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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159,
+August 25th, 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 25th, 1920
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: September 20, 2005 [EBook #16727]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Keith Edkins and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 159.
+
+
+
+August 25th, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+"What we have got to do," says Lord ROTHERMERE, "is to keep calm and mind
+our own business, instead of worrying about the affairs of every other
+nation." It seems only fair to point out that _The Daily News_ thought of
+this as long ago as August, 1914.
+
+* * *
+
+Gooseberries the size of bantams' eggs, says a news item, won a prize at
+the Deeside Horticultural Show. When we remember the giant gooseberries of
+a decade ago it rather looks as if the nation were losing its nerve.
+
+* * *
+
+With reference to the messenger seen running in Whitehall the other day a
+satisfactory explanation has now been given. He was doing it for the
+cinema.
+
+* * *
+
+The average Scot, says an Anti-Prohibition writer, cannot stand many
+drinks. Our experience supports this view; but he can be stood a good many.
+
+* * *
+
+A picture-paper gossip states that Mr. CHURCHILL enjoys very good health.
+Just a touch of writer's cramp now and then, of course.
+
+* * *
+
+In a recent riot in Londonderry, it is stated, a number of inoffensive
+neutrals were set upon and beaten by rowdies of both factions. We have
+constantly maintained that Irish unity can always be secured when there is
+something really worth uniting over.
+
+* * *
+
+A lighthouse is advertised for sale in _The Times_. It is said to be just
+the kind of residence for a tall man with sloping shoulders.
+
+* * *
+
+A correspondent asks in the weekly press for a new name for charabancs. We
+wish we could think there was any use in calling them names.
+
+* * *
+
+Seaside bathers are advised not to enter the water after a heavy meal. The
+seaside visitor who could pay for such a meal would naturally not have
+enough left to pay for a bathing-machine.
+
+* * *
+
+A Thames bargee was knocked down by a taxi-cab at Kingston-on-Thames last
+week. A well-known firm has offered to publish his remarks in fortnightly
+parts.
+
+* * *
+
+The West Dulwich man who struck a rate-collector on the head with a
+telephone claims credit for finding some use for these instruments.
+
+* * *
+
+Sir ERIC DRUMMOND has purchased the largest hotel in Geneva on behalf of
+the League of Nations. It is said that he has been taking lessons from Sir
+ALFRED MOND.
+
+* * *
+
+Following closely upon the announcement of the noiseless gun invented in
+New York comes the news that they have now invented some sound-proof bacon
+for export to this country.
+
+* * *
+
+It is stated that the man who last week said he understood the Rent Act was
+eventually pinned down by some friends and handed over to the care of his
+relatives.
+
+* * *
+
+According to a morning paper another Antarctic expedition is to be
+organised very shortly. We understand that only those who can stand a
+northern wind on all four sides need apply.
+
+* * *
+
+It is reported that a poultry-farmer in the West of England is making a
+fortune by giving his hens whisky to drink and then exporting their eggs to
+the United States.
+
+* * *
+
+A golf-ball was recently driven through the window of an express train near
+Knebworth. We are informed however that the player who struck the ball
+still maintains that the engine-driver deliberately ignored his shout of
+"Fore."
+
+* * *
+
+An amazing report reaches us from Yorkshire. It appears that a centenarian
+has been discovered who is unable to read without glasses or even to walk
+to market once a week.
+
+* * *
+
+The unveiling of one of the largest Peace memorials in the country is to
+take place on Armistice day this year. We hear that both the PREMIER and
+Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL have expressed a desire to attend unless prevented by
+the War.
+
+* * *
+
+Smart furriers, declares a fashion-paper, are pushing Beveren blue rabbit
+as one of the chic furs for the coming winter. The rabbit, our contemporary
+goes on to explain (superfluously, as it seems to us), is naturally blue.
+
+* * *
+
+On a recent occasion a meeting of the Dolgelly Rural Council had to be
+postponed, the members being absent hay-making. Parliament, on the other
+hand, has had to stop making hay owing to the Members being away in the
+country.
+
+* * *
+
+The Ministry of Food states that the period of normal supplies seems to
+come round in cycles of four years. Meanwhile the period of abnormal prices
+continues to come round in cycles of once a week. A movement in favour of
+postponing the cycle of payment till we get the cycle of plenty is not
+receiving adequate support from the provision trade.
+
+* * *
+
+Agricultural labourers near Peterborough have refused to work with Irishmen
+on the ground that the latter are troublesome. We always said that sooner
+or later someone would come round to Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S view on this point.
+
+* * *
+
+A newspaper reports the case of a waiter who refused a tip. It is said that
+the gentleman who offered it is making a slow recovery and may be able to
+take a little fish this week.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Caller._ "EXCHANGE? GET ME DOUBLE-SIX DOUBLE-FIVE NINE
+CENTRAL--AND GET IT QUICK, LIKE THEY DO IT ON THE PICTURES."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE GROWTH OF THE SIDE-CAR.
+
+    "MOTOR CARS, CYCLES, _&c._
+
+    ARGYLL.--2 Bedrooms and sitting-room, with attendance."--_Scotch
+    Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "BRIGHTON ELECTRIC RAILWAY.
+
+    PALACE PIER AND KEMP TOWN CARS EVERY FIVE YEARS."--_Local Paper._
+
+It is inferred that the Ministry of Transport has assumed control.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AN APOLOGY TO THE BENCH.
+
+_Humbly addressed to T.E.S._
+
+  If ever, where you hold the Seat of Doom,
+    I stand, my Lord, before you at the Bar,
+  And my forensic fame, a virgin bloom,
+    Lies in your awful hands to make or mar,
+  Let it not prejudice my case, I pray,
+    If you should call to mind a previous meeting
+  When on a champion course the other day
+    I gave your Lordship four strokes and a beating.
+
+  I own it savoured of contempt of court,
+    Hinted of disrespect toward the Bench,
+  That I should chuckle when your pitch was short
+    Or smile to see you in the sanded trench;
+  But Golf (so I extenuate my sin)
+    Brings all men level, like the greens they putt on;
+  One common bunker makes the whole world kin,
+    And Bar may scrap with Beak, and I with SCR-TT-N.
+
+  Nor did I give myself superior airs;
+    I made allowance for defective sight;
+  "The bandage which impartial Justice wears
+    Leaves you," I said, "a stranger to the light;
+  Habituated to the sword and scales,
+    If you commit some pardonable blunder,
+  If" (I remarked) "your nerve at moments fails
+    With grosser ironmongery, where's the wonder?"
+
+  So may the Law's High Majesty o'erlook
+    My rash presumption; may the memory die
+  Of how I won the match (and further took
+    The liberty of mopping up the bye);
+  Remember just a happy morning's round,
+    Also the fact that this alleged old fogey
+  Played at the last hole like a book and downed
+    The barely human feat of Colonel Bogey.
+
+  O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+IF WE ALL TOOK TO MARGOTRY.
+
+[Mrs. ASQUITH'S feuilleton, which for so many people has transformed Sunday
+into a day of unrest, sets up a new method of autobiography, in which the
+protagonist is, so to speak, both JOHNSON and BOSWELL too. Successful
+models being always imitated we may expect to see a general use of her
+lively methods; and as a matter of fact I have been able already, through
+the use of a patent futurist reading-glass (invented by Signer Margoni), to
+get glimpses of two forthcoming reminiscent works of the future which, but
+for the _chronique egoistique_ of the moment might never have been written,
+and certainly not in their present interlocutory shape.]
+
+I.
+
+FROM "FIRST AID TO LITERATURE."
+
+By _Edmund Gosse_.
+
+... Not the least interesting and delicate of my duties as a confidential
+adviser were connected with a work of reminiscences which created some stir
+in the nineteen-twenties. How it came about I cannot recollect, but it was
+thought that my poor assistance as a friendly censor of a too florid
+exuberance in candour might not be of disservice to the book, and I
+accepted the invitation. The volume being by no means yet relegated to
+oblivion's dusty shelves I am naturally reluctant to refer to it with such
+particularity as might enable my argus-eyed reader to identify it and my
+own unworthy share therein, and therefore in the following dialogue,
+typical of many between the author and myself, I disguise her name under an
+initial. _Quis custodiet?_ It would be grotesque indeed if one whose
+special mission was to correct the high spirits of others should himself
+fail in good taste.
+
+_Mrs. A. (laying down the MS. with a bang)._ I see nothing but blue pencil
+marks, and blue was never my colour. Why are you so anxious that I should
+be discreet? Indiscretion is the better part of authorship.
+
+_EDMUND (earnestly)._ It is your fame of which I am thinking. If you adopt
+my emendations you will go down to history as the writer of the best book
+of reminiscences in English.
+
+_Mrs. A. (with fervour)._ I don't want to go down to history. I want to
+stay here and make it. And you (_with emotion_)--you have cramped my style.
+I can't think why I asked you to help.
