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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17397-8.txt b/17397-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2afc80 --- /dev/null +++ b/17397-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2102 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, +October 6, 1920, by Various, Edited by Owen Seaman + + +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, October 6, 1920 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Owen Seaman + + + +Release Date: December 26, 2005 [eBook #17397] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, +VOL. 159, OCTOBER 6, 1920*** + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 17397-h.htm or 17397-h.zip: + (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/7/3/9/17397/17397-h/17397-h.htm) + or + (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/7/3/9/17397/17397-h.zip) + + + + + +PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI + +VOL. 159 + +OCTOBER 6, 1920. + + + + + + + +CHARIVARIA. + +"Motorists," says a London magistrate, "cannot go about knocking people +down and killing them every day." We agree. Once should be enough for +the most grasping pedestrian. + + * * * + +"A Kensington lady," we read, "has just engaged a parlourmaid who is +only three feet seven inches in height." The shortage of servants is +becoming most marked. + + * * * + +A play called _The Man Who Went to Work_ is shortly to be produced in +the West End. It sounds like a farce. + + * * * + +A police-sergeant of Ealing is reported to have summoned six hundred +motorists since March. There is some talk of his being presented with +the illuminated addresses of another three hundred. + + * * * + +All the recent photographs of Sir ERIC GEDDES show him with a very broad +smile. "And I know who he's laughing at," writes a railway traveller. + + * * * + +With reference to the Press controversy between Mr. H.G. WELLS and Mr. +HENRY ARTHUR JONES, we understand that they have decided to shake hands +and be enemies. + + * * * + +"In New Zealand," says a weekly paper, "there is a daisy which is often +mistaken for a sheep by the shepherds." This is the sort of statement +that the Prohibitionist likes to make a note of. + + * * * + +A statistician informs us that a man's body contains enough lime to +whitewash a small room. It should be pointed out however that it is +illegal for a wife to break up her husband for decorative purposes. + + * * * + +The Manchester Communist Party have decided to have nothing whatever to +do with Parliament. We understand that the PREMIER has now decided to +sell his St. Bernard dog. + + * * * + +"There are no very rich people in England," says a gossip-writer. We can +only say we know a club porter who recently stated that he had a cousin +who knew a miner who ... but we fear it was only gossip. + + * * * + +"It is possible for people to do quite well without a stomach," says a +Parisian doctor. Judged by the high prices, we know a grocer who seems +to think along the same lines. + + * * * + +Special aeroplanes to carry fish from Holland to this country are to run +in the winter. The idea of keeping the fish long enough to enable them +to cross under their own power has been abandoned. + + * * * + +An Ashford gardener has grown a cabbage which measures twelve feet +across. It is said to be uninhabited. + + * * * + +The Rules of Golf Committee now suggest a standard ball for England and +America. The question of a standard long-distance expletive for foozlers +is held over. + + * * * + +A youth charged at a police-court in the South of London with stealing +five hundred cigars, valued at threepence each, admitted that he had +smoked twenty-six of them. We are glad to learn that no further +punishment was ordered. + + * * * + +_The Waste Trade World_ states that there is a great demand for rubbish. +Editors, however, don't seem to be moving with the times. + + * * * + +Off Folkestone, a few days ago, a trawler captured a blue-nosed shark. +Complaints about the temperature of the sea have been very common among +bathers this year. + + * * * + +"No one has yet been successful in filming an actual murder," states a +Picture-goers' Journal. It certainly does seem a pity that our murderers +are so terribly self-conscious in the presence of a cinematograph man. + + * * * + +_The Daily Express_ states that Mrs. BAMBERGER has decided not to appeal +against her sentence. If that be so, this high-handed decision will be +bitterly resented by certain of the audience who were in court during +the trial and eagerly looked forward to the next edition. + + * * * + +A _Daily Mail_ reader writes to our contemporary to say that he found +forty-two toads in his garden last week. We can only suppose that they +were there in ignorance of the fact that he took in _The Daily Mail_. + + * * * + +A pike weighing twenty-six pounds, upon being hooked by a Cheshire +fisherman, pulled him into the canal. His escape was much regretted by +the fish, who had decided to have him stuffed. + + * * * + +It is possible that Mr. TOM MANN, the secretary of the A.S.E., will +shortly retire under the age limit. It is rumoured that members have +started to collect for a souvenir strike as a parting tribute. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Bus Conductor_ (_after passenger's torrents of invective +on the subject of increased fare_). "RIGHT-O, MA. I'LL TELL 'EM +EVERYTHINK YOU'VE SAID WEN I TAKES THE CHAIR AT THE NEXT DIRECTORS' +MEETING."] + + * * * * * + +THE ETHIOPIAN AGAIN. + +"COAL STILL BLACK." + +_Heading in "Church Family Newspaper."_ + + * * * * * + + "The output in the first quarter this year was at the rate of + 248,000,000 million tons a year. It fell in the second quarter + to 232,000,000. Between and beyond these lines there is an + ample margin for bargaining." + + _Evening Paper._ + +Abundantly ample. + + * * * * * + +LESSONS FROM NATURE. + +TO AN AUTUMN PRIMROSE. + + "If this belief from heaven be sent, + If such be Nature's holy plan, + Have I not reason to lament + What man has made of man?" + _Wordsworth._ + + + Symbol of innocence, to Tories dear, + Whom I detect beside the silvan path + Doing your second time on earth this year + That I may cull a generous aftermath, + Let me divine your reason + For thus repullulating out of season. + + Associated with the vernal prime + And widely known as "rathe," why bloom so late? + Was it the lure of so-called "Summer-time," + Extended well beyond the usual date? + Our thanks for which reprieve + Are SMILLIE'S, though they didn't ask his leave. + + Rather I think you have some lofty plan, + Such as your old friend WORDSWORTH loved to sing; + That for a fair ensample set to Man + You duplicate your output of the Spring; + That in your heart there lodges + Dimly the hope of shaming Mr. HODGES. + + Ah! gentle primrose by the river's brim! + Like _Peter Bell_ (unversed in woodland lore), + He'll miss your meaning; you will be to him + A yellow primrose--that and nothing more; + He'll read in you no sign + Of Nature's views about the datum-line. + +O.S. + + * * * * * + +THE MINERS' OPERA. + +About a week ago, when they took Titterby away to the large red-brick +establishment which he now adorns, certain papers which were left lying +in his study passed into my hands, for I was almost his only friend. It +had long been Titterby's belief that a great future lay before the +librettist who should produce topical light operas on the GILBERT and +SULLIVAN model, dealing with our present-day economic crises. The thing +became an _idée fixe_, as the French say, or, as we lamely put it in +English, a fixed idea. There can be no doubt that he was engaged in the +terrible task of fitting the current coal dispute to fantastic verse +when a brain-cell unhappily buckled, and he was found destroying the +works of his grand piano with a coal-scoop. + +Most of the MS. in my possession is blurred and undecipherable, full of +erasures, random stage-directions and marginal notes, amongst which +occasional passages such as the following "emerge" (as Mr. SMILLIE would +say):-- + + "_Secretary._ The fellow is standing his ground, + He's as stubborn and stiff as a war-mule. + + _Minister._ A + Means will be found + If we look all around + To arrive at a suitable formula. + + _Chorus._ Yes, you've got to arrive at a formula." + +Difficult though my task may be I feel it the duty of friendship to +attempt to give the public some faint outline of this fascinating and +curious work. Scenarios, _dramatis personæ_ and choruses had evidently +caused the author inordinate trouble, for at the top of one sheet I +find:-- + +"ACT I. + +_Interior of a coal-mine. Groups of colliers with lanterns and picks (? +tongs). Enter Chorus of female consumers._" + +Then follows this note:-- + + "_MEM. Can one dance in coal-mine? Look up COAL + in 'Ency. Brit.' Also CELLAR FLAP_;" + +and later on, at the end of a passage which evidently described the +dresses of the principal female characters introduced, we have the +words:-- + + "_BRITANNIA. ? jumper, bobbed hair. + ANARCHY. ? red tights_." + +Nothing in this Act survives in a legible form, but in Act II. we are +slightly more fortunate:-- + + "SCENE.--_Downing Street_ (it begins). _Enter mixed Chorus of + private secretaries, female shorthand writers and + representatives of the Press, followed by Sir ROBERT HORNE, Mr. + ROBERT WILLIAMS and Mr. SMILLIE._" + +What happens after this I can only roughly surmise, but most probably +Mr. SMILLIE proves false to Britannia and flirts for some time with +Anarchy, egged on by Mr. WILLIAMS and urged by Sir ROBERT HORNE to +return to his earlier flame. At any rate, after a little, the +handwriting grows clearer, and I read:-- + + "_Mr. SMILLIE (striking the pavement with his pick)_. + We mean to strike. + + _Chorus._ He means to strike, he means to strike, + Rash man! Did ever you hear the like + Of what he has just asserted? + Living is dear enough now, on my soul, + What will it be when we can't get coal? + + _PRIME MINISTER (entering suddenly)._ + This strike must be averted." + +There seems to have been some doubt as to how the PRIME MINISTER'S +entrance should be effected, for at this point we get the marginal note: +"_? From door of No. 10. ? On wings. ? Trap door. ? Riding St. Bernard +Dog._" + +But the difficulty was evidently settled, and the Chorus begins again:-- + + "Oh, here is the wizard from Wales, + The wonderful wizard from Wales, + The British Prime Minister, + + _MR. WILLIAMS._ Subtle and sinister. + + _Chorus._ Oh, no! That is only your fancy. + Disputes he can manage and check; + All parties respond to his beck. + + _MR. WILLIAMS._ He talks through the back of his neck! + + _Chorus._ When he talks through the back of his neck + We call it his neck-romancy." + +Of the arguments used by Mr. LLOYD GEORGE after this spirited +encouragement no record remains but the following passage:-- + + "My dear Mr. SMILLIE, + We value you highly + Howe'er so ferociously raven you. + We must find a way out, + And we shall do, no doubt, + If we only explore every avenue. + + _Chorus._ Yes, please, do explore every avenue. + + [_Exeunt Mr. LLOYD GEORGE and Mr. SMILLIE arm-in-arm, R. (? + followed by St. Bernard) and return C. Exeunt L. and return C. + again, and so on._ + + _Chorus._ Oh, have you explored every avenue?" + +Apparently they have, for later on we get-- + + "_PRIME MINISTER._ Then why should you want to strike + When the Government saves your faces? + You can get more pay when you like + On the larger output basis." + +And the Chorus of course chimes in:-- + + "They can get more pay when they like + On the larger output basis." + +And there is a note at the side: "_Chorus to wave arms upwards and +outwards, indicating increased production of coal._" + +It seems to have been at some time after this, and probably in Act III., +that Titterby went, if I may put it so vulgarly, off the hooks. I think +he must have got on to the conference between the mineowners and the +representatives of the miners, and struggled until the gas became too +thick for him. At any rate, after several unreadable pages, the +following unhappy fragment stands out clear:-- + + "_Mr. SMILLIE still stands irresolute, running his fingers + through his hair._ + + _Chorus of Mineowners_ (_pointing at him_). + + Ruffled hair requires, I ween, + Something in the brilliantine + Or else in the pomatum line. + How shall we devise a balm + Mr. SMILLIE'S locks to calm? + Hullo! here comes the Datum-Line! + + _Enter_ Datum-Line. (_? can Datum-Line be personified? ? comic. + ? check trousers. ? red whiskers._)" + +Nothing more has been written, and it must have been at this point, I +suppose, that Titterby got up and assaulted his piano. It all seems very +sad. + +EVOE. