the War in
which they found themselves taking part, most of them with reluctance and
all inefficiently. Apathy rather than calculated brutality was chiefly
responsible for the hardships suffered by the prisoners of war of all
nations who were unfortunate enough to fall into Turkish hands. From the
point of view of an officer determined to escape, however, the prevalence
of this quality was not without its advantage. Most of the officials
(Turks and Germans excepted) with whom Captain <font
class="sc">Bott</font> and his fellow-officers had to do were pro-Ally at
heart and ready enough to assist an escaping prisoner if they did not
happen to be too timid. And even the Turk was amenable on occasion to
baksheesh. Altogether a most fascinating book, <i>Eastern Nights</i> is
likely to win wide appreciation not alone for its literary merit but as a
stirring record of the courage and resource, under desperate and trying
conditions, of the Empire's soldiers.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>Miss <font class="sc">Henrietta Leslie</font> belongs to the school of
novelists who believe in telling you all about their characters and
leaving you to pass judgment on them yourself, without expert assistance.
It is a fine impartial method which succeeds in representing life and the
indecisiveness of human nature very well; but such books somehow lack the
glow of more partisan writings. In <i>A Mouse with Wings</i> (<font
class="sc">Collins</font>) she tells the story of a woman's life from the
time of her engagement until her son is a young man and she herself
married again. <i>Olga</i> is a splendid creature, but, as Miss <font
class="sc">Leslie</font> cleverly lets you see for yourself, the belief
in her own principles and their application, which is the essence of her
character, alienates her husband and makes something like a ninny of
<i>Arnold</i>, her son. <i>A Mouse with Wings</i> is not only the
sobriquet of <i>Beryl</i>, the cheerful young Suffragette whom he loves,
but has its application also to poor <i>Arnold</i>, who finds the courage
to face life and a way out of it fighting in France. It is a
nicely-written book with a little air of distinction, but, in case anyone
should blame me for hushing it up, I ought to mention that both
<i>Olga</i> and <i>Beryl</i> would probably have admired <i>Arnold</i> a
great deal more had he "found himself" by way of Conscientious
Objection.</p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>I can testify that Mr. <font class="sc">Zane Grey's</font> <i>The Man
of the Forest</i> (<font class="sc">Hodder and Stoughton</font>) is a
yarn told with considerable zest and with just that undercurrent of
sentiment which sweeps large portions of the British public completely
off its feet. In this book the heroine, <i>Helen Rayner</i>, and her
sister, <i>Bo</i>, leave Missouri for their uncle's ranch in New Mexico;
but before they reach their destination many and wonderful adventures
befall them. To escape from being kidnapped by some superb scoundrels
they were hustled off to <i>Milt Dale's</i> home in the forest, and there
they had for a long time to remain. <i>Milt</i> was one of nature's
gentlemen, but as his boon companion was a cougar (whose uninviting
picture is to be seen upon the paper cover), this forest home had its
slight inconveniences. Mr. <font class="sc">Grey</font>, however, writes
of it so admirably that he almost persuades me to be a camper-out,
provided always that I may live in a cavern and not in a caravan.
Cowboys, bandits, Mormons and other vigorous characters keep things
moving at a terrific pace. But stirringly full of incident as this tale
is, Mr. <font class="sc">Grey</font> never forgets that it is love that
really makes the world go round. He is in short a born storyteller, with
a style by no means to be despised, and I see no reason why his
popularity should not continue to wax here, and ultimately to rival its
American magnitude.</p>
<hr />
<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;">
<a href="images/097.png"><img width="100%" src="images/097.png"
alt="ATMOSPHERE IN OUR RIVER BUNGALOWS." /></a>
<p class="center">ATMOSPHERE IN OUR RIVER BUNGALOWS.</p>
<p><i>Hostess</i> (<i>to her husband, just arrived from Town</i>).
"<font class="sc">You've forgotten the chop-sticks, John. You've spoilt
the party</font>!"</p>
</div>
<hr />
<h4>Another Geddes Promotion.</h4>
<blockquote>
<p>"Among celebrities who will watch British seamanship matched against
American are Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and
Sir Auckland Geddes, British Admiral to the United
States."—<i>Canadian Paper.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<pre>
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