+
+_EDMUND._ Everyone asks me to help. It is my destiny. I am the Muses'
+_amicus curiae_.
+
+_Mrs. A._ Oh, blow Latin! (_Lighting two cigarettes at once_) What's the
+good of reminiscences of to-day, by me, without anything about L.G.?
+
+_EDMUND._ Dear lady, it would never have done. Be reasonable. There are
+occasions when reticence is imperative.
+
+_Mrs. A._ Reticence! What words you use!
+
+(_Caetera desunt._)
+
+II.
+
+FROM "A WEEK IN LOVELY LUCERNE."
+
+By _D. Lloyd George_.
+
+... I do not say that the mountains hereabout are not more considerable
+than those of our own beloved Wales, but as material to be employed in
+perorations they are far inferior. There is not the requisite mist (which
+may symbolise ignorance or obstinacy or any temporary disturbance or
+opposition), later to be dispelled by the strong beams of the sun
+(representing either progress generally or prime-ministerial genius or pure
+Coalitionism). Other local features I felt, however, I might find
+rhetorically useful, such as THORWALDSEN'S Lion, so noble, so--so leonine,
+but doomed ever to adhere to the rock, how symbolic of a strong idealist
+unable to translate his ameliorative plans into action! The old bridge too,
+uniting the two sides of the city, as one can attempt to link Radicalism
+and Coalitionism--how long could it endure? And so on. One's brain was
+never idle.
+
+It was while we were at Lucerne that LORD RIDDELL and I had some of our
+most significant conversations. I set them down just as they occurred,
+extenuating nothing and concealing nothing.
+
+_LORD RIDDELL (with emotion)._ You are in excellent form to-day. Lucerne
+now has two lions--one of them free.
+
+_DAVID (surprised)._ I free? (_Sadly_) You forget that GIOLITTI is coming.
+
+_LORD RIDDELL._ But that is nothing to you. Try him with your Italian and
+he will soon go.
+
+_DAVID._ You are a true friend. You always hearten me.
+
+_LORD RIDDELL (with more emotion)._ But you are so wonderful, so wonderful!
+And now for to-day's amusements. Where shall we go? Up Mount Pilatus or to
+WILLIAM TELL'S Chapel?
+
+_DAVID._ There is something irresistible to a Welshman in the word chapel.
+Let us go there. And WILLIAM TELL, was he not a patriot? Did he not defy
+the tyrant? I am sure that in his modest conventicle I can think of a
+thousand eloquent things. Let us go there.
+
+_LORD RIDDELL._ My hero! my dauntless hero!
+
+E.V.L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Even with a round of 73 in the morning Ray fell behind Vardon, who
+    accomplished a remarkable round of 17 to lead the field."--_Provincial
+    Paper._
+
+This is believed to be the first occasion on which any golfer has
+accomplished two holes in one shot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "THE LION OF LUCERNE."
+
+MR. LLOYD GEORGE (_having jodelled heavily_). "NOT A SINGLE DISSENTIENT
+ECHO! THIS IS THE SORT OF PEACE CONFERENCE I LIKE." (_Continues to
+jodel_.)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mabel (in barefaced attempt to detain Mother when saying
+"Good-night")._ "OH, MUMMY, I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU A STORY ABOUT THREE
+LITTLE BOYS."
+
+_Mother._ "NO, NO; GO TO SLEEP. THERE'S NO TIME TO TELL A STORY ABOUT THREE
+LITTLE BOYS."
+
+_Mabel._ "WELL, THEN, LET ME TELL YOU A STORY ABOUT _TWO_ LITTLE BOYS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE RABBITS GAME.
+
+"Don't forget to say 'Rabbits' to-morrow," said Angela. Angela is aged nine
+and my younger sister; I am thirteen and my name is Anne.
+
+We both looked inquiringly at Father, and, as he didn't seem to remember,
+Angela in pained surprise began to explain. "If you say 'Rabbits' before
+you say anything else on the first day of a month you get a present during
+the month, but you mustn't say anything else first, or you won't."
+
+It all came out in one breath and, though it looks clear enough now, Father
+was very stupid.
+
+"I dislike rabbits," he said, "and I am very busy; your Mother will
+probably be glad of them for the servants."
+
+The rebuke in Angela's eyes was severe. "We haven't got any rabbits," she
+said; "we are only going to say 'Rabbits' to-morrow morning when we wake up
+and we thought you might like to do the same."
+
+"Oh, I should," said Father; "thank you very much, I won't forget." And he
+wrote "Rabbits" down on his blotting-paper. "Now go and tell your Mother;
+she would like to say 'Rabbits' too, I know."
+
+That seemed to terminate the interview, so we left him; but altogether it
+was not very satisfactory. You see, when we had "Bon-jour-Philippines,"
+Father used to provide the presents; at least that was some time ago; we
+haven't had any "Bon-jour-Philippines" lately. The last time we did, Jack,
+that is my brother at Oxford, found one and split it with Father, and the
+next morning he said, "Bon-jour-Philippine" first and then asked for a
+present. Father asked him what he wanted, and he gave Father a letter that
+he had had that morning. Father got very angry and said that it was a
+disgrace the way tailors allowed credit to young wasters nowadays. He
+didn't say it quite like that, it was rather worse, and Mother said, "Hush,
+dear; remember the children," and Father said that they were all as bad and
+in the conspiracy to ruin him, and he went out of the room and banged the
+door.
+
+Mother told Jack that he should have chosen a better moment, and Jack owned
+he had made a mistake and said that he ought to have got it in before
+Father had looked at the paper and seen the latest news of LLOYD GEORGE. I
+don't quite know what he meant, but Father often talks about LLOYD GEORGE,
+and he must be a beast.
+
+I asked Jack later if he got his present, and he said that he had, but--and
+here he copied Father's voice so well that I had to laugh--"It is the very
+last time, my boy; when I was at Oxford I used to consider my Father, and I
+would have worked in the fields and earned money sooner than have given him
+bills to pay." Jack said that he knew one of the dons at Oxford who knew
+Father, and from what he said he thought that Father must have spent as
+long in the fields as NEBUCHADNEZZAR did.
+
+I remembered all this as I went to find mother about "Rabbits," and I
+wasn't quite sure that we should get our present even if we did say it, so
+I told Angela, and she had a brilliant idea. "We will make Father say
+'Rabbits' and give him a present ourselves, and he is sure to give us
+something in return." Angela is younger than I am, but she often thinks
+quite clever things like that, and they come in very useful sometimes.
+
+We went to the summer-house in the garden to make plans. First we thought
+what would be the best present to give Father. Last Christmas we gave him a
+pipe, and he said that it was just what he wanted; it cost ninepence and
+was made like a man's head, and you put the tobacco in a hole in his hat.
+
+Father lit it at once after breakfast, but two days after I saw Jakes the
+gardener smoking it. We thought at first that he had stolen it, and I went
+to Father, but he said that Jakes had thirteen children, and when a man was
+in trouble like that you ought to give up what you valued most to try to
+make that man happy, and that Jakes was awfully pleased when he gave him
+the pipe.
+
+You see that made it very difficult, as we had to get something that Father
+would like and Jakes too, as he still had thirteen children; and then I
+remembered that Mrs. Jakes had once looked at a woollen jumper that I had
+on, and said that it would be just the thing for her Mary Ann, who had a
+delicate chest, and Jakes would be sure to like what Mrs. Jakes liked, or
+else he wouldn't have married her. Of course a jumper wasn't really the
+sort of thing that Father could wear, but I thought he might wrap his foot
+up in it when he next had gout, and besides I shouldn't be wanting it much
+more myself, as the summer was coming on.
+
+Angela said that she thought that would do well, and she wouldn't mind
+giving Father her jumper next month if he said "Rabbits," and it would do
+for Mrs. Jakes' next little girl.
+
+So that was decided, and then we had to arrange the plan. The most
+important thing was for us to wake before Father, so that we could wake him
+and remind him before he had time to say anything else, and Angela
+remembered that Ellen, that's the housemaid, had an alarm clock, which she
+used to set at a quarter to six each morning. We waited until Ellen had
+gone downstairs and then took it and hid it in Angela's bed.
+
+Next morning the clock went off. We were both rather frightened, and it was
+very cold and the room looked funny, as the blinds hadn't been pulled up,
+but we put our dressing-gowns on. Then Angela said that she had heard that
+if you woke a person who was walking in their sleep they sometimes called
+out, so I took a pair of stockings from the basket that had just come back
+from the wash to hold over Father's mouth while we woke him. They were
+waiting to be mended and had a hole in them, but that didn't matter much,
+as I screwed them up tight, and then we went into Father's room. They were
+both asleep, and Father had his mouth open all ready for the stockings,
+which was very lucky, as I was wondering how I could get them in.
+
+We crept up to the bed, and I know I shivered, and I think Angela did too,
+as I was holding her hand. Then she called out "Boo" as loud as she could,
+and I stuffed the stockings into Father's mouth, and then they both woke
+up, and everything went wrong.