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: A PROSPECTIVE JONAH? + +THE CAPTAIN (_to Sir ERIC GEDDES_). "I SOMETIMES WONDER WHETHER A MAN OF +YOUR ABILITY OUGHT NOT TO FIND A BETTER OPENING." + +[It is rumoured that the Ministry of Transport is to have a limited +existence.]] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Lady._ "NO COD LEFT, MR. BROWN?" + +_Fishmonger_ (_confidentially_). "WELL, MRS. SNIPPS, I'LL OBLIGE YOU. I +ALWAYS KEEPS A BIT UP MY SLEEVE FOR REG'LAR CUSTOMERS."] + + * * * * * + +CONSOLATION. + + You may be very ugly and freckledy and small + And have a little stubby nose that's not a nose at all; + You may be bad at spelling and you may be worse at sums, + You may have stupid fingers that your Nanna says are thumbs, + And lots of things you look for you may never, never find, + But if you love the fairies--you don't mind. + + You may be rather frightened when you read of wolves and bears + Or when you pass the cupboard-place beneath the attic stairs; + You may not always like it when thunder makes a noise + That seems so much, much bigger than little girls and boys; + You may feel rather lonely when you waken in the night, + But if the fairies love you--_it's all right_. + +R.F. + + * * * * * + + "I trust it may be sufficient to convince readers that Mr. + Chesterton is CONTINUED AT FOOT OF NEXT COLUMN." + + _Sunday Paper._ + +At last the ever-recurring problem of where to put the rest of Mr. +CHESTERTON has been solved. + + * * * * * + +THE LITTLE MOA + +(_and how much it is_). + +I have been reading a lot about Polynesia lately, and the conclusion has +been forced upon me that dining out in that neighbourhood might be +rather confusing to a stranger. + +Imagine yourself at one of these Antipodean functions. Your host is +seated at the head of the table with a large fowl before him. Looking +pleasantly in your direction he says:-- + +"Will you have a little moa?" + +Not being well up in the subject of exotic fauna you will be tempted to +make one of the following replies:-- + +(1) (With _Alice in Wonderland_ in your mind) "How can I possibly have +more when I haven't had anything at all yet?" + +(2) "Yes, please, a lot more, or just a little more," as capacity and +appetite dictate. + +(3) "No, thank you." + +The objection to reply No. 1 is that it may cause unpleasantness, or +your host may retort, "I didn't ask you if you would have a little more +moa," and thus increase your embarrassment. + +No. 2 is a more suitable rejoinder, but probably No. 3 is the safest +reply, as some of these big birds require a lot of mastication. + +In the event of your firing off No. 3, your host glances towards the +hostess and says-- + +"Oo, then" (pronounced "oh-oh"). + +To your startled senses comes the immediate suggestion, "Is the giver of +the feast demented, or is he merely rude?" + +Just as you are meditating an excuse for leaving the table and the +house, your hostess saves the situation by saying sweetly, "Do let me +give you a little oo," playfully tapping with a carvingknife the +breastbone of a winged creature recumbent on a dish in front of her. + +It gradually dawns upon you that you are among strange birds quite +outside the pale of the English Game Laws, and that you will have to +take a sporting chance. + +While you are still in the act of wavering the son of the house says, +"Try a little huia." + +If you like the look of this specimen of Polynesian poultry you signify +your acceptance in the customary manner; otherwise, in parliamentary +phraseology, "The Oos have it." + +For my own part I fancy that, unless or until some of these unusual +fowls are extinct, I shall not visit Polynesia, but rest content with +Purley. Our dinner-parties may be dull, but at least one knows one's way +about among the dishes. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Fed-up Owner_ (_to holiday Artist_). "CHARMING, MY DEAR +YOUNG LADY--CHARMING--WITH ONE IMPORTANT OMISSION. YOU'VE FORGOTTEN TO +PUT IN THE NOTICE ON THE TREE."] + + * * * * * + +A BALLAD OF THE EARLY WORM. + + The gentle zephyr lightly blows + Across the dewy lawn, + And sleepily the rooster crows, + "Beloved, it is dawn." + + The little worms in bed below + Can hear their father wince, + While, up above, a feathered foe + Is busy making mince. + + In vain they seize his slippery tail + And try to pull him back; + It makes their little cheeks turn pale + To hear his waistband crack. + + They draw him down and crowd around; + Their tears bespeak their love; + For part of him is underground + And part has gone above. + + But not for long does sorrow seize + The subterranean mind, + For father grows another piece + In front or else behind. + + And now he's up before the dawn, + Long ere the world has stirred, + And eats his breakfast on the lawn + Before the early bird. + + * * * * * + +WHEN THE YOUNG LEAD THE YOUNG. + + "Lady Nurse or Nursery Governess (young) wanted for post near + Ventnor, I.W., for boy 2½ years. Experience, similar age, and + happy disposition essential."--_Weekly Paper._ + + * * * * * + + "Oxford, Tuesday. + + The Royal Commission on Oxford and Cambridge Universities began + its Oxford session this afternoon in the Extermination Schools." + + _Daily Paper._ + +_Absit omen!_ + + * * * * * + +THE CONSPIRATORS. + +II. + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--The Third International is not a Rugby football match. +It is a corporation of thrusters whose prospectus announces that it will +very shortly have your blood, having first acquired exclusive rights in +your money. Have you two acres and a cow? Have you seven pounds three +and threepence in the Post-Office Savings Bank? Have you any blood? Very +well, then; THIS CONCERNS YOU. + +There was a meeting of shareholders in Moscow as recently as July last. +The Chairman said: "Gentlemen--I beg your pardon, Comrades,--I am happy +to be able to report promising developments. Our main enterprise in +Russia, for technical reasons with which I will not now trouble you, is +not for the moment profit-producing; but we have been able to promote +some successful ventures abroad. In all parts of the civilised +world--and Ireland--we may anticipate a distribution of assets in the +near future." And among those assets to be parcelled out are, I may say, +your acres, your cow, your savings and yourself. + +There followed a meeting of the Executive Committee (I wish they would +avoid that tactless word "executive," don't you?). Simple and brisk +instructions were drafted for foreign agents, bidding them get on with +it and not spare themselves, or in any case not spare anyone else. These +were inscribed on linen, which was folded over, with the writing inside, +and neatly hemmed. Shortly afterwards a number of earnest young men +wearing tall collars and an air of exaggerated innocence sought to cross +various frontiers and were surprised and offended when rough and rude +officials stole their collars and set about taking them to pieces. + +I hate to speak slightingly of anyone, but these world-revolutionaries +have no business to be so young. According to my view a professor of +anarchy and assassination ought to be a man of middle-age with stiff +stubble on his chin. He has no business to be a pale and perspiring +youth, tending to long back hair and apt to be startled by the slightest +sound when he is alone. And what a lot of them write poetry, and such +poetry too! That is the manner of the man who is going to seize your +house and usurp your cow, while you will be lucky if you are allowed a +place on a perch in your own fowl-house. + +We had an opportunity of seeing them in procession when a consignment of +these world-revolutionaries drove off in state from Berne about the time +of the Armistice. I told you, last week, that we had a Legation of them, +very kindly lent by the Moscow management, and I also told you that our +Italian juggler had let us into the secret of their midnight lucubrations, +of which we had duly informed the officials interested in such matters. +We had front places when the motor lorry called for them and the +military escort arrived to assist all the passengers to take, and keep, +their seats. Into the lorry were packed the Minister Plenipotentiary and +Envoy Extraordinary, the Chargé d'Affaires, the First Secretary, the +Second Secretary, the Third Secretary, the Legal and Spiritual Advisers +and the Lady Typist. Their features were not easy to distinguish; when +the Bolshevists assume dominion over us they will not nationalize our +soap. One or two fell out, but were carefully replaced by willing hands +and bayonets; and so home. + +Now that is a sight you don't often see: a Diplomatique Corps being +returned to store in a motor lorry. The disappointing thing about them +was that, for all their fiery propaganda and for all their drastic +resolutions, never a one of them produced so much as a squib-cracker. +The only people to derive any excitement from the affair were the small +children, who took it for a circus. + +The best they could do for us was a general strike. What all this had to +do with trades or unions nobody seemed to know, least of all the +workers. But there was an attractive sound about the then novel phrase, +"Direct Action," and it gave a sense of useful business to that +otherwise over-portly word, "Proletariat." And the local politicians, +promised good jobs in LENIN'S millennium, made great use of the phrase, +"Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Thus many an honest workman joined in +under the belief that it meant an extra hour's holiday on Saturdays, an +extra hour in bed on Mondays and an extra bob or two of wages. + +While it lasts, even a bloodless revolution can be very tiresome; almost +as disquieting as a general election. Everybody who isn't revoluting is +mobilised to keep the revolution from being molested. There are no +trams, because the drivers are demonstrating; no shops, because the +shopmen are mobilised; no anything, because everyone is out watching the +fun. So you go into the square to watch also. You see little groups of +revolutionaries looking sullen and laboriously class-hating. You see a +lot of soldiers looking very ordinary but trying not to. The riff-raff +scowl at the soldiers, who are ordered out to shoot at them. The +soldiers scowl at the riff-raff at whom they are ordered not to shoot. +And, for some reason which the experts have not yet fathomed, it always +pours with rain. + +When we had succeeded in persuading the soldier who was posted to guard +our hotel that we were not the proletariat and might safely be let pass, +we found a gathering of inside-knowledge people discussing the +situation. The Government ought to have known all about it long +before--how the Bolshevists were stirring up trouble. "They did," said +we; "we told them." There was a silence at this, but a smile on the face +of the audience which we at first mistook for incredulity. We referred +darkly to our private information, derived, as I told you in my last, +from the Italian juggler. "Did he do juggling tricks with _your_ +ink-pots too?" asked the French element. "How much money did _you_ give +him?" asked all the other elements. "And I suppose he also told you," +said the Italian officer, "that he had no confidence in his own people +and that the British alone enjoyed his respect?" + +At this moment the Americans came in and asked us to quit arguing and +attend while they told us how they had unearthed the great plot.... When +together we reckoned up the Italian juggler's net takings we realised +that it is an ill revolution which brings no one any good. + + Yours ever, + HENRY. + +(_To be continued._) + + * * * * * + +CUBBIN' THRO' THE RYE. + + [Suggested by a recently reported incident in the Midlands, + when a pack divided, one part getting out of hand and running + among standing crops.] + + Gin a body meet a body + Cubbin' thro' the rye, + Gin a body tell a body, + "Seed 'em in full cry," + Useless then to blame the puppies, + Useless too to lie; + Whippers-in can't _always_ stop 'em, + Even when they try. + + Gin a body meet a body + Cubbin' thro' the rye, + What a body calls a body + Dare I say?