+
+Mother thought the house was on fire and screamed, and it made Angela begin
+to cry. I quite forgot to tell Father to say "Rabbits," and just pressed
+the stockings further into his mouth.
+
+Father struggled and made awful noises, and when he did get the stockings
+out the things he said weren't a bit like "Rabbits," and the only thing
+that he did say that I could write down here was that he thought he was
+going to be sick. The rest was dreadful.
+
+We were both sent back to bed, and that morning as a punishment we were not
+allowed into the dining-room until Father and Mother had finished their
+breakfast; and Angela, who often thinks quite clever things, said that we
+had better not do "Rabbits" again for a good long time. But after all it
+didn't matter much as the weather got a great deal colder, and I wore my
+jumper a lot, and so did Angela.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "LOOK 'ERE--THIS ARF-CROWN WON'T DO. IT AIN'T GOT NO MILLING
+ON ITS HEDGE."
+
+"BLIMY! NOR IT 'AS! I _KNEW_ I'D FORGOTTEN SOMEFINK."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FLOWERS' NAMES.
+
+          DAME'S DELIGHT.
+
+  There was a Lady walked a wood;
+  She never smiled, nor never could.
+  One day a sunbeam from the South
+  Kissed full her petulant proud mouth;
+  She laughed, and there, beneath the trees,
+  Fluttering in the April breeze,
+  Spread tracts of blossom, green and white,
+  Curtseying to the golden light--
+  The broken laugh of Dame's Delight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FIRST LOVE AND LAST.
+
+    [It is pointed out by a contemporary that the dressmaker's waxen model
+    has quite lost her old insipid air. The latest examples of the
+    modeller's art show the "glad eye" and features with which "any man
+    might fall in love."]
+
+  In the days when I started to toddle
+    I loved with a frenzy sublime
+  A dressmaker's beauteous model--
+    I think I was three at the time;
+  She was fair in the foolish old fashion,
+    And they found me again and again
+  With my nose in an access of passion
+          Glued tight to the pane.
+
+  But I thought they were gone past returning
+    Till Time should go back on his tracks,
+  Those days of a child's undiscerning
+    But fervent devotion to wax;
+  Could a heart, though admittedly restive,
+    Recapture that innocent mood
+  At sixty next birthday? I'm blest if
+          I thought that it could.
+
+  But Art, ever bent on progression,
+    Has taken the model in hand,
+  And brought in the line of succession
+    A figure more pleasingly planned;
+  Her eyes with the gladdest of glances,
+    Her lips and her hair and her cheek
+  Can puncture like so many lances
+          A bosom of teak.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HARD TIMES FOR HEROINES.
+
+"Oh, Bertram," breathed Eunice as she glided into his arms, "if Ernest
+knew, what would he think?"
+
+At this point of my story I admit that I was held up. I myself couldn't
+help wondering how Ernest would regard the situation. He was a perfectly
+good husband and, personally, I preferred him to Bertram the lover. I might
+get unpopular with my readers, however, if they suspected this, so I
+continued:--
+
+"Ernest can never appreciate you as I do, dearest," Bertram whispered
+hoarsely; "he is cold, hard, indifferent--"
+
+Again I paused. If Eunice had been the really nice girl I meant her to be
+she would have asked Bertram what on earth he meant by saying such things
+about her husband, and would have told him the shortest cut to the
+front-door. In which case she might never have got into print.
+
+The fact is the poor heroine of fiction has a hard time of it nowadays.
+Someone ought to write a treatise on "How to be Happy though a Heroine," or
+uphold her cause in some way. Twenty-five years ago she lived in a halo of
+romance. Her wooers were tender, respectful and adoring; she was never
+without a chaperon. Her love-story was conventional and ended in wedding
+bells. To-day--just see how her position has altered. Generally she begins
+by being married already. Then her lover comes along to place her in
+awkward predicaments and put her to no end of inconvenience, very often
+only to make her realise that she prefers her husband after all. Or, on the
+other hand, the modern writer does not mind killing off, on the barest
+pretext, a husband who is perfectly sound in wind and limb and had never
+suffered from anything in his life until the lover appeared. The poor girl
+will tell you herself that it isn't natural.
+
+Then there is the compromising situation. Magazine editors clamour for
+it--in fiction, I mean. We find the heroine flung on a desert island, with
+the one man above all others in the world that she detests as her sole
+companion. It is rather rough on her, but often still more rough on other
+people, as it may necessitate drowning the entire crew and passengers of a
+large liner just in order to leave the couple alone for a while to get to
+know each other better. And not until they find that they care for one
+another after all does the rescue party arrive. It will cruise about, or be
+at anchor round the corner, for weeks and weeks, so that it can appear on
+the horizon at the moment of the first embrace. This situation is so
+popular at present that it is surprising that there are enough desert
+islands to go round.
+
+Again, the lonely bungalow episode is pretty cheerless for the heroine. She
+accepts an apparently harmless invitation to spend a week-end with friends
+in the country. When she arrives at the station there is no one to meet
+her. After a course of desert islands this ought to arouse her suspicions,
+but she never seems to benefit by experience. At the bungalow, reached in a
+hired fly and a blinding snowstorm, she finds the whole household away. The
+four other week-end guests, her host and hostess and their five children,
+the invalid aunt who resides with the family, the three female servants and
+the boot-boy who lives in--all have completely vanished. The only sign of
+life for miles is the hero standing on the doorstep looking bewildered and
+troubled, as well he might, for he knows that he must spend the night in a
+snowstorm to avoid compromising the heroine.
+
+And when the family return next morning and explain that they went out to
+look at the sunset, but were held up at a neighbour's by the weather,
+nobody seems to think the excuse a little thin.
+
+The heroine can never hope for a tranquil existence like other people. I
+read of one only recently who, just because she strongly objected to the
+man her parents wanted her to marry, was flung with him on an iceberg that
+had only seating capacity for two. And when the iceberg began to melt--
+writers must at times manipulate the elements--it meant that she must
+either watch the man drown or share the same seat with him. The rescue
+party held off, of course, until the harassed girl was sitting on his
+knees, and then received the pair as they slid down, announcing their
+engagement.
+
+What do I intend to do with Bertram and Eunice? I am undecided whether to
+place them in the vicinity of a volcano, which, unknown to Bertram, has
+eruptive tendencies, or to send them up in an aeroplane and break the
+propeller in mid-Atlantic just as the rescue party (including the
+husband)--What? Do I understand anything about aeroplanes? Certainly not;
+but I know everything about heroines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EVIDENCE.
+
+"What's all this I hear about the Abbey?" said my friend Truscott when I
+met him yesterday.
+
+Truscott has just returned from New Zealand and is for the moment a little
+behind the times. But he can pick up the threads as quickly as most men.
+
+"It's in a bad way," I told him. "All kinds of defects in the fabric, and
+there's a public fund to make it sound again. You ought to subscribe."
+
+"It may be in disrepair," he replied, "but it isn't going to fall down just
+yet. I know; I went to see it this morning."
+
+"But how do you know?" I asked. "You may guess; you can't know."
+
+"I know," he said, "because I was told. A little bird told me, and there's
+no authority half so good. Do you remember a few years ago a terrific storm
+that blew down half the elms in Kensington Gardens?"
+
+I remembered. I had reason; for the trunks and branches were all over the
+road and my omnibus from Church Street to Piccadilly Circus had to make
+wide detours.
+
+"Well," Truscott continued, "someone wrote to the papers to say that two or
+three days before the storm all the rooks left the trees and did not
+return. They knew what was coming. Birds do know, you know, and that's why
+I feel no immediate anxiety about the Abbey."
+
+"Explain," I said.
+
+"Well," he continued, "when I was there this morning I watched a sparrow
+popping in and out of a nest built in a niche in the stonework over the
+north door."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND MODES.
+
+THEN AND NOW.
+
+_From an Early-Victorian "Etiquette for Gentlemen_."--"A GENTLEMAN CANNOT
+BE TOO CAREFUL TO AVOID STEPPING ON A LADY'S DRESS WHEN ABOUT TO GET IN OR
+OUT OF A CARRIAGE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THOUGHTS ON "THE TIMES."
+
+(FROM A TRAIN.)
+
+Really the news is very bad this morning. On the front page there are two
+Foreign crises and a Home one. On the next page there is one Grave Warning
+and two probable strikes. On every other page there is either a political
+murder or a new war. It is awful ...
+
+Yet somehow I don't feel depressed. I rather feel like giggling. An empty
+smoker in the Cornish express--_empty_ except for me! Extraordinary! And
+all my luggage in the right van, labelled for Helston, and not for Hull or
+Harwich or Hastings. That porter was a splendid fellow, so respectful, so
+keen on his work--no Bolshevism about _him_. I gave him a shilling. I gave
+the taxi-man a shilling too. That guard is a pleasant fellow also; I shall
+give him two shillings, perhaps half-a-crown. Yet I see that the railways
+are seething with unrest.