--not I; + Farmers get distinctly stuffy, + Neither are they shy, + And Masters, when they're really rattled, + Sometimes make reply. + + * * * * * + +BRAVE NEWS FOR PUSSYFOOT. + + "A good many Church-people at home have been pressing + teetotalism, and are now pressing Prohibition, and it is + possible that they may succeed about the time when the moon + grows cold."--_Weekly Paper._ + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE MAN YOU GIVE A GAME TO.] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: "RIGHT-O. IF YER WANTS A FIGHT I'M READY. AN' AS WE'VE +ONLY ONE PAIR O' GLOVES, AN' YOU'RE THE YOUNGEST, I'LL BE A SPORT AN' +LET YOU WEAR 'EM."] + + * * * * * + +THE MYSTERY OF THE APPLE-PIE BEDS. + +(_Leaves from a holiday diary._) + +I. + +An outrage has occurred in the hotel. Late on Monday night ten innocent +visitors discovered themselves the possessors of apple-pie beds. The +beds were not of the offensive hair-brush variety, but they were very +cleverly constructed, the under-sheet being pulled up in the good old +way and turned over at the top as if it were the top-sheet. + +I had one myself. The lights go out at eleven and I got into bed in the +dark. When one is very old and has not been to school for a long time or +had an apple-pie bed for longer still, there is something very uncanny +in the sensation, especially if it is dark. I did not like it at all. My +young brother-in-law, Denys, laughed immoderately in the other bed at my +flounderings and imprecations. He did not have one. I suspect him.... + +II. + +Naturally the hotel is very much excited. It is the most thrilling event +since the mixed foursomes. Nothing else has been discussed since +breakfast. Ten people had beds and about ten people are suspected. The +really extraordinary thing is that numbers of people seem to suspect +_me_! That is the worst of being a professional humourist; everything is +put down to you. When I was accompanying Mrs. F. to-day she suddenly +stopped fiddling and said hotly that someone had been tampering with her +violin. I know she suspected me. Fortunately, however, I have a very +good answer to this apple-pie bed charge. Eric says that his bed must +have been done after dinner, and I was to be seen at the dance in the +lounge all the evening. I have an alibi. + +Besides I had a bed myself; surely they don't believe that even a +professional humourist could be so bursting with humour as to make +himself an apple-pie bed and not make one for his brother-in-law in the +same room! It would be too much like overtime. + +But they say that only shows my cleverness.... + +III. + +Then there is the question of the Barkers. Most of the victims were +young people, who could not possibly mind. But the Barkers had two, and +the Barkers are a respected middle-aged couple, and nobody could +possibly make them apple-pie beds who did not know them very well. That +shows you it can't have been me--I--me--that shows you I couldn't have +done it. I have only spoken to them once. + +They say Mr. Barker was rather annoyed. He has rheumatism and went to +bed early. Mrs. Barker discovered about her bed before she got in, but +she didn't let on. She put out the candle and allowed her lord to get +into his apple-pie in the dark. I think I shall like her. + +They couldn't find the matches. I believe he was quite angry.... + +IV. + +I suspect Denys and Joan. They are engaged, and people in that state are +capable of anything. Neither of them had one, and they were seen +slipping upstairs during the dance. They say they went out on the +balcony--a pretty story.... + +V. + +I suspect the Barkers. You know, that story about Mrs. B. letting Mr. B. +get into his without warning him was pretty thin. Can you imagine an +English wife doing a thing of that kind? If you can it ought to be a +ground for divorce under the new Bill. But you can't. + +Then all that stuff about the rheumatism--clever but unconvincing. Mr. +Barker stayed in his room all the next morning _when the awkward +questions were being asked_. Not well; oh, no! But he was down for lunch +and conducting for a glee-party in the drawing-room afterwards, as perky +and active as a professional. Besides, the really unanswerable problem +is, who could have _dared_ to make the Barkers' apple-pie beds? And the +answer is, nobody--except the Barkers. + +And there must have been a lady in it, it was so neatly done. Everybody +says no _man_ could have done it. So that shows you it couldn't have +been me--I--myself.... + +VI. + +I suspect Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop is fifty-three. He has been in the +hotel since this time last year, and he makes accurate forecasts of the +weather. My experience is that a man who makes accurate forecasts of the +weather may get up to any devilry. And he protests too much. He keeps +coming up to me and making long speeches to prove that he didn't do it. +But I never said he did. Somebody else started that rumour, but of +course he thinks that I did. That comes of being a professional +humourist. + +But I do believe he did it. You see he is fifty-three and doesn't dance, +so he had the whole evening to do it in. + +To-night we are going to have a Court of Inquiry.... + +VII. + +We have had the inquiry. I was judge. I started with Denys and Joan in +the dock, as I thought we must have somebody there and it would look +better if it was somebody in the family. The first witness was Mrs. +Barker. Her evidence was so unsatisfactory that I had to have her put in +the dock too. So was Mr. Barker's. I was sorry to put him in the dock, +as he still had rheumatics. But he had to go. + +So did Mr. Winthrop. I had no qualms about him. For a man of his age to +do a thing like that seems to me really deplorable. And the barefaced +evasiveness of his evidence! He simply could not account for his +movements during the evening at all. When I asked him what he had been +doing at 9.21, and where, he actually said he _didn't know_. + +Rather curious--very few people _can_ account for their movements, or +anyone else's. In most criminal trials the witnesses remember to a +minute, years after the event, exactly what time they went upstairs and +when they passed the prisoner in the lounge, but nobody seems to +remember anything in this affair. No doubt it will come in time. + +The trial was very realistic. I was able to make one or two excellent +judicial jokes. Right at the beginning I said to the prosecuting +counsel, "What _is_ an apple-pie bed?" and when he had explained I said +with a meaning look, "You mean that the bed was not in _apple-pie +order_?" Ha, ha! Everybody laughed heartily.... + +VIII. + +In my address to the jury of matrons I was able to show pretty clearly +that the crime was the work of a gang. I proved that Denys and Joan must +have done the bulk of the dirty work, under the tactical direction of +the Barkers, who did the rest; while in the background was the sinister +figure of Mr. Winthrop, the strategical genius, the lurking Macchiavelli +of the gang. + +The jury were not long in considering their verdict. They said: "We +find, your Lordship, that you did it yourself, with some lady or ladies +unknown." + +That comes of being a professional humourist.... + +IX. + +I ignored the verdict. I addressed the prisoners very severely and +sentenced them to do the Chasm hole from 6.0 A.M. to 6.0 P.M. every day +for a week, to take out cards and play out every stroke. "You, +Winthrop," I said, "with your gentlemanly cunning, your subtle +pretensions of righteousness--" But there is no space for that.... + +X. + +As a matter of fact the jury were quite right. In company with a lady +who shall be nameless I did do it. At least, at one time I thought I +did. Only we have proved so often that somebody else did it, we have +shown so conclusively that we can't have done it, that we find ourselves +wondering if we really did. + +Perhaps we didn't. + +If we did we apologise to all concerned--except, of course, to Mr. +Winthrop. I suspect him. + +A.P.H. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE END OF THE SEASON. + +_Sympathetic Friend._ "WELL, YOU'VE LAID HER UP NICELY FOR THE WINTER, +ANYHOW."] + + * * * * * + +MIXED METEOROLOGICAL MAXIMS. + +(_By a Student of Psychology._) + + When the glass is high and steady + For domestic broils be ready. + When the glass is low and jerky + Then look out for squalls in Turkey. + When the air is dull and damp + Keep your eye on Mr. CRAMP. + When the air is clear and dry + On BOB WILLIAMS keep your eye. + When it's fine and growing finer + Keep your eye upon the miner. + When it's wet and growing wetter + 'Twill be worse before it's better. + When the tide is at its ebb + Fix your gaze on SIDNEY WEBB. + When the tide is at high level + Modernists discuss the Devil. + Floods upon the Thames or Kennet + Stimulate the brain of BENNETT; + While a waterspout foretells + Fresh activities in WELLS. + When it's calm in the Atlantic + Gooseberries become gigantic. + When it's rough in the Pacific + Laying hens are less prolific. + When the clouds are moving _largo_ + There is no restraining MARGOT. + When their movement is _con brio_ + 'Ware CHIOZZA MONEY (LEO)! + When the sun is bright but spotty + Diarists become more dotty. + When the sun is dim and hazy + Diarists become more crazy. + When the nights are calm and still + Faster travels GARVIN'S quill. + When the blizzard's blast is hissing + REPINGTON is reminiscing. + + If you ponder well these lines + You can read the weather signs + In accordance with the rule + Binding both on sage and fool:-- + _Anything in mortal ken + May befall us anywhen._ + + * * * * * + +COMMERCIAL IMPORTUNITY. + + "Services! Dozens other cars available, £1,500 to £50. Call and + insult us." + + _Motor Journal._ + + * * * * * + +MORE VISIONS OF THE UNSEEN. + + "The roads are peculiarly situated, and are dangerous not only + because they are main cross roads, but also on account of the + hidden view they afford of each other."--_Local Paper._ + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Teacher._ "AND WHAT DOES _ff_ MEAN?" + +_Pupil_ (_after mature deliberation_). "_Fump-Fump._"] + + * * * * * + +THE DEVOTED LOVER. + + ["Loiterers will be treated as trespassers."