+
+I have just read _The Times'_ leader. Everything seems to be coming undone
+... Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India. This Bolshevist business ...
+dreadful. The guard has got me a ticket for the Second Luncheon. A capital
+fellow. I gave him three shillings. Absurd. I have no more shillings now. I
+am overdrawn. There is a financial crisis. But that, of course, is general.
+I see that Mr. Iselbaum anticipates a general smash this winter. A terrible
+winter it is going to be ... no coal, no food ... We ought to be in by
+five, in time for a fat late tea ... Cornish cream ... jam. Gwen will be at
+the station, with the children, all in blue ... or pink perhaps. How jolly
+the country looks! Superficial, of course; the harvest's ruined; no wheat,
+no fruit. And unemployment will be very bad. And the more people there are
+unemployed the more people will strike ... Sounds funny, that; but true ...
+Hope they've given us the usual table in the coffee-room, that jolly
+window-table in the corner, where one can look across the bay to the cliffs
+and the corn-fields and the hills ... Only there's no corn, I suppose, this
+year ... And one has a good view of the rest of the room there ... can
+study the new arrivals at dinner, instead of having to wait till
+afterwards. Dinner is much the best time to study them; you can see at once
+how they eat. And it is so much easier to decide which is the sister and
+which the _fiancee_ of the young man when they are all stationary at a
+table. When you only see them rushing about passages in ones it takes days.
+
+All the usual families will be there, I suppose--the Bradleys and the
+Clinks, old Mrs. Puntage and the kids--if they can afford it this year ...
+Very likely they can't. I can't, certainly. But I'm going.
+
+"Not since the fateful week-end of August, 1914, when the destinies of
+Europe were decided in a few hours, have issues of such gravity engaged the
+attention of the British race...." Dreadful. I shall get some tennis
+tomorrow. I shan't be called. I shall get up when the sun is on my face and
+not before. I shall dress very, very slowly, looking at the sea and the
+sands and the sun, not rushing, not shaving properly, not thinking, not
+washing a great deal, just sort of falling into an old coat and some grey
+flannels.... Then I shall just sort of fall downstairs--about half-past
+nine, and give the old barometer a bang. Then breakfast, very deliberate,
+but cheerful, because the glass went up when I banged it--it always goes up
+at that hotel ... like the cost of living. Up another five points to-day, I
+see. Bread's going to be one-and-threepence. But of course there won't _be_
+any bread this winter, so the price doesn't much matter. But what about
+coal? and milk? and meat? "Several new sets of wage claims are due for
+decision within the next few weeks, and it is possible that two of them at
+least may not be determined without a cessation of work." More strikes ...
+But not for a week or two. To-morrow there won't be any papers at
+breakfast; there won't be any letters. I shan't catch the 9.5. After
+breakfast I shall smoke on the cliff--then some tennis. Most of the balls
+will go over the cliff, but when they have all gone one just slips down and
+bathes, and picks them up on the way. Undress on the rocks--no machines, no
+tents. Jolly bathing. Mixed, of course. This Tonbridge councillor is on
+about that again, I see. He ought to come to Mullion. Mixed bathing depends
+entirely on the mixture. He doesn't realise that. Of course, if he _will_
+bathe at Tonbridge ...
+
+"In diplomatic circles no one is attempting to conceal that the situation
+is extremely grave." Now which situation is that? That must be one of these
+world-plots. Don't really see how civilisation can carry on more than a
+week or two now. Lucky I only took a single, perhaps. It was only two
+pounds, but I hadn't enough for a return. Never shall have enough,
+probably--but no matter. If the world is coming to an end, might as well be
+in a good part of it at the time. And it would be sickening to be snuffed
+out with an unused return-ticket in one's pocket.
+
+On the sands after lunch--build a few castles and dams and things for the
+children--at least, not altogether for the children, not so much as they
+think, anyhow. Tea at the farm, with plenty of cream, possibly an egg ...
+No eggs this winter, I see; some question of non-unionists. Then a little
+golf before dinner--and perhaps a little dancing afterwards. Coffee, anyhow
+...
+
+Then _The Times_ arrives, all wrapped up, just as one is explaining about
+the seventh hole. It is all stiff and crinkly, and one spends a long time
+rearranging it, flattening out the folds ...
+
+And one never reads it. That's the best of all.
+
+A.P.H.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: NATIONAL RESEARCH.
+
+_THE DAILY QUEST_, EVER WITH ITS FINGER ON THE PUBLIC PULSE, SENDS A
+SPECIAL COMMISSIONER TO OUR HOLIDAY RESORTS TO DISCOVER WHICH HAS THE
+NICEST NECKS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Cheerful One._ "CONGRATULATIONS, OLD CHAP, ON FINDING
+YOUR GAME AGAIN."
+
+_Club Grouser._ "FINDING MY GAME! WHY, I'VE JUST OFFERED TO SELL EVERY
+DAMNED CLUB IN MY BAG."
+
+_The Cheerful One._ "YES, I KNOW. BUT YESTERDAY YOU WERE _GIVING_ THEM
+AWAY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PRONE.
+
+_To the Editor of "Punch."_
+
+SIR,--I am an architect (of forty-three years' standing) and I like to keep
+_au courant_ with everything in the world of building (or of being about to
+build). Consequently anything new in constructional material interests me,
+and in this connection I would like to ask you what is or what are Prone? I
+have only seen it (or them) mentioned once, and from the context I gather
+that the word "prone" stands for the plural of "prone" (as "grouse" is the
+plural of "grouse," and as "house" might well stand for the plural of
+"house" nowadays, considering the shortage of dwellings), and that it (or
+they) is (or are) used either as a floor covering or otherwise in
+connection with working on the floor or ground.
+
+My reason for so thinking is contained in the following interesting item,
+culled from a well-known daily newspaper:--
+
+    "There is in London one man at least who works hard every day and has
+    to lay prone to do it.
+
+    He may be seen daily in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey re-cutting
+    the names on the flagged gravestones which have been worn by countless
+    pilgrims' feet. He has picked out many illustrious names, and others
+    are to follow."
+
+The sex and species of this hard-worker preclude the notion of any
+oviparous act, and I take it that one "lays prone" as one lays a mat or
+strip of carpet, for the purpose of facilitating labour that is done on the
+knees or stomach. If I am right I should like to get my builder to order
+some for his workmen absolutely at once.
+
+Anything which would help to defeat the Trade Unions in their fight against
+speeding-up would be a blessing, especially to the architectural world, so
+perhaps you will be good enough to enlighten me on the nature of Prone, and
+where obtainable.
+
+Believe me, Yours very gravely,
+ONESIMUS STONE (F.R.I.B.A.).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an American book on "How and What to Read":--
+
+    "Other great American short story writers include Bret Harte, Edward
+    Everett Hale, Frank Stockton, and Mary E. Wilkins. With these may be
+    included Thomas Hardy's 'Life's Little Ironies,' which are full of
+    fun."
+
+Mr. HARDY will be glad, no doubt, to add this little irony to his
+collection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE KELPIE.
+
+  The scoffer rails at ancient tales
+    Of lake and stream and river;
+  The wise man owns that in his bones
+    The kelpie makes him shiver.
+
+  Big salmon-flies the scoffer buys,
+    Long rods and wading stockings;
+  Unpicturesque he walks in Esk
+    With unbelief and mockings.
+
+  "A river-horse! O-ho, of course!"
+    And shouts with ribald laughter;
+  He does not see in his cheap glee
+    The kelpie trotting after.
+
+  The storm comes chill from off the hill;
+    An eerie wind doth holloa;
+  And near and near by surges drear
+    The water-horse doth follow.
+
+  A snort, a snuff; enough, enough;
+    Past prayer or human help he
+  Comes never more to mortal door
+    Who meets the water-kelpie.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "THE KING ARRIVES IN SCOTLAND
+
+    ASKED TO LEAVE."
+
+    _Consecutive Headlines in "The Daily Mirror."_
+
+The habit of reading the headlines in our pictorial newspapers without
+glancing at the pictures beneath them is liable to create false
+impressions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mrs. Symons (wishing to draw attention, in the time-
+honoured manner, to the amount of dust on the drawing-room furniture)._
+"LOOK AT THAT, MARTHA; I CAN WRITE MY NAME ON THE PIANO."
+
+_Martha._ "FANCY, NOW, YOU SPELLING IT WITH A 'Y.'"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO A MAKER OF PILLS.
+
+    "The Pill Trade has fallen on evil days; no ex-service men seem to
+    require pills."--_A pill manufacturer summoned for rates at Willesden._
+
+  O Benefactor of the British Tommy,
+    So often sick in far unfriendly climes,
+  What tears of sympathy are flowing from me
+    To learn that you have fallen on evil times!
+  Yea, to my mind 'tis little short of tragic
+  That men no longer buy your potent spheres of magic!
+
+  Scarce less detested than the Bulgar bullet
+    Your bitter pellets of Quin. Sulph. gr. 5
+  Have often stuck in my long-suffering gullet,
+    Leaving me barely more than half alive,
+  Whilst the accursed drug, whose taste I dread,
+  Hummed like an aeroplane within my throbbing head.
+
+  And what about Acetyl-Salicylic,
+    And what of Calomels and Soda Sals?
+  Existence had been even less idyllic
+    Without those powerful and faithful pals!
+  Why, midst the fevers of the Struma plain you
+  Furnished the greater part of Tommy's daily menu.
+
+  Or what of that infallible specific,
+    Your Pil. Cathartic Comp., or No. 9,
+  Whose world-wide influence must have been terrific
+    Since first it found its footing in the Line?
+  The British Tommy took it by the million--
+  Why should it fail to sell now he has turned civilian?
+
+  It is not base ingratitude that blinds him
+    To recognition of an ancient debt,
+  But rather that the sight of these reminds him
+    Of painful days which he would fain forget.
+  When life was one long round of guards and drills,
+  Marches, patrols, fatigues and sick parades--and pills.
+
+  Yet hear me, maker of the potent pilule:
+    Although my days of soldiering are o'er,
+  I'm fondly trusting that, when next I'm ill, you
+    Come to my rescue as you came of yore;
+  Meanwhile you'll understand that I, for one,
+  Refuse to buy your wares and eat them just for fun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A DEAD HEAT.
+
+    "In the high jump final, Landen (U.S.A.) was first with a jump of 6ft.
+    4-1/2in.; Muller (U.S.A.) and E. Keleend (Sweeden) died for second
+    place."--_Provincial Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "I heard Lord Rosebery say: 'Your little girl has got beautiful eyes.'
+    I repeated this upstairs with joy and excitement to the family, who ...
+    said they thought it was true enough if my eyes had not been so close
+    together."--_Extract from Autobiography of Margot Asquith._
+
+Her "I's" are generally rather close together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The policy which should be adopted is first to take steps to prevent
+    prices continuing to rise, and then to endeavour to reduce them until
+    the purchasing power of the pound sterling is equal to the purchasing
+    power of the dollar."--_Financial Paper_.
+
+Judging by the New York exchange good progress has been made in this
+direction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE "HOUSE"-BREAKER.
+
+OVERTHROW OF THE PARLIAMENT OF DEMOCRACY; A DREAM OF THE "COUNCIL OF
+ACTION."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mother._ "YOUR COUSIN JIM HAS OFFERED TO TAKE YOU TO DINNER
+AND A THEATRE TO-NIGHT. AREN'T YOU PLEASED?"
+
+_Daughter._ "OH, IT'S ALL RIGHT, BUT HE LOOKS SO ROTTENLY RESPECTABLE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GEORGE, JANE AND LENIN.
+
+Now that Soviet rule in England is apparently so imminent it seems to me
+that we ought to consider a little more closely the application of its
+practical machinery. The morning papers reach this village at three o'clock
+in the afternoon, so that nobody is in to read them, and when one comes
+back in the evening one is generally too lazy, but a couple of rather
+startling sentences about the coming Communist _regime_ have recently
+caught my eye.
+
+"The people of England, like the people of Russia," runs the first, "will
+soon be working under the lash." And the second, so far as I remember,
+says, "Our rations will no doubt be reduced to half a herring and some
+boiled bird-seed, which is all the unhappy Russians are getting to eat."
+
+Before these changes fall suddenly upon us I think we should ponder a
+little on the way in which they will affect our urban and agricultural
+life.
+
+Take the House of Commons. A very large and symbolic knout might occupy the
+position of the present mace, and from time to time the SPEAKER could take
+it up and crack it. As this needs a certain amount of practice it will be
+necessary to select a fairly horsey man as Speaker, and the Whips, who will
+follow the same procedure, should also be skilled practitioners. I see no
+difficulty in applying the same method to commercial and factory life in
+general, still less to the packing of the Underground Railway and the
+loading of motor-omnibuses and trams.
+
+It is rather when we come to scattered rural communities that the system
+seems likely to break down. Take the case of George Harrison in this
+village. When I first met George Harrison, and he said that he thought the
+weather was lifting, he was carrying a basket of red plums which he offered
+to sell me for an old song. On subsequent occasions I met him--
+
+1. Driving cows. (At least I suppose he was driving them; he was sitting
+sideways on a large horse doing nothing in particular, and some of the cows
+were going into one field and some into another, and a dog was biting their
+tails indiscriminately.)
+
+2. Clearing muck and weeds out of the stream.
+
+3. Setting a springe for rabbits.
+
+4. Delivering letters, because the postman doesn't like walking up the
+hill.
+
+Now I maintain that there would be insuperable difficulties in making
+George carry out all these various activities under the lash. Anyone, I
+suppose, under a properly constituted Soviet _regime_ might be detailed as
+George Harrison's lasher, Mr. SMILLIE, Mr. G.K. CHESTERTON, Lord CURZON,
+Mr. CLYNES or the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND. Can you imagine Mr. CHESTERTON
+walking about on guard duty in a rabbit warren while George Harrison set
+springes in accordance with the principles laid down by the Third
+Internationale for rabbit-snaring? or the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND standing
+in gum-boots in the middle of a stream and flicking George Harrison about
+the trousers if he didn't rake out old tin cans at forty to the minute as
+laid down by the Moscow Code? Now I ask you.
+
+And then there is this half a herring and boiled bird-seed arrangement.
+George Harrison has a sister of eighteen who kindly comes in to do cooking
+and housework for us every day. She thinks us frightfully queer, and if we
+bought some herrings and bird-seed and asked her to cook them for us I have
+no doubt she would oblige, but, though she doesn't much care what we eat,
+there are a lot of things she doesn't eat herself, and fish is one of them.
+Porridge, which, I suppose, is a kind of bird-seed, is another.
+
+Not that Jane calls it eating, by the way. She calls it "touching," and
+there are any number of things that she doesn't fancy touching. She will
+touch enormous platefuls of bacon or sausages or almost any derivative of
+the domestic pig, and the same applies to puddings and cake. But beef and
+mutton she does not touch, nor margarine, and we have to be almost as
+careful that Jane Harrison has plenty of the right things to touch as about
+the whole of the rest of the family.
+
+Now here again I think it would be quite possible to induce the people of
+England in our large industrial centres to ration themselves on boiled
+herring and bird-seed. We should not use those names, of course. The
+advertisements on the hoardings would say:--
+
+  THE BOUNTIFUL HARVEST OF THE SEA BROUGHT TO THE BREAKFAST TABLE
+
+or
+
+  WHAT MAKES THE SKYLARK SO HAPPY?
+  TRY HARRABY'S HEMP. A SONG IN EVERY SPOONFUL.
+
+But propaganda of that sort would have no effect on Jane. She would simply
+say that she never cared to touch herrings and that she did not fancy
+hemp-seed.
+
+When I consider the cases of George and Jane I am bound to believe either
+that the Russian moujiks (if this is still the right word) are more docile
+and tractable than ours, or else that the Soviet _regime_ will need a great
+deal of adaptation before it can be extended to our English villages. Or,
+of course, it may be possible that some of the minuter details of M.
+LENIN'S administration have not been fully revealed to me. I shall find out
+about this no doubt when I return to London. In the meantime I am banking
+on George and Jane, whatever the COUNCIL OF ACTION may do.
+
+EVOE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE OLD ORDER CHANGES.
+
+    "'He brightened up a lot when his mother-in-law arrived,' said an
+    onlooker.--"_Provincial Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Wee Donald Angus._ "PLEASE, SIRR, WHAT TIME WULL IT BE?"
+
+_Literal Gentleman._ "WHEN?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LUCERNE.
+
+  O, every dog must have its day
+    And ev'ry town its turn;
+  For fair is fair ... and, anyway,
+    Let's talk about Lucerne.
+
+Lucerne is in Switzerland, and I am in Lucerne. The moment I heard that Mr.
+LLOYD GEORGE was coming to Lucerne I felt that a new importance was added
+to Switzerland, to Lucerne, to me and, if I may say so, to Mr. LLOYD
+GEORGE. But I felt that, if I didn't do something about it, Lucerne and Mr.
+LLOYD GEORGE would get away with all the credit and my part in the affair
+would be overlooked.
+
+The question arose as to what to call that "something"? After a great deal
+of thought I decided to try you with a short and simple "Lucerne," one of
+my reasons being that, if you get down to the hard facts, there is no such
+place.
+
+Try (as the G.P.O. suggests to disappointed envelopes)--try
+
+  LUZERN.
+
+Now don't let us have any argument about it, please. It makes no difference
+how long you have called the place "Lucerne" or how many of you there are.
+It is no good saying that English people and French people call it
+"Lucerne" and as victors the Entente have the right to impose their wishes;
+and it is no good quoting authorities at me. Luzern calls itself Luzern,
+and, to satisfy myself that it is not mistaken on the point, I have
+obtained complete corroboration from the _Amtliches Schweizerisches
+Kursbuch_, an authority whose very name is enough to make your _Bradshaw_
+look silly and shut up.