--_Notice on Tube + Station._] + + No longer laud, my Jane, the ancient wooer + Who for the favours of his ladye fayre + Would sally forth to strafe the evil-doer + Or beard the dragon in his inmost lair; + Find it no more, dear heart, a ground for stray tiffs + Because, forsooth, you can't detect in me + A tendency to go out whopping caitiffs + Daily from ten till three. + + He proved himself in his especial fashion, + Daring the worst to earn a lover's boon, + But I, no less than he a prey to passion, + Faced risks as great this very afternoon, + When at the Tube a long half-hour I waited + (In fond obedience to your written beck) + Where loiterers, it practically stated, + Would get it in the neck. + + The liftmen who from time to time ascended + To spill their loads (in which you had no part) + Regarded me with eagle eyes intended + To lay the touch of terror on my heart; + But through a wait thus perilously dreary + My spirits drooped not nor my courage flinched; + "She cometh not," I merely sighed, "I'm weary + And likely to be pinched." + + You came at last, long last, to end my fretting, + And now you know how your devoted bard + Faced for your sake the risk of fine or getting + An unaccustomed dose of labour (hard); + Harbour no more that idiotic notion + That love to-day is unromantic, flat; + Gave _Lancelot_ such a proof of his devotion, + Did _Galahad_ do that? + + * * * * * + +PAMELA'S ALPHABET. + +_Scene._--A DOMESTIC INTERIOR. + +Pamela's _father, in one armchair, is making a praiseworthy effort to +absorb an article in a review on "The Future of British Finance." In +another armchair_ Pamela's _mother is doing some sort of mending._ +Pamela _herself, stretched upon the hearthrug, is reading aloud +interesting extracts from a picture-book._ + +_Pamela_ (_in a cheerful sing-song_). A for Donkey; B for Dicky. + +_Her Father._ What sort of dicky? + +_Pamela_ (_examining the illustration more closely_). All ugly black, +bissect for his blue mouf. + +_Her Mother_ (_instructively_). Not blue; yellow. And it's a beak, not a +mouth. + +_Pamela._ I calls it a mouf. He's eating wiv it. (_With increasing +disfavour_) A poor little worm he's eating. Don't like him; he's crool. +(_She turns the page hurriedly and continues_) C for Pussy; D for Mick. + + [_This is the name of the family mongrel. That the picture + represents an absolutely thoroughbred collie matters nothing to_ + Pamela. _She spends some time in admiring_ Mick, _then rapidly + sweeps over certain illustrations that fail to attract._ + +_Pamela_ (_stopping at the sight of a web-footed fowl, triumphantly_). G +for Quack-quack. + +_Her Father._ Oh, come, Pamela, that's not a quack-quack; that's a +goose. It makes quite a different noise. + + [_Anticipating an immediate demand for a goose's noise he clears + his throat nervously._ + +_Pamela_ (_with authority_). This one isn't making any noise. It's jus' +thinking. (_Her father accepts the correction and swallows again._) H +for Gee-gee. Stupid gee-gee. + +_Her Father._ Why stupid? + +_Pamela._ 'Acos its tail looks silly. + +_Her Father_ (_glancing at the tail, which bears some resemblance to an +osprey's feather_). You're right; it does. + +_Her Mother._ I wonder whether it's wrong to let children get accustomed +to bad drawings? + +_Her Father._ Pamela doesn't get accustomed--she criticises. If it +weren't for a silly tail here, a stupid face there, her critical faculty +might lie for ever dormant. + +_Pamela_ (_having turned over four or five pages with one grasp of the +hand, as if determined to suppress the unsatisfactory horse_). R for +Bunny. + +_Her Mother._ No, dear, Rabbit. R for _R_abbit. B for _B_unny. + +_Pamela_ (_gently_). No; B is for Dicky. The ugly dicky wiv the blue +mouf. + +_Her Father_ (_rashly_). The blackbird. + +_Pamela_ (_conscious of superior knowledge_). That isn't its name. +That's what it looks like, all black; but its name is Dicky. B for +Dicky. + +_Her Father._ Well, have it your own way. What does S stand for? + +_Pamela_ (_turning to the likeness of an elderly quadruped, with great +assurance_). Baa-lamb! + +_Her Father._ Sometimes we call baa-lambs sheep. + +_Pamela._ I don't. + +_Her Father._ You will when you grow older. + +_Pamela._ I won't be any older, not for ever so long. Not till next +birfday. (_Pushing her book away and assuming an air of extreme +infancy_) Tired of reading. Want a piggy-back, _please_! + +_Her Father_ (_firmly taking up his review again_). Not just now. I'm +busy with a picture-book. + + [_A reproachful silence falls upon the room._ + +_Pamela_ (_presently, in a mournful chant_). A for Don-key. B for +Dicky-- + +_The Scene closes._ + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE PRINCE COMES HOME.] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: MORE OUTLINES OF HISTORY. + +_Sailor._ "WE HAVE JUST SEEN SOME ORANGE-PEEL AND BANANA-SKINS FLOATING +ON THE STARBOARD, SIR." + +_Columbus._ "WAS THERE ANY CHEWING-GUM?" + +_Sailor._ "NO, SIR." + +_Columbus._ "THEN IT MUST BE THE WEST INDIES WE'RE COMING TO, AND I'D +HOPED IT WAS GOING TO BE AMERICA."] + + * * * * * + +FLOWERS' NAMES. + +CROW'S-FOOT. + + Have you noticed that the splendid dreams, the best dreams that there are, + Come always in the darkest nights without a single star? + When the moonless nights are blackest the best dreams are about; + I'll tell you why that should be so and how I found it out. + + There's a bird who comes at night-time, and underneath his wings, + All warm and soft and feathery, lie tiny fairy things; + He spreads his wings out widely (you see them, not the dark) + And you hear the fairies whispering, "Hush! hush!" "I'll tell you!" "Hark!" + + The bird is black and feathery, but his feet are made of gold; + He chiefly comes in summer-time, for fairies hate the cold; + And if the nights are velvet-dark and full of summer airs + He lingers till the sun creeps up and finds him unawares. + + And so you'll see in summer-time, when all the dew is wet, + The footprints of his golden claws maybe will linger yet; + The little golden flower-buds will gleam like golden grain, + And if you pick and cherish them perhaps you'll dream again. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: "HAVE YOU EVER BEEN UP IN AN AEROPLANE, GRANDPA?" + +"NO, MY BOY--NOT YET."] + + * * * * * + +HONOURS EASY. + +I. + +Not very long ago the following advertisements appeared in the same +column of _The Southshire Daily Gazette_: + + "Lost, a pure black Pekinese dog, wearing a silver badge marked + 'Cherub.' Handsome reward offered. F.B., Grand Hotel, + Brightbourne." + + "Found, a black Pekinese, wearing a silver badge marked + 'Cherub.' No reward required. The Limes, Cheviot Road, + Brightbourne." + +II. + +On the same morning the paper was opened and scanned almost +simultaneously by Mrs. Frederick Bathurst in the sitting-room which she +and her husband occupied at the Grand Hotel, and by Mr. Hartley Friend +in the morning-room at "The Limes." + +"Oh, Fred," exclaimed Mrs. Bathurst, "Cherub has been found. He's all +safe at a house called 'The Limes,' in Cheviot Road. Isn't that +splendid?" + +"Very good news," said her husband. "I told you not to worry." + +"It's a direct answer to prayer," said Mrs. Bathurst. "But--" + +"But what?" her husband inquired. + +"But I do wish you had taken my advice not to offer any reward. You +might so easily have left it open. People aren't so mercenary as all +that. It stands to reason that anyone staying at an hotel like this and +bringing a dog with them--always an expensive thing to do--and valuing +it enough to advertise its loss, would behave properly when the time +came." + +"I don't know," Mr. Bathurst replied. "Does anything stand to reason? +The ordinary dog-thief, holding up an animal to ransom, might be +deterred from returning it if no mention of money was made. You remember +we decided on that." + +"Oh, no, I don't think so. You merely had your way again, that was all. +I was always against offering a reward. And the word 'handsome' too. In +any case I never agreed to that. You put that in later. Another thing," +Mrs. Bathurst continued, "I knew it in some curious way--in my bones, as +they say--that the fineness of Cherub's nature, its innocence, its +radiant friendliness, would overcome any sordidness in the person who +found him, poor darling, all lost and unhappy. No one who has been much +with that simple sweet character could fail to be the better for it." + +Mr. Bathurst coughed. + +"That is so?" his wife persisted. + +"Well," said Mr. Bathurst, after helping himself to another egg, "let us +hope so, at any rate." + +"It's gone beyond mere hope," said his wife triumphantly. "Listen to +this;" and she read out the sentence from the second advertisement, "'No +reward required.' There," she added, "isn't that proof? I'll go round to +Cheviot Road directly after breakfast and say how grateful we are, and +bring the darling back." + +III. + +Meanwhile at "The Limes" Mr. Hartley Friend was pacing the room with +impatient steps. + +"I do wish you would try to be less impulsive," he was saying to his +wife. "Anything in the nature of business you would be so much wiser to +leave to me." + +"What is it now?" Mrs. Friend asked with perfect placidity. + +"This dog," said her husband, "that fastened itself on you in this +deplorable way--whatever possessed you to rush into print about it?" + +"Of course I rushed, as you say. Think of the feelings of the poor +woman who has lost her pet. It was the only kind thing to do." + +"'Poor woman' indeed! I assure you she's nothing of the sort. One would +think you were a millionaire to be ladling out benefactions like this. +'No reward required.' Fancy not even asking for the price of the +advertisement to be refunded!" + +"But that would have been so squalid." + +"'Squalid!' I've no patience with you. Justice isn't squalor. It's--it's +justice. As for your 'poor woman,' listen to this." And he read out the +Bathurst advertisement with terrible emphasis on the words "Handsome +reward offered." "Do you hear that--'handsome'?" + +"Yes, I hear," said his wife amiably; "but that isn't my idea of making +money." + +"I hope you don't suppose it's mine," said her husband. "But there is +such a thing as common sense. Why on earth the accident of this little +brute following us home should run us into the expense of an +advertisement and a certain amount of food and drink I'm hanged if I can +see." + +"Well, dear," said his wife with the same amiability, "if you can't see +it I can't make you." + +IV. + +A few minutes later the arrival of "a lady who's come for the Peek" was +announced. + +"No," said Mr. Friend as his wife rose, "leave it to me. I'll deal with +it. The situation is very delicate." + +"How can I thank you enough," began Mrs. Bathurst, "for being so kind +and generous about our little angel? My husband and I agreed that +nothing more charmingly considerate can ever have been done." + +At this point Mrs. Friend followed her husband into the room, and Mrs. +Bathurst renewed her expressions of gratitude. + +"But at any rate," she added to her, "you will permit me to defray the +cost of the advertisement? I could not allow you to be at that expense." + +Before Mrs. Friend could speak her husband intervened. "No, madam," he +said, "I couldn't think of it. Please don't let the mention of money +vulgarize a little friendly act like this. We are only too glad to have +been the means of reuniting you and your pet." + +E.V.L. + + * * * * * + + "Rufford Abbey is, of course, a wonderful old place, and all + the front, from gable to gable, is genuine tenth-century, built + in 1139." + + _Sunday Times._ + + +It looks as if the ca' canny idea was not so new as we thought it. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Lady with Pram_ (_who has been pointing out to newcomer +the beauties of the neighbourhood, where a strike is threatened_). +"THAT'S ONE OF THE 'OT 'EADS."] + + * * * * * + +AT THE PLAY. + +"EVERY WOMAN'S PRIVILEGE." + +When _Dahlia_ refused the hand of a wealthy middle-aged nut, with +faultless knickerbockers and a gift for lucubrated epigrams, preferring +to throw in her lot (platonically) with a young and penniless social +reformer, we took no notice of those who feared a scandal ("scandals are +not what they were," as she said), nor of the girl's assertion that she +had no use for the alleged romance of marriage. We were confident that +the little god whose image, with bow and arrow, stood in the garden of +_Dahlia's_ ancestral home, would put things right for us in the end. Yet +we were not greatly annoyed when he made a mess of his business and +married her to the wrong man; for in the meantime such strange things +had been allowed to occur and the right man had proved such a +disappointment that we didn't much care what happened to anybody. + +It was the rejected lover, _Mortimer Jerrold_, who conceived two bright +ideas for conquering her independence of mind, apparently for the +benefit of his rival. First he contrived to get _Harold Glaive_, the +young socialist, selected as a candidate for Parliament, hoping (if I +read the gentleman's motive rightly) that his probable failure would +touch the place where her heart should have been. This scheme did not go +very well, for he was chosen to contest the seat held by _Dahlia's_ own +father (which caused a lot of trouble), and in the result beat him. + +Meanwhile _Jerrold_ had had an alternative brain-wave. He thought that +if he pinched the latchkey of _Dahlia's_ Bloomsbury flat, broke in at +night, and made a show of assaulting her modesty he could prove to her +that she was only a poor weak woman after all. Nothing, you would say, +could well have been more stupid. Yet, according to Mr. HASTINGS +TURNER'S showing (and who were we to challenge his authority?) it came +off. We were, in fact, asked to believe that a girl who had protested +her freedom from all sense of sex was suddenly made conscious of it by +the violence of a man whose advances, when decently conducted, had left +her cold; and from that moment developed an inclination to marry him. An +assault by a tramp or an apache would apparently have served almost as +well for the purpose. If this is "Every Woman's Privilege" it is +fortunate that so few of them get the chance of exercising it. + +Miss MARIE LÖHR herself came very well out of a play that can hardly add +to the author's reputation. Her personality lent itself to a part which +demanded a blend of feminine charm with a boyish contempt for romance. +And she had a few good things to say. It was not Mr. HALLARD'S fault if +he failed to win our perfect sympathy for a hero whom the heroine +addressed as "Spats." As for Mr. BASIL RATHBONE, who played the part of +_Harold Glaive_, I cannot imagine why he took it on. Apart from his +timorous declaration of love, conveyed on a typewriter, there was no +colour in it, and nothing whatever to show why his passion petered out. +I think that the author, in his surprise at the success of _Harold's_ +rival, must have forgotten all about it. Mr. HERBERT ROSS was excellent +as _Dahlia's_ father, a pleasantly futile baronet under the thumb of a +sour-tongued managing female, an old-fashioned part in which Miss HELEN +ROUS has nothing to learn. Miss VANE FEATHERSTON, as the lady who +finally absorbed the baronet, did her little gratuitous piece all right. + +I cannot get myself to believe that all these intelligent actors are +under any illusion as to the merits of the comedy. With the best wishes +in the world for the success of Miss MARIE LÖHR'S enterprises, I am +bound to regard it as yet another instance of a play where the +attractions of the leading part have a little deranged the judgment of +the actor-manager. + +O.S. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Richard Petafor_ (Mr. HUBERT HARBEN), the apostle of +Materialism and Physical Exercise, trying to convert _Antony Grimshaw_ +(Mr. HERBERT MARSHALL), the believer in Mysticism and Armchairs.] + + * * * * * + +"THE CROSSING." + +Mr. ALGERNON BLACKWOOD and Mr. BERTRAM FORSYTH (assisted by Mr. DONALD +CALTHROP) present to us in _The Crossing_ a certain _Mr. Anthony +Grimshaw_, a princely egotist of the poetic-idealist type who gets up on +the hearth-rug and says to his family, "I am a humanitarian before +everything," and things like that, and then wonders why his wife is +estranged from him. He has a daughter, _Nixie_, who is not old enough to +know how bad all this is, and together they hear the wind singing glees +without words (or in Volapuk, but anyway not intelligible to us poor +normals), a thing Mr. ALGERNON BLACKWOOD has been doing or pretending to +do for years without once taking me in. + +_Anthony_ is run over and (as we say) dies. After an extraordinarily +tiresome conversation in the morning-room with his friend and his son +and his mother (who are also what people call dead) it dawns upon him +that something odd has happened to himself also. His wife and two +children, after his (so-called) death, become blissfully happy and set +to work to finish his book, that being, as they think, his wish. Well, I +wonder. At any rate in death (as we say) he was not divided--from his +egotisms. + +One knows well enough, alas, how the temptation to spiritual drug-taking +has grown as the result of the accumulated sorrows of these past years, +but it is not well that such a treatment of the eternal question should +be taken seriously. Is this sort of thing really better than the +harp-and-cloud theory? It is not. One looked in vain for any trace of +real vision, any true sense of the height and depth of the problem. + +Mr. MARSHALL struggled quite manfully with the part of _Anthony_, and of +course he had his moments. I hope so good a player is not developing the +"actor's pause," of which I detected signs. Miss IRENE ROOKE had nothing +in particular to do and did it very well. Mr. HUBERT HARBEN as the +impenitent profiteer from Lancashire, _Anthony's_ brother-in-law, was +better suited than I have seen him for some time, and provided the very +necessary relief. The precocious children infuriated me, but that is +purely temperamental. The actors who played the parts of those who had +"crossed" were wrapped in such an atmosphere of gloom, to the strains of +such meretricious music that (on the evidence) I can only advise people +to defer their crossing as long as possible; a thing they will doubtless +do, even if they have a friendlier feeling to the new religion than I +can command.... I am afraid I proved a bad sailor. + +T. + + * * * * * + +TWO STUDIES IN MUSICAL CRITICISM. + +(_With grateful acknowledgments to "The Times" and "The Morning +Post."_) + +I. + +We had quite a hectic time at the Philharmonic--I nearly wrote the +Phillemonade--concert last night, what with two Czechs, Dabçik and +Ploffskin, slabs of WAGNER, and Carl Walbrook's Humorous Variations, +"The Quangle Wangle," conducted by Carl himself. If the honest truth be +told, we sat down to the Variations with no more pleasurable +anticipation than one sits down with in the dentist's chair, preparatory +to the application of gags, electric drills and other instruments of +odontological torture. (Strange, by the way, that no modernist has +translated the horrors of the modern Tusculum into terms of sound and +fury!) But we were most agreeably surprised to find ourselves following +every one of the forty-nine Variations with breathless interest. Mr. +Walbrook is indeed a case of the deformed transformed. We found hardly a +trace of the poluphloisboisterous pomposity with which he used to +camouflage his dearth of ideas. His main theme is shapely and sinuous, +and its treatment in most of the Variations titillated us voluptuously. +But, since it is the function of the critic to criticise, let us justify +our _rôle_ by noting that the scoring throughout tends to glutinousness, +like that of the pre-war Carlsbad plum; further, that a solo on the +muted viola against an accompaniment of sixteen sarrusophones is only +effective if the sarrusophones are prepared to roar like sucking-doves, +which, as LEAR would have said, "they seldom if ever do." Still, on the +whole the Variations arrided us vastly. + +It was a curious but exhilarating experience to hear the Bohemians, the +playboys of Central Europe, interpreted in the roast-beef-and-plum-pudding +style of the Philharmonic at its beefiest and plummiest. Dabçik survived +the treatment fairly well, but poor Ploffskin was simply stodged under. +But they were in the same boat with RICHARD the Elder, whose Venusberg +music was given with all the orgiastic exuberance of a Temperance Band +at a Sunday-School Treat, recalling the sarcastic jape of old HANS +RICHTER during the rehearsal of the same work: "You play it like +teetotalers--which you are not." Yet the orchestra were lavish of +violent sonority where it was not required; the well-meaning but +unfortunate Mr. Orlo Jimson, who essayed the "Smithy Songs" from +_Siegfried_, being submerged in a very Niagara of noise. WAGNER'S +scoring no doubt is "a bit thick," but then he devised a special +"spelunk" (as BACON says) for his orchestra to lurk in, and there is no +cavernous accommodation at the Queen's Hall. + +II. + +Though fashion considers September as an unpropitious time for the +production of novelties, the scheme arranged for the patrons of the +Philharmonic Concert last night, under the direction of Sir Henry +Peacham, was successful in bringing together an audience of eminently +respectable dimensions. The occasion served for the launching under +favourable circumstances of what constituted the chief landmark of the +programme--a set of orchestral variations with the quaint title of "The +Quangle Wangle," from the prolific pen of Mr. Carl Walbrook. It is +satisfactory to be able to record the gratifying fact that this work met +with cordial acceptance. In the interests of serious art, the borrowing +of a title from one of the works of a writer so addicted to levity as +EDWARD LEAR may perhaps be deprecated, but there can be no doubt of the +ingenuity and sprightliness with which Mr. Walbrook has addressed +himself to, and accomplished, his task. If we cannot discover in his +composition the manifestation of any pronounced individuality or high +artistic uplift, it none the less commands the respect due to the +exhibition of a vigorous mentality combined with a notable mastery of +orchestral resource and mellifluous modulation. At the conclusion of the +performance Mr. Walbrook was constrained to make the transit from the +artistes' room to the platform no fewer than three times before the +applausive zeal of the audience could be allayed. + +The remainder of the scheme was copious and well-contrived. Pleasurable +evidence of the friendly interest shown in the fortunes of the +Czecho-Slovakian Republic was forthcoming in the performance of two +works by composers of that interesting race--Messrs. Dabçik and +Ploffskin--of which it may suffice to say that the temperamental +peculiarities of the Bohemian genius were elicited with conspicuous +brilliancy under the inspiring direction of Sir Henry Peacham. In a +vocal item from _Siegfried_, Mr. Orlo Jimson evinced a sympathetic +appreciation of the emotional needs of the situation which augurs +favourably for his further progress, and the powerful support furnished +him by the orchestra was an important factor in the enjoyment of his +praiseworthy efforts. An almost too vivacious rendering of the Venusberg +music brought the scheme to a strepitous conclusion. It may, however, be +submitted that so realistic an interpretation of the Pagan revelries +depicted by the composer is hardly in accordance with the best +traditions of the British musical public. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE DREAM OF BLISS.] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Fussy Old Party_ (_who likes to make sure_). "ARE YOU +_CERTAIN_ YOU GO TO TUNBRIDGE WELLS?" + +_Driver_ (_to Conductor_). "'ERE, BILL, WE _ARE_ CARELESS. SOMEONE MUST +HAVE PINCHED THE NAME-BOARDS WHEN WE WEREN'T LOOKING."] + + * * * * * + + "There is no such thing as infallibility in rerum + naturæ."--_Provincial Paper._ + +Nor, apparently, in journalistic Latin. + + * * * * * + + "Reward.--Bedroom taken Tuesday, 27th, between Holborn and + Woburn-place. A basket and umbrella left."--_Daily Paper._ + +We compliment the victim of this theft on his courtesy in calling the +thieves' attention to their oversight. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Exhausted War Profiteer._ "DEER FORESTS FOR THE 'IDLE +RICH' BE BLOWED! THE 'NEW POOR' CAN 'AVE 'EM FOR ME."] + + * * * * * + +OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. + +(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) + +The long-promised _Herbert Beerbohm Tree_ (HUTCHINSON), than which I +have expected no book with more impatience, turns out to be a volume +full of lively interest, though rather an experiment in snap-shot +portraiture from various angles than a full-dress biography. Mr. MAX +BEERBOHM has arranged the book, himself contributing a short memoir of +his brother, which, together with what Lady TREE aptly calls her +_Reverie_, fills some two-thirds of it with the more intimate view of +the subject, the rest being supplied by the outside appreciations of +friends and colleagues. If I were to sum up my impression of the +resulting picture it would be in the word "happiness." Not without +reason did the TREES name a daughter FELICITY. Here was a life spent in +precisely the kind of success that held most delight for the +victor--honour, love, obedience, troops of friends; all that _Macbeth_ +missed his exponent enjoyed in flowing measure. Perhaps TREE was never a +great actor, because he found existence too "full of a number of +things"; if so he was something considerably jollier, the enthusiastic, +often inspired amateur, approaching each new part with the zest of a +brief but brilliant enthusiasm. I suppose no popular favourite ever had +his name associated with more good stories and wit, original and +vicarious. Despite some entertaining extracts from his commonplace book +I doubt if this side of him is quite worthily represented; at least +nothing here quoted beats Lady TREE'S own _mot_ for a mendacious +newspaper poster--_Canard à la Press_. Possibly we are still to look for +a more official volume of reference; meantime the present memoir gives a +vastly readable sketch of one whose passing left a void perhaps +unexpectedly hard to fill. + + * * * * * + +In the prefatory chapter of _Our Women_ (CASSELL) Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT +coyly disclaims any intention of tackling his theme on strictly +scientific principles. The warning is perhaps hardly necessary, since, +apart from the duty which the author owes to his public as a novelist +rather than a philosopher, the title alone should be a sufficient guide. +One would hardly expect a serious zoologist, for instance, in attempting +to deal with the domesticated fauna, to entitle his work _Our Dumb +Friends_. The book is divided in the main between adjuration and +prophecy. As a result of their emancipation from economic slavery, Mr. +BENNETT expects women--women, that is to say, of the "top class," as he +calls it--to adopt more and more the _rôle_ of professional +wage-earners; but at the same time he insists that they do not as yet +take themselves seriously enough as professional housekeepers. How the +two functions are to be combined it is a little difficult to see, but +apparently women are to retain a profession as a stand-by in case they +fail to marry or to remain married. At the same time Mr. BENNETT takes +it for granted that woman will never relinquish her position as a +charmer of man, or even the use of cosmetics and expensive lingerie. +Speaking neither as a novelist nor as a philosopher, I cannot help +feeling that Mr. BENNETT is too apt to consider the things he +particularly likes about women to be eternal, and those that he does not +like so much to be susceptible of alteration and improvement. Anyhow, it +looks as if Our Men were going to have rather a thin time. + + * * * * * + +Miss BEATRICE HARRADEN calls her latest story _Spring Shall Plant_ +(HODDER AND STOUGHTON). She might equally well have called it _The +Successes of a Naughty Child_. Certainly it is chiefly concerned with +the many triumphant insubordinations of _Patuffa_ (whom I suspect of +having been encouraged by her too challenging name) both at home and at +the various schools from which she either ran away or was returned with +thanks. This is all mildly attractive if only from the vivacity of its +telling; but I confess to having felt a mild wonder whether a child's +book had not got on to my table by error--when the grown-ups suddenly +began to carry on in a way that placed all such doubts at rest. There +was, for example, a Russian lady, godmother of _Patuffa_, who escaped +from somewhere and established herself, with others of her kind, in an +attic in Coptic Street. My welcome for this interesting fugitive was to +some extent shaken by a realisation that she was (so to speak) a refugee +from the other side and, in a sense, a spiritual ancestress of +Bolshevism. Miss HARRADEN would however object, and justly, that the +clean-purposed conspirators of the earlier revolution had little in +common with the unsavoury individuals who at present obscure the Russian +dawn. Soon after this, _Patuffa's_ papa begins to go quite dreadfully +off the rails, even to the extent of wishing to elope with her governess +and eventually losing all his money and shooting himself. There was also +a famous violinist--well, you can see already that _Patuffa's_ vernal +experiences were on generous lines. It is to the credit of all concerned +that she and her story retain an appreciable charm under adverse +conditions. + + * * * * * + +Nothing, one would imagine, could promise much more restful reading than +a book that concerns itself with such things as christening robes for +caterpillars, the dyeing blue of white chickens and searches among +Californian lilies and pine-trees for the soul of a hog unseasonably +defunct. But, since this most uncharitable age refuses to believe +anything just because it is told it should, the peaceful pages of _The +Diary of Opal Whiteley_ (PUTNAM) are unfortunately fussed over with a +controversy that no one who reads them can quite escape. Miss WHITELEY'S +diary is presented with every circumstance of solemn asseveration as the +unaided work of a child of seven, only now pieced together by the writer +after quite a number of years. If you care to throw yourself into the +argument you will certainly find heaps of reasons for thinking unkind +thinks, as the writer would say, of the truth of this claim, +particularly in the completeness with which every incident is carried +through various stages to its literary finish; but, if you will be ruled +by me, you will try to forget anything but the book itself, with its +quite charming pictures of many animals and one little girl, their +understanding friend. The quaint idiom in which the diary is supposed to +have been written (or, of course, was written) adds to the delight of a +rather uncommon feeling for nature at its simplest, while the scrapes +for which the small heroine receives (or, you may say, is alleged to +receive) well-deserved punishment preserve the book from ever dropping +into mere mawkishness. A great pity, I think, that it was not published +rather as based on childish memories than as the actual printed script +of a prodigy. + + * * * * * + +_Moon Mountains_ (HURST AND BLACKETT) is a story which with the best +will in the world I found it impossible to regard wholly seriously. The +greater part of the scene is laid in Darkest Africa, where the father of +the hero, _Peter_ (my hope that the _Peter_ habit had blown over appears +to have been premature), disappears at an early stage. The subsequent +course of events reminds me of the words of the musical-comedy poet, +popular in my youth, who wrote, "It were better for you rather not to +try and find your father, than to find him"--well, certainly better than +to find him as _Peter_ found his. Perhaps it would not be unfair to +suppose that Miss MARGARET PETERSON had at this point her eye already +firmly fixed upon her big situation. Certainly the course of _Peter_ is +rather impatiently and spasmodically sketched till the moment when +matters are sufficiently advanced to ship him also to Africa, in company +with an elderly hunter of butterflies named _Mellis_. Their adventures +form the bulk of the tale (filled out with some chat about elephants, +and a sufficiency of love-making on the part of _Peter_), and I suppose +I need hardly tell you how one of them, poor _Mellis_, is immediately +captured and brought before the terrible white king of the hidden lands, +nor how this same monarch, a really dreadfully unpleasant person, turns +out to be--Precisely. So there the tale is; little more incredible than, +I dare say, most of its kind; and if you have no rooted objection to +characters all of whom behave like persons who know they are in a book +there is no reason why you should not find it at least passably +entertaining. + + * * * * * + +Mr. F. BRETT YOUNG'S manner of presenting _The Tragic Bride_ (SECKER) is +not free from affectation, and this is the more irritating because his +literary style is in itself admirably unpretentious. But having recorded +this complaint I gladly go on to declare that his tale of _Gabrielle +Hewish_ has both charm and distinction. I protest my belief in +_Gabrielle_ both in her Irish and English homes, but my protest would +have been superfluous if Mr. BRETT YOUNG had not almost super-taxed my +powers of belief. So also with _Arthur Payne_; he is a fascinating lad, +and the battle between his mother and _Gabrielle_ for possession of him +was a royal struggle, fought without gloves yet very fairly. All the +same I caught myself doubting once or twice whether any boy could at the +same time be so human and so inhuman. It is to Mr. BRETT YOUNG'S credit +that these doubts do not interfere with one's enjoyment of his book, and +the reason is that he is first and last and all the time an artist. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _New Clerk._ "BEG PARDON, SIR, BUT THERE'S A GENTLEMAN +OUTSIDE WHO SAYS THAT YOU'VE ROBBED HIM OF ALL HE HAD." + +_Turf Accountant._ "WELL, WHAT'S HIS NAME? ASK HIM TO GIVE YOU HIS NAME. +HOW AM I TO DISTINGUISH HIM IF HE DOESN'T SEND HIS NAME IN?"] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, +VOL. 159, OCTOBER 6, 1920*** + + +******* This file should be named 17397-8.txt or 17397-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/3/9/17397 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920</p> +<p>Author: Various</p> +<p>Editor: Owen Seaman</p> +<p>Release Date: December 26, 2005 [eBook #17397]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 159, OCTOBER 6, 1920***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h4> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> + <h1>PUNCH,<br /> + OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1> + + <h2>Vol. 159.</h2> + <hr class="full" /> + + <h2>October 6, 1920.</h2> + <hr class="full" /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id="page261"></a>[pg 261]</span> + +<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2> + +<p>"Motorists," says a London magistrate, +"cannot go about knocking people +down and killing them every day." +We agree. Once should be enough for +the most grasping pedestrian.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"A Kensington lady," we read, "has +just engaged a parlourmaid who is +only three feet seven inches in height." +The shortage of servants is becoming +most marked.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A play called <i>The Man +Who Went to Work</i> is +shortly to be produced in +the West End. It sounds +like a farce.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A police-sergeant of Ealing +is reported to have summoned +six hundred motorists +since March. There is +some talk of his being presented +with the illuminated +addresses of another three +hundred.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>All the recent photographs +of Sir <span class="sc">Eric Geddes</span> +show him with a very broad +smile. "And I know who +he's laughing at," writes a +railway traveller.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>With reference to the Press +controversy between Mr. +H.G. <span class="sc">Wells</span> and Mr. <span class="sc">Henry +Arthur Jones</span>, we understand +that they have decided +to shake hands and be +enemies.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"In New Zealand," says +a weekly paper, "there is a +daisy which is often mistaken +for a sheep by the +shepherds." This is the sort +of statement that the Prohibitionist +likes to make a +note of.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A statistician informs us that a man's +body contains enough lime to whitewash +a small room. It should be +pointed out however that it is illegal +for a wife to break up her husband for +decorative purposes.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The Manchester Communist Party +have decided to have nothing whatever +to do with Parliament. We understand +that the <span class="sc">Premier</span> has now decided to +sell his St. Bernard dog.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"There are no very rich people in England," +says a gossip-writer. We can +only say we know a club porter who +recently stated that he had a cousin +who knew a miner who ... but we +fear it was only gossip.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"It is possible for people to do +quite well without a stomach," says a +Parisian doctor. Judged by the high +prices, we know a grocer who seems to +think along the same lines.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Special aeroplanes to carry fish from +Holland to this country are to run in +the winter. The idea of keeping the +fish long enough to enable them to +cross under their own power has been +abandoned.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>An Ashford gardener has grown a +cabbage which measures twelve feet +across. It is said to be uninhabited.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The Rules of Golf Committee now +suggest a standard ball for England and +America. The question of a standard +long-distance expletive for foozlers is +held over.