+
+The avowed object of the PREMIER is to get away from people and politics
+and to have at last a little uninterrupted holiday. Probably he counts on
+the difficulty of getting at him there, having regard to that terrible bit
+of the journey Bern--Luzern, which covers sixty miles, takes three hours
+and involves twenty-four stops, even if you take the mid-day express. There
+is a train in the afternoon (its number is 5666, and I warn you against it)
+which takes four hours, though it only stops twenty-four times also. The
+sinister fact is that all the trains on this route stop as often as they
+can, which I attribute to that general wave of idleness which is to-day
+spreading over Europe. But number 5666 is worse than others; or else it is
+getting old and tired. I notice that among the trains doing the return
+journey there is no number 5666; I suppose it has just as much as it can do
+to get there and that it never does return.
+
+The PREMIER was not far out to count on this protective element, and it is
+still the fact that, if you approach Luzern carelessly, it is ninety-nine
+to one that you will spend the best years of your young life on that
+particular stretch of railway. But nowadays there is a back way round, by
+Basel. Be quite firm in asking for your ticket. If the ticket man says,
+"You mean Bale?" or, "You mean Basle?" say, "No, I don't. I mean Basel."
+You have me and my friend, _Amtliches Schweizerisches Kursbuch_, behind
+you. Stick firmly to your point, and by approaching Luzern from the North
+you will approach it by a real express which only takes two hours to do its
+sixty miles and hardly stops at all to take breath. So that finishes with
+Bern, as to the spelling of which, though you would personally like to see
+some more "e's," you now repose confidence in me. Would you like me to
+quote my authority?... All right; I won't say it again if it frightens the
+children.
+
+In the old days of Peace, Luzern was full of honeymoon couples, and, when
+Peace and honeymoons and all that sort of nonsense were put a stop to, it
+became full of German interned prisoners of war. It boasts many first-class
+hotels. One of them is patronised by the Greek ex-Royal Family. A little
+unfortunate; but still you cannot expect to come and enjoy yourself in
+Switzerland without the risk of running into an ex-Royal Family every
+corner you go round, and, what is more, a Royal Family that wouldn't be ex-
+if it wasn't for you. It is a very good hotel, and I recommend it for
+anyone who proposes just to pop over here.
+
+Get hold of L.G. while he is not busy and explain to him how thoroughly
+misguided all his policies are, especially as to the Near East. My idea is
+to group, according to subject and side, all those who intend to get hold
+of the PREMIER, while he is alone, and to have a quiet chat with him. I
+have my eye on a large hangar on the other side of the Lake, which was
+built to house a dirigible and ought to hold the bulk of those who want a
+word about Ireland, a place they could put right in five minutes if it was
+left to them. Deputations which have some idea of declaring strikes,
+general strikes and international strikes, if matters are not arranged to
+their liking, will be received between the hours of ten and twelve, and two
+and four, at the Kursaal. Saturday afternoons and Sundays will be reserved
+for quiet walks. I am mapping out some interesting routes, marking with a
+red dot the spots where the PREMIER is likely to stop and admire the view,
+and where you can approach him quietly from behind and involve him in an
+argument about Russia before he has time to get away.
+
+Image a PREMIER arrived at the end of all the beautiful sights to be seen
+locally, inured to all the magnificent scenery around him, and no longer
+attracted by the novelty of life abroad, longing, it may be, for just one
+touch of home. Then is the moment for the little surprise I am keeping for
+him up my sleeve. "Come along to a place close by," I shall say to him, for
+I see myself with the whole business well in my hands now; "come along to a
+village I know, whose very name will make you feel at home."
+
+Just outside Luzern we stop at Meggen, but it's not that. Kussnacht gets us
+well abroad again, and there is nothing particularly homely about Immensee,
+Arth-Goldau, Steinen, Schwyz or Brunnen. In fact I can see my PREMIER
+getting suspicious and wondering what new political move this may be, when
+suddenly there will burst upon his astonished gaze--
+
+  FLUELLEN.
+
+Let us leave him there, alone with his emotions, into which it would be
+impertinent to probe. I may tell you quietly apart that there is a
+difference of opinion between me and _Amtliches Schweizerisches Kursbuch_
+about this name. He wants to ration the l's, but, having been there and
+heard the name pronounced, I have refused to be taught how to spell a good
+Welsh name by a darned foreigner. If we are going to have any nonsense
+about it I have said that I shall stand out for the proper, full and
+uncorrupt spelling: FLLEWELLYN.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "'ERE--CHUCK IT, MISSUS. WHY CAN'T YER LET US FIGHT IN
+PEACE?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "'That,' declared Mr. Lloyd George amid loud cheers, 'is one of the
+    most formidable challenges ever given to democracy. Without hesitation
+    every Government must accept that challenge.' 'Certainly we will,'
+    retorted the Prime Minister."--_Evening Paper._
+
+No wonder Mr. LLOYD GEORGE wants a holiday if he has begun to talk to
+himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A telegram from Paris says: It is announced here that an agreement has
+    been concluded between France, Great Britain and Italy regarding the
+    delimitation of the open golf championship."--_Provincial Paper._
+
+It will be noticed that America seems once more to have held aloof from the
+councils of the Allies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"TO HIM THAT HATH ..."
+
+It was Butterington who first put me up to the idea. I asked him a simple
+question about the habits of the Sigalion Boa, a certain worm in whose ways
+I was taking an interest at the time, and he at once replied that he
+himself was not in the fur line.
+
+"Whenever," he went on, "I require information on any subject I apply to my
+bank. Why don't you do the same?"
+
+This opened up an entirely new prospect. To me my bank was an institution
+which kept my accounts, issued money and, on occasion, lent it. It never
+entered my head that it was also ready to perform the functions of an
+inquiry office and information bureau.
+
+Previous communications from me had always begun, "Sir, with reference to
+my overdraft"--you know the sort of thing one generally writes to banks;
+expostulating, tactful, temporising letters.
+
+This time however I addressed them in different vein. Rejecting all mention
+of overdrafts as being in doubtful taste, I wrote:--
+
+SIR,--I shall be greatly obliged if you will kindly inform me, at your
+early convenience:
+
+(1) Whether it is a fact that the African rhinoceros has no hair on the
+hind legs?
+
+(2) Whether, in the case of my backing Pegasus in the first race, 'any to
+come' on Short Time in the fourth, and Short Time not starting, I am
+entitled to my winnings over Pegasus?
+
+(3) Whether, after perusing seventeen favourable reports from mining
+engineers and eighty-seven enthusiastic directors' speeches, I am justified
+in assuming that gold actually does exist in the Bonanzadorado mine?
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+THESIGER CHOLMONDELEY BEAUCHAMP.
+
+After some delay they answered as follows:--
+
+SIR,--We have much pleasure in replying to the queries contained in your
+favour, of the 27th ult.:--
+
+    (1) Yes; (2) Yes; (3) No.
+
+Assuring you always of our best endeavours in your service,
+
+We remain, Yours faithfully,
+_per pro_ The Cosmopolitan Bkg. Corpn.
+
+C.O. SHINE.
+
+So far so good. The Bank's manner left nothing to be desired, and its
+replies were certainly to the point. I began to think of Mr. C.O. Shine as
+my personal friend and speculated as to whether his first name were Claude
+or Clarence.
+
+During the following week, whenever I became curious on any subject, I made
+notes of fresh queries to propound. After accumulating a sufficient number
+I again wrote to the Bank. I forget the exact points upon which I required
+information; one of them, I fancy, was the conjectured geologic age of the
+Reichardtite strata. Anyhow I got no answer to any of them.
+
+Instead, three days later, I received the following letter:--
+
+SIR,--We regret to announce that, owing to a clerical error in this office,
+your account was last month wrongly credited with a cheque for L13,097 5s.
+10d. which was made payable to another client of the same name.
+
+Adjustments have now been made which reveal a balance on your account of
+L110 11s. 3d. _in our favour_. We trust that you will find it convenient to
+cover this overdraft at an early date.
+
+With reference to your letter of the 19th inst. containing assorted
+inquiries, we beg to intimate that we can in no circumstances undertake to
+advise clients on general matters which lie outside the scope of our
+interests.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+_per pro_ The Cosmopolitan Bkg. Corpn.
+
+CHARLES O. SHINE.
+
+And this time C.O.S. did not even "remain" in the plural.
+
+I at once showed Butterington this offensive communication.
+
+"Well," said he, "of course they won't answer communications unless you
+have a balance."
+
+That is the way rich men talk.
+
+"I am never without one," I replied with dignity, "on one side or the
+other."
+
+"There you differ from your namesake, whose balance is clearly always on
+the right side. Hence that first kindly letter, addressed to you in error."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ROMANCE OF ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+The following items, culled from recent issues of _The Daily Lure_, show
+where you should go to find really interesting, stimulating and flat-
+catching notices:--
+
+Partner, with not less than five thousand pounds, wanted for a wild-duck
+farm in the island of Mull. Must be a man of iron constitution; Gaelic
+speaker and teetotaler preferred.
+
+* * *
+
+Wanted, a cheap Desert Island, with a good water-supply and home comforts,
+by a Georgian poet weary of the racket of Hammersmith.
+
+* * *
+
+Complete suits of armour, guaranteed bottle-proof, ten guineas each,
+suitable for elderly pedestrians in charabanc areas.
+
+* * *
+
+Madame Bogolubov, Crystal-gazer in ordinary to the ex-King CONSTANTINE, is
+prepared for a small fee to advise intending explorers, prospectors or
+treasure-seekers as to suitable spots for excavation, oil-boring, etc.
+
+* * *
+
+Disused Martello Tower on the Irish coast, fifty miles from a police
+barrack, offered cheap as an appropriate basis of observation to psychic
+enthusiasts anxious to study the ways of leprechauns, banshees, etc.
+
+* * *
+
+Genuine portraits by VAN DYCK, VELASQUEZ and REMBRANDT must be sold
+immediately to pay a debt of honour. Price thirty shillings each, or would
+take part payment in pre-war whisky.
+
+* * *
+
+Semi-paralysed Yugo-Slav professor, speaking seventeen languages, will give
+lessons to neo-plutocrats in the correct pronunciation of the names of all
+the foreign singers, dancers and artists performing or exhibiting in
+London.
+
+* * *
+
+Persons interested in edible fungi may be glad to take shares in a fungus
+plantation about to be started in the neighbourhood of Toller Porcorum,
+Dorchester.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE RETURN OF THE COLONEL.
+
+  House, the enigmatic Colonel, WILSON'S right-hand man in France
+  When the PRESIDENT was leading Peace's great Parisian dance,
+  Once again returns to Europe as a journalist free-lance.
+
+  He's a most sagacious person, indisposed to carp or grouse,
+  So we hope he'll be successful, aided by his tact and _nous_,
+  In upholding Mr. WILSON, _not_ in bringing down the House.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE UBIQUITOUS SCOT.
+
+From _The Times'_ summary of news:--
+
+    "Our Constantinople correspondent, in a message reviewing the situation
+    in Armenia, states that the Armenians have captured the ancient town of
+    Nakhitchevan, where a Tartan Government had been set up."
+
+Small wonder that, people complain that no place is safe from Scotland's
+activities. Meanwhile there seems a likelihood of a Tarzan Government being
+set up in the film world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From Mrs. ASQUITH'S reminiscences:
+
+    "One day after this conversation he [the late Lord Salisbury] came to
+    see me in Cavendish Square, bringing with him a signed photograph of
+    himself. This was in the year 1904, at the height of the controversy
+    over Protection."--_Sunday Times._
+
+As Lord SALISBURY is generally supposed to have died in 1903, Sir ARTHUR
+CONAN DOYLE has been requested to investigate the incident.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE EVIL THAT MEN DO.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST MAN WAS IN AND WITH ONLY ONE RUN WANTED--]
+
+[Illustration: SMITH, OF ALL PEOPLE, DROPPED A CATCH.]
+
+[Illustration: HE STOLE AWAY--]
+
+[Illustration: BUT HIS SIN FOLLOWED HIM.]
+
+[Illustration: HE DECIDED--]
+
+[Illustration: TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY.]
+
+[Illustration: AFTER MANY YEARS HE RETURNED.]
+
+[Illustration: "GOOD HEAVENS, SMITH, I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU SINCE YOU DROPPED
+THAT CATCH AT THE CIRCLE."]
+
+[Illustration: "YES, I ONCE SAW HIM PLAY WHEN I WAS QUITE A LAD. ON THAT
+OCCASION HE HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO DROP A CATCH."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"HIS LADY FRIENDS."
+
+The humours of the average farce are so elemental that in the matter of its
+setting there is small need to worry about geographical or ethnical
+considerations. Of course, if its _locale_ is French you may have to modify
+its freedom of thought and speech, but with a very little accommodation to
+national proprieties you can either transplant the setting of your play or
+you can leave it where it was and make use of the convention that for stage
+purposes all Frenchmen have a perfect command of our tongue and idiom. But
+to take a frankly English novel by an English writer, adapt it, as Messrs.
+NYITRAY and MANDEL have done, for the American stage with an American
+setting, and then bring it over here and produce it with only one or two
+actors in the whole cast to illustrate the purity of the American accent,
+is perhaps to presume rather too much on our generous lack of intelligence.
+
+However we have got Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY back again and that is what really
+matters. As a philanderer protesting innocence in the face of damnatory
+facts we know him well enough; but here we have him innocent and ingenuous
+as an angel, yet hard put to it to convince anyone but himself of his
+guilelessness. A millionaire (dollars) with a wife of economic disposition,
+who declines to spend his money for him, he feels drawn to a course of
+knight-errantry and rides abroad in search of damsels in pecuniary
+distress, with the avowed object of "spreading a little sunshine."
+
+[Illustration: "I want to spread a little sunshine."
+
+_James Smith_ ... Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY.
+
+_Eva Johns_ ... Miss JOAN BARRY.]
+
+This quest, as you will easily understand, was not a very difficult one for
+a man prepared to be imposed upon by just any adventuress, and in the
+neighbourhood of his various business-branches, San Francisco, Washington,
+Boston, he soon found a ready channel for the employment of his superfluous
+wealth. The natural affection, however, which his generosity inspired was
+not utilised by him, and you must try to believe that, in spite of the most
+sinister appearances, he remained a faithful husband.
+
+With the methods by which he appeased his wife's suspicions I will not
+trouble you, partly because I could not follow them myself, owing to the
+obscurity of the plot at its most critical moment. Enough that all ends
+well with her firmly-expressed resolution that in the future she will
+herself do all the necessary squandering.
+
+Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY as _James Smith_ was irresistible in most of the old
+ways and a few new ones. The play would have gone poorly without him, in
+spite of the piquancy of Miss JOAN BARRY as a flapper, the fourth and final
+recipient of his chaste bounty. Miss JESSIE BATEMAN as _Mrs. James Smith_
+had no chance till just at the end with the turning of the worm. To the
+part of _Lucille Early_--the _Earlys_, as a couple, were designed to
+contrast with the _Smiths_, the wife in this case spending the money which
+the husband hadn't got--Miss ATHENE SEYLER, who was meant for better
+things, gave a certain distinction, but perhaps "pressed" a little too
+much. Mr. JAMES CAREW, who played _Edward Early_, was conspicuous as the
+sole male representative of the American language in this American play.
+The fleeting visions that we had of Miss MONA HARRISON as a refractory and
+venal cook excited general approval. The three _protegees_ of _James Smith_
+were only faintly distinguishable in their rather crude banality.
+
+The fun of the farce differed from that of most farces in depending less
+upon situations than upon dialogue. The First Act, with the situations
+still to come, was the best. I have not had the good fortune to read Miss
+EDGINGTON'S novel, but one might be permitted to assume, from the
+excellence of much of the wit, that, whatever the play may in other
+respects have lacked of subtlety or refinement, such defect was no fault of
+hers. What Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY himself thought of it all I cannot say, but
+the play did not begin to compare, either for irony or singleness of
+motive, with the last two in which he figured, _The Naughty Wife_ and _Home
+and Beauty._ He clearly enjoyed his own part, but it was rather noticeable
+that in his brief speech at the fall of the curtain he confined himself to
+a personal acknowledgment of the public's sympathy with him in his illness
+and their loyalty throughout his career, and made no reference to the play
+or its authors.
+
+O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A SUPER-SURPRISE.
+
+  I have not seen the stalking
+    By a rabbit of a bear,
+  Nor yet an oyster walking
+    Sedately up the stair;
+  But a marvel as amazing
+    Inspires these doggerel rhymes,
+  For I've read a leader praising
+    The PREMIER in _The Times_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A HOUSE-WARMING.
+
+    "Considerable damage was done by fire at ---- Cottage on Wednesday
+    evening. The stairs, part of the floor, doors, furniture, etc., were
+    destroyed.
+
+    ---- presided at the piano, and Mrs. ---- presided over the
+    refreshments. 'God save the King' was sung at the close of the
+    enjoyable day."--_Local Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Labour "Council of Action" have kindly stated that they are "content to
+leave the French Government to the French people." They are however
+reserving the right to leave the British Government to the Bolshevists.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "We must repeat the Scots proverb that--'Delays are dangerous.'"--
+    _Sunday Paper._
+
+Or, as DRYDEN says in his Address to a Haggis, "De'il tak' the hindmost."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The proportion of sane to insane persons in civilized countries is
+    about one to 300."--_Canadian Paper_.
+
+Surely Carlyle said something very like this years ago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.