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A youth charged at a police-court in +the South of London with stealing five +hundred cigars, valued at threepence +each, admitted that he had smoked +twenty-six of them. We are glad to learn +that no further punishment was ordered.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>The Waste Trade World</i> states that +there is a great demand for rubbish. +Editors, however, don't seem to be +moving with the times.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Off Folkestone, a few days ago, a +trawler captured a blue-nosed shark. +Complaints about the temperature of +the sea have been very common among +bathers this year.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>"No one has yet been +successful in filming an actual +murder," states a Picture-goers' +Journal. It certainly +does seem a pity that +our murderers are so terribly +self-conscious in the presence +of a cinematograph +man.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>The Daily Express</i> states +that Mrs. <span class="sc">Bamberger</span> has +decided not to appeal against +her sentence. If that be so, +this high-handed decision +will be bitterly resented by +certain of the audience who +were in court during the trial +and eagerly looked forward +to the next edition.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A <i>Daily Mail</i> reader writes +to our contemporary to say +that he found forty-two +toads in his garden last +week. We can only suppose +that they were there in ignorance +of the fact that he +took in <i>The Daily Mail</i>.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A pike weighing twenty-six +pounds, upon being hooked +by a Cheshire fisherman, +pulled him into the canal. +His escape was much regretted +by the fish, who had +decided to have him stuffed.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>It is possible that Mr. <span class="sc">Tom Mann</span>, +the secretary of the A.S.E., will shortly +retire under the age limit. It is rumoured +that members have started to +collect for a souvenir strike as a parting +tribute.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a href="./images/250.png"><img src="./images/250_th.png" alt="Bus conductor talking to irate passenger" /></a> +<p><i>Bus Conductor</i> (<i>after passenger's torrents of invective on the subject of +increased fare</i>). "<span class="sc">Right-o, Ma. I'll tell 'em everythink you've +said wen I takes the chair at the next directors' meeting</span>."</p></div> + +<hr /> + +<h3>The Ethiopian Again.</h3> + +<blockquote> +<p>"COAL STILL BLACK."</p> + +<p class="author"><i>Heading in "Church Family Newspaper."</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p> +"The output in the first quarter this year +was at the rate of 248,000,000 million tons +a year. It fell in the second quarter to +232,000,000. Between and beyond these lines +there is an ample margin for bargaining."—<i>Evening Paper.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Abundantly ample.</p> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id="page262"></a>[pg 262]</span> + +<h2>LESSONS FROM NATURE.</h2> + +<h4><span class="sc">To an Autumn Primrose.</span></h4> + +<table summary="center the poem"> +<tr><td> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"If this belief from heaven be sent,</p> +<p class="i2"> If such be Nature's holy plan,</p> +<p> Have I not reason to lament</p> +<p class="i2"> What man has made of man?"</p> +<p class="i10"> <i>Wordsworth.</i></p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Symbol of innocence, to Tories dear,</p> +<p class="i2">Whom I detect beside the silvan path</p> +<p>Doing your second time on earth this year</p> +<p class="i2">That I may cull a generous aftermath,</p> +<p class="i6">Let me divine your reason</p> +<p>For thus repullulating out of season.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Associated with the vernal prime</p> +<p class="i2">And widely known as "rathe," why bloom so late?</p> +<p>Was it the lure of so-called "Summer-time,"</p> +<p class="i2">Extended well beyond the usual date?</p> +<p class="i6">Our thanks for which reprieve</p> +<p>Are <span class="sc">Smillie's</span>, though they didn't ask his leave.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Rather I think you have some lofty plan,</p> +<p class="i2">Such as your old friend <span class="sc">Wordsworth</span> loved to sing;</p> +<p>That for a fair ensample set to Man</p> +<p class="i2">You duplicate your output of the Spring;</p> +<p class="i6">That in your heart there lodges</p> +<p>Dimly the hope of shaming Mr. <span class="sc">Hodges</span>.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ah! gentle primrose by the river's brim!</p> +<p class="i2">Like <i>Peter Bell</i> (unversed in woodland lore),</p> +<p>He'll miss your meaning; you will be to him</p> +<p class="i2">A yellow primrose—that and nothing more;</p> +<p class="i6">He'll read in you no sign</p> +<p>Of Nature's views about the datum-line.</p> + </div></div> +</td></tr></table> +<p class="author">O.S.</p> +<hr /> + +<h2>THE MINERS' OPERA.</h2> + +<p>About a week ago, when they took Titterby away to the +large red-brick establishment which he now adorns, certain +papers which were left lying in his study passed into my +hands, for I was almost his only friend. It had long been +Titterby's belief that a great future lay before the librettist +who should produce topical light operas on the <span class="sc">Gilbert</span> +and <span class="sc">Sullivan</span> model, dealing with our present-day economic +crises. The thing became an <i>idée fixe</i>, as the French say, +or, as we lamely put it in English, a fixed idea. There can +be no doubt that he was engaged in the terrible task of +fitting the current coal dispute to fantastic verse when +a brain-cell unhappily buckled, and he was found destroying +the works of his grand piano with a coal-scoop.</p> + +<p>Most of the MS. in my possession is blurred and undecipherable, +full of erasures, random stage-directions and +marginal notes, amongst which occasional passages such +as the following "emerge" (as Mr. <span class="sc">Smillie</span> would say):—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"<i>Secretary.</i> The fellow is standing his ground,</p> +<p class="i10"> He's as stubborn and stiff as a war-mule.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Minister.</i> A</p> +<p class="i10"> Means will be found</p> +<p class="i10"> If we look all around</p> +<p class="i10"> To arrive at a suitable formula.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Chorus.</i> Yes, you've got to arrive at a formula."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Difficult though my task may be I feel it the duty of +friendship to attempt to give the public some faint outline +of this fascinating and curious work. Scenarios, <i>dramatis +personæ</i> and choruses had evidently caused the author +inordinate trouble, for at the top of one sheet I find:—</p> + +<p class="center">"ACT I.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Interior of a coal-mine. Groups of colliers with lanterns +and picks (? tongs). Enter Chorus of female consumers.</i>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Then follows this note:—</p> + +<blockquote><p> +"<i><span class="sc">Mem.</span> Can one dance in coal-mine? Look up <span class="sc">coal</span> +in 'Ency. Brit.' Also <span class="sc">cellar flap</span></i>;" +</p></blockquote> + +<p>and later on, at the end of a passage which evidently described +the dresses of the principal female characters introduced, +we have the words:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><i><span class="sc">"Britannia</span>. ? jumper, bobbed hair.<br /> +<span class="sc">Anarchy</span>. ? red tights</i>."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Nothing in this Act survives in a legible form, but in Act II. +we are slightly more fortunate:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>"<span class="sc">Scene.</span>—<i>Downing Street</i> (it begins). <i>Enter mixed Chorus +of private secretaries, female shorthand writers and representatives +of the Press, followed by Sir <span class="sc">Robert +Horne</span>, Mr. <span class="sc">Robert Williams</span> and Mr. <span class="sc">Smillie</span>.</i>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>What happens after this I can only roughly surmise, but +most probably Mr. <span class="sc">Smillie</span> proves false to Britannia and +flirts for some time with Anarchy, egged on by Mr. <span class="sc">Williams</span> +and urged by Sir <span class="sc">Robert Horne</span> to return to his earlier +flame. At any rate, after a little, the handwriting grows +clearer, and I read:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"<i>Mr. <span class="sc">Smillie</span> (striking the pavement with his pick)</i>.</p> +<p class="i10"> We mean to strike.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Chorus.</i> "He means to strike, he means to strike,</p> +<p class="i10"> Rash man! Did ever you hear the like</p> +<p class="i10"> Of what he has just asserted?</p> +<p class="i10"> Living is dear enough now, on my soul,</p> +<p class="i10"> What will it be when we can't get coal?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i><span class="sc">Prime Minister</span> (entering suddenly).</i></p> +<p class="i10"> This strike must be averted."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>There seems to have been some doubt as to how the +<span class="sc">Prime Minister's</span> entrance should be effected, for at this +point we get the marginal note: "<i>? From door of No. 10. +? On wings. ? Trap door. ? Riding St. Bernard Dog.</i>"</p> + +<p>But the difficulty was evidently settled, and the Chorus +begins again:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i10"> "Oh, here is the wizard from Wales,</p> +<p class="i10"> The wonderful wizard from Wales,</p> +<p class="i10"> The British Prime Minister,</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i><span class="sc">Mr. Williams.</span></i> Subtle and sinister.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Chorus.</i> Oh, no! That is only your fancy.</p> +<p class="i10"> Disputes he can manage and check;</p> +<p class="i10"> All parties respond to his beck.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i><span class="sc">Mr. Williams.</span></i> He talks through the back of his neck!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Chorus.</i> When he talks through the back of his neck</p> +<p class="i10"> We call it his neck-romancy."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Of the arguments used by Mr. <span class="sc">Lloyd George</span> after this +spirited encouragement no record remains but the following +passage:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"My dear Mr. <span class="sc">Smillie</span>,</p> +<p>We value you highly</p> +<p class="i2">Howe'er so ferociously raven you.</p> +<p>We must find a way out,</p> +<p>And we shall do, no doubt,</p> +<p class="i2">If we only explore every avenue.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Chorus.</i> Yes, please, do explore every avenue.</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p>[<i>Exeunt Mr. <span class="sc">Lloyd George</span> and Mr. <span class="sc">Smillie</span> arm-in-arm, +R. (? followed by St. Bernard) and return +C. Exeunt L. and return C. again, and so on.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Chorus.</i> Oh, have you explored every avenue?"</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264"></a>[pg 264]</span> + +<p>Apparently they have, for later on we get—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"<i><span class="sc">Prime Minister.</span></i> Then why should you want to strike</p> +<p class="i2">When the Government saves your faces?</p> +<p>You can get more pay when you like</p> +<p class="i2">On the larger output basis."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>And the Chorus of course chimes in:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"They can get more pay when they like</p> +<p class="i2">On the larger output basis."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>And there is a note at the side: "<i>Chorus to wave arms upwards +and outwards, indicating increased production of coal.