+
+    "RAINCOATS AT LESS THAN COST PRICE LAST 3 DAYS."--_Advert. in
+    Provincial Paper_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lady has Left-off Clothing; privately."--_Provincial Paper._
+
+Of course. That goes without saying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Trainer_ (_to Irish apprentice who has finished among the
+"also ran"_). "WHY DIDN'T YOU HANG ON TO THE FAVOURITE? DIDN'T I TELL YOU
+YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE HE WAS AFRAID OF."
+
+_Apprentice._ "THAT'S JUST IT, SORR. 'TWAS THE WAY HE WAS SO AFRAID OF ME,
+WHIN WE CAME INTO THE STRAIGHT, HE JUST FLED AWAY FROM ME."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+Those who appreciate the short story of quality will be pleasantly stirred
+by the announcement of _Island Tales_ (MILLS AND BOON), a posthumous volume
+containing what is probably the last writing of the late JACK LONDON. I can
+say at once that these seven stories show his art in one aspect of its
+best. Not here the LONDON, whom some of us might prefer, of the strenuous
+adventure-tale, with whom there was no respite till, at the end of anything
+up to a hundred sinew-cracking pages, we won through to the appointed end.
+That South Sea atmosphere, so insidiously appealing to the literary
+temperament (from STEVENSON to STACPOOLE you can see it at work) has
+steeped these tales in the lotus-leisure of perpetual afternoon, so that
+the action of them tends to become overlaid by slow reflective talk, old
+memories and the sense of ancient things. Most notable is this in the
+first, where the actual romance, quick, human and haunting, does not so
+much as show its face till after forty pages of old-time local colour.
+Perhaps of all the seven I myself would prefer the last--"The Kanaka Surf,"
+a slight intrigue, but a perfect epic of such bathing as, I suppose, can be
+understood nowhere but on these enchanted coasts. To read it is to realise
+what a loss we suffer in one who could put such jewelled loveliness on to
+the printed page--and what another loss in not seeing the original for
+ourselves. I suppose no tribute to the power of genius could be more
+eloquent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the German Revolution of 1918, KARL KAUTSKY, a prominent Socialist,
+was appointed by the new Government to examine and edit the documents in
+the Berlin Foreign Office relating to the outbreak of the War. His work was
+completed in time for the Peace Conference and would, he believes, if
+published at that time, have convinced the Allies that the new German
+Government ought not to be made responsible for the sins of the old one.
+But it would also have shown that the old Government was the main
+instigator of the War, and that the German people, having danced to the
+tune, even if they did not call for it, deserved to pay the piper. For that
+reason, perhaps, the German Government withheld Herr KAUTSKY'S revelations.
+Now he has published them on his own account, under the title, _The Guilt
+of William Hohenzollern_ (SKEFFINGTON). A more damning indictment has never
+been drawn. From the moment of the ARCHDUKE'S assassination the KAISER and
+his advisers determined to make it the pretext for destroying Serbia, and
+crushing Russia and France if they dared to interfere. BISMARCK once said
+that "never are so many lies told as before a war, during an election and
+after a shoot." His own manipulation of the Ems telegram was venial
+compared to the manner in which the German diplomatists, egged on by their
+ruler--whose _marginalia_ on the despatches furnish the most amusing
+reading in the volume--used all the arts of chicanery to deceive Europe as
+to their real intentions and to defeat the efforts of England--on whose
+neutrality they confidently counted--to secure a peaceful settlement.
+Though primarily addressed to the German proletariat, Herr KAUTSKY'S book
+has its value for all of us--"lest we forget."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On page 103 of _The White Hen_ (MILLS AND BOON) we read that the _Duke_
+laughed softly. "'It is just like a romance,' he sighed happily;" which was
+precisely where, without intending it, the _Duke_ placed his ducal finger
+upon the weak spot in the whole business. Because if ever a story was "like
+a romance," and like nothing else on earth, and filled with characters each
+and all pledged to preserve its unreality at all costs, here is that tale.
+The plot, of which there is a generous allowance, turns chiefly upon the
+problem, when is a white hen less a hen than a jewel casket? Answer, when
+she has swallowed, and is erroneously thought to have retained, a famous
+diamond, upon which an impoverished but noble (see above) French family had
+depended for the _dot_ that should enable their daughter to wed a
+plutocratic but otherwise detestable suitor. I take it you will hardly need
+telling that this is the moment chosen by Romance, under the expert
+guidance of Miss PHYLLIS CAMPBELL, to bring along an even more wealthy
+young American, mistaken (of course) for his own chauffeur and working such
+havoc upon the heart of the heroine that, when the latter accidentally
+recovered the diamond from its feathered _cache_, she very sensibly decided
+to say nothing about it. Whereupon, because the other characters,
+especially an unpleasant Duchess, were unaware that, as the shop
+announcements say, "Poultry was Down Again," much profitable confusion
+resulted, though nothing to impugn the justice of the ducal verdict quoted
+above. So that, if your taste jumps with that of his Grace, you also can
+"sigh happily;" otherwise you will perhaps omit the adverb--and select a
+story less exclusively romantic.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a spirit of Yorkshire and a spirit, I suppose, characteristic of
+Suburbia, and on the outskirts of certain large manufacturing towns there
+must exist a formidable blending of these two. To express the double
+flavour of this essence requires, I should say, a subtler and more
+elaborate method than Mr. W. RILEY has attempted to use in _A Yorkshire
+Suburb_ (JENKINS). He has imagined for the purpose of these sketches an
+architect, _Murgatroyd_, who in planning most of the houses in the locality
+has attempted to express in brick and stone the characters of their several
+occupants. This is a device which becomes rather monotonous as the book
+proceeds, besides imposing a series of strains which neither architecture
+nor credulity can easily bear. Since these are rather superior
+suburbanites, dialect is for the most part absent, and it is hard to feel
+that they are very different people from those who live about the borders
+of Manchester or London; a character like _Mrs. Flitch_, for instance, who
+is angelic to behold but a spiteful gossip at heart, is, alas! to be found
+anywhere. And where the dialect does crop out it does not seem to be
+dependent on suburban soil for its raciness. I don't doubt the accuracy of
+Mr. RILEY'S Yorkshiremanship, but I do think he has under-estimated the
+difficulty of localising the peculiar genius of villadom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though billed by her publisher as a merciless analyst, Mrs. MORDAUNT is
+really (if you want to fling this kind of title about) an eclectic
+synthetist or synthetic symbolist. Her wicked people are prodigiously
+wicked, wickedness personified, in fact; her good folk are noble-hearted
+without stint or measure. I don't personally think that anybody could be
+quite so completely and gratuitously evil as good-looking _Charles Hoyland_
+in _The Little Soul_ (HUTCHINSON); or, being so, could possibly be
+recommended, still less engaged, as tutor to a sensitive youth; or, being
+so engaged, tolerated for two days. He certainly could not hold down his
+job long enough to corrupt his pupil, _Anthony Clayton_, by exchanging
+souls with him under the nose of mad but perceptive _Mrs. Clayton_ and sane
+sister _Diana_. This conspicuously chaste _Diana_ is an attractive person,
+and so is the recklessly charitable _Dr. McCabe_, her appropriate mate, who
+first had to fly the country through helping a chorus-girl out of a
+difficulty and then (more or less) won the War by revolutionising
+bacteriology or something like that. However, Mrs. MORDAUNT interests
+because she is so palpably interested herself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The scenes of _Lure of Contraband_ (JARROLDS) are laid in the Devonshire of
+some hundred years ago. It is, as its title suggests, a tale of smuggling,
+and it contains an account of a hand-to-hand fight between the hero and the
+villain which I advise all members of the National Sporting Club to read.
+They may be shocked by the tactics of the villain, but at the same time
+they will see what a bout of fisticuffs meant in those days. Mr. J. WEARE
+GIFFARD is a master of atmosphere, and I, at any rate, lived happily in his
+Appledore, and imagined myself drinking prime (and cheap) French brandy in
+the Beaver Inn; while _Lieutenant Perkins_, who commanded the "preventive
+men," sat in his tall-backed chair by the fireplace and kept his eyes and
+ears open to detect anything that was suspicious. But he was not foolish
+enough to ask many questions about the French brandy. An excellent yarn,
+simply and straight-forwardly told.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Customer._ "AND WHAT DO YOU THINK OF LLOYD GEORGE?"
+
+_Barber._ "THINK OF 'IM, SIR? WITH A MOP OF 'AIR LIKE 'E'S GOT--A NICE
+EXAMPLE TO THE NATION!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A photograph of the Olympic games at Antwerp was transmitted yesterday
+    to Paris, a distance of 200 miles, over a telephone wire. It is in the
+    nature of an experiment, and if it succeeds Messrs. Cook hold out
+    promises of further day trips to the Continent."--_Daily Paper._
+
+Intending trippers must, of course, be proficient in the tight-rope wire.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+159, August 25th, 1920, by Various
+
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