</i>"</p> + +<p>It seems to have been at some time after this, and probably +in Act III., that Titterby went, if I may put it so +vulgarly, off the hooks. I think he must have got on to +the conference between the mineowners and the representatives +of the miners, and struggled until the gas became +too thick for him. At any rate, after several unreadable +pages, the following unhappy fragment stands out clear:—</p> + +<p>"<i>Mr. <span class="sc">Smillie</span> still stands irresolute, running his fingers +through his hair.</i></p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p><i>Chorus of Mineowners</i> (<i>pointing at him</i>).</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Ruffled hair requires, I ween,</p> +<p>Something in the brilliantine</p> +<p class="i2">Or else in the pomatum line.</p> +<p>How shall we devise a balm</p> +<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Smillie's</span> locks to calm?</p> +<p class="i2">Hullo! here comes the Datum-Line!</p> + </div> </div> + +<blockquote><p><i>Enter</i> Datum-Line. (<i>? can Datum-Line be personified? +? comic. ? check trousers. ? red whiskers.</i>)"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Nothing more has been written, and it must have been +at this point, I suppose, that Titterby got up and assaulted +his piano. It all seems very sad.</p> + +<p class="author"><span class="sc">Evoe.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>[pg 263]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<a href="./images/252.png"><img src="./images/252_th.png" alt="A PROSPECTIVE JONAH?" /></a> +<h3>A PROSPECTIVE JONAH?</h3> + +<p><span class="sc">The Captain</span> (<i>to Sir <span class="sc">Eric Geddes</span></i>). "I SOMETIMES WONDER WHETHER A MAN OF YOUR +ABILITY OUGHT NOT TO FIND A BETTER OPENING."</p> + +<p>[It is rumoured that the Ministry of Transport is to have a limited existence.]</p></div> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="./images/253.png"><img src="./images/253_th.png" alt="Lady talking to fishmonger." /></a> +<p><i>Lady.</i> "<span class="sc">No cod left, Mr. Brown?</span>" + + <i>Fishmonger</i> (<i>confidentially</i>). "<span class="sc">Well, Mrs. Snipps, I'll oblige you. I +always keeps a bit up my sleeve for reg'lar customers.</span>"</p></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONSOLATION.</h2> +<table summary="center poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>You may be very ugly and freckledy and small</p> +<p>And have a little stubby nose that's not a nose at all;</p> +<p>You may be bad at spelling and you may be worse at sums,</p> +<p>You may have stupid fingers that your Nanna says are thumbs,</p> +<p>And lots of things you look for you may never, never find,</p> +<p>But if you love the fairies—you don't mind.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>You may be rather frightened when you read of wolves and bears</p> +<p>Or when you pass the cupboard-place beneath the attic stairs;</p> +<p>You may not always like it when thunder makes a noise</p> +<p>That seems so much, much bigger than little girls and boys;</p> +<p>You may feel rather lonely when you waken in the night,</p> +<p>But if the fairies love you—<i>it's all right</i>.</p> + </div> </div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="author">R.F.</p> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p> +"I trust it may be sufficient to convince readers that Mr. Chesterton is +<b>continued at foot of next column</b>."—<i>Sunday Paper.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>At last the ever-recurring problem of where to put the rest +of Mr. <span class="sc">Chesterton</span> has been solved.</p> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>[pg 265]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> +<a href="./images/254.png"><img src="./images/254_th.png" alt="Fed-up Owner (to holiday Artist)." /></a> +<p><i>Fed-up Owner</i> (<i>to holiday Artist</i>). "<span class="sc">Charming, my dear young lady—charming—with +one important omission. You've forgotten to put in the notice on the +tree.</span>"</p></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE LITTLE MOA</h2> + +<h4>(<i>and how much it is</i>).</h4> + + +<p>I have been reading a lot about +Polynesia lately, and the conclusion +has been forced upon me that dining out +in that neighbourhood might be rather +confusing to a stranger.</p> + +<p>Imagine yourself at one of these +Antipodean functions. Your host is +seated at the head of the table with a +large fowl before him. Looking pleasantly +in your direction he says:—</p> + +<p>"Will you have a little moa?"</p> + +<p>Not being well up in the subject of +exotic fauna you will be tempted to +make one of the following replies:—</p> + +<p>(1) (With <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> in +your mind) "How can I possibly have +more when I haven't had anything at +all yet?"</p> + +<p>(2) "Yes, please, a lot more, or just +a little more," as capacity and appetite +dictate.</p> + +<p>(3) "No, thank you."</p> + +<p>The objection to reply No. 1 is that +it may cause unpleasantness, or your +host may retort, "I didn't ask you if +you would have a little more moa," and +thus increase your embarrassment.</p> + +<p>No. 2 is a more suitable rejoinder, +but probably No. 3 is the safest reply, +as some of these big birds require a lot +of mastication.</p> + +<p>In the event of your firing off No. 3, +your host glances towards the hostess +and says—</p> + +<p>"Oo, then" (pronounced "oh-oh").</p> + +<p>To your startled senses comes the +immediate suggestion, "Is the giver of +the feast demented, or is he merely rude?"</p> + +<p>Just as you are meditating an excuse +for leaving the table and the house, your +hostess saves the situation by saying +sweetly, "Do let me give you a little +oo," playfully tapping with a carvingknife +the breastbone of a winged creature +recumbent on a dish in front of her.</p> + +<p>It gradually dawns upon you that +you are among strange birds quite outside +the pale of the English Game Laws, +and that you will have to take a sporting +chance.</p> + +<p>While you are still in the act of +wavering the son of the house says, +"Try a little huia."</p> + +<p>If you like the look of this specimen +of Polynesian poultry you signify your +acceptance in the customary manner; +otherwise, in parliamentary phraseology, +"The Oos have it."</p> + +<p>For my own part I fancy that, unless +or until some of these unusual fowls +are extinct, I shall not visit Polynesia, +but rest content with Purley. Our +dinner-parties may be dull, but at least +one knows one's way about among the +dishes.</p> + +<hr /> + + +<h2>A BALLAD OF THE EARLY WORM.</h2> + +<table summary="center the poem"> +<tr><td> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The gentle zephyr lightly blows</p> +<p class="i2">Across the dewy lawn,</p> +<p>And sleepily the rooster crows,</p> +<p class="i2">"Beloved, it is dawn."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The little worms in bed below</p> +<p class="i2">Can hear their father wince,</p> +<p>While, up above, a feathered foe</p> +<p class="i2">Is busy making mince.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>In vain they seize his slippery tail</p> +<p class="i2">And try to pull him back;</p> +<p>It makes their little cheeks turn pale</p> +<p class="i2">To hear his waistband crack.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>They draw him down and crowd around;</p> +<p class="i2">Their tears bespeak their love;</p> +<p>For part of him is underground</p> +<p class="i2">And part has gone above.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>But not for long does sorrow seize</p> +<p class="i2">The subterranean mind,</p> +<p>For father grows another piece</p> +<p class="i2">In front or else behind.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>And now he's up before the dawn,</p> +<p class="i2">Long ere the world has stirred,</p> +<p>And eats his breakfast on the lawn</p> +<p class="i2">Before the early bird.</p> + </div> </div> +</td></tr></table> +<hr /> + + +<h3>When the Young Lead the Young.</h3> + +<blockquote><p> +"Lady Nurse or Nursery Governess (young) +wanted for post near Ventnor, I.W., for boy +2½ years. Experience, similar age, and happy +disposition essential."—<i>Weekly Paper.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<blockquote><p> +"Oxford, Tuesday.</p> + +<p>The Royal Commission on Oxford and Cambridge +Universities began its Oxford session +this afternoon in the Extermination Schools."—<i>Daily Paper.</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<p><i>Absit omen!</i></p> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>[pg 266]</span> + + + + +<h2>THE CONSPIRATORS.</h2> + +<h3>II.</h3> + + +<p><span class="sc">My dear Charles,</span>—The Third International +is not a Rugby football match. +It is a corporation of thrusters whose +prospectus announces that it will very +shortly have your blood, having first acquired +exclusive rights in your money. +Have you two acres and a cow? Have +you seven pounds three and threepence +in the Post-Office Savings Bank? Have +you any blood? Very well, then; <span class="sc">this +concerns you</span>.</p> + +<p>There was a meeting of shareholders +in Moscow as recently as July last. +The Chairman said: "Gentlemen—I beg +your pardon, Comrades,—I am happy +to be able to report promising developments. +Our main enterprise in Russia, +for technical reasons with which I will +not now trouble you, is not for the moment +profit-producing; but we have +been able to promote some successful +ventures abroad. In all parts of the +civilised world—and Ireland—we may +anticipate a distribution of assets in the +near future." And among those assets +to be parcelled out are, I may say, your +acres, your cow, your savings and yourself.</p> + +<p>There followed a meeting of the +Executive Committee (I wish they +would avoid that tactless word "executive," +don't you?). Simple and brisk +instructions were drafted for foreign +agents, bidding them get on with it and +not spare themselves, or in any case not +spare anyone else. These were inscribed +on linen, which was folded over, with +the writing inside, and neatly hemmed. +Shortly afterwards a number of earnest +young men wearing tall collars and an +air of exaggerated innocence sought to +cross various frontiers and were surprised +and offended when rough and +rude officials stole their collars and set +about taking them to pieces.</p> + +<p>I hate to speak slightingly of anyone, +but these world-revolutionaries have no +business to be so young. According to +my view a professor of anarchy and assassination +ought to be a man of middle-age +with stiff stubble on his chin. He +has no business to be a pale and perspiring +youth, tending to long back hair +and apt to be startled by the slightest +sound when he is alone. And what a +lot of them write poetry, and such poetry +too! That is the manner of the man +who is going to seize your house and +usurp your cow, while you will be +lucky if you are allowed a place on a +perch in your own fowl-house.</p> + +<p>We had an opportunity of seeing +them in procession when a consignment +of these world-revolutionaries drove off +in state from Berne about the time of +the Armistice. I told you, last week, +that we had a Legation of them, very +kindly lent by the Moscow management, +and I also told you that our +Italian juggler had let us into the secret +of their midnight lucubrations, of which +we had duly informed the officials interested +in such matters. We had front +places when the motor lorry called for +them and the military escort arrived to +assist all the passengers to take, and +keep, their seats. Into the lorry were +packed the Minister Plenipotentiary +and Envoy Extraordinary, the Chargé +d'Affaires, the First Secretary, the +Second Secretary, the Third Secretary, +the Legal and Spiritual Advisers and +the Lady Typist. Their features were +not easy to distinguish; when the Bolshevists +assume dominion over us they +will not nationalize our soap. One +or two fell out, but were carefully replaced +by willing hands and bayonets; +and so home.</p> + +<p>Now that is a sight you don't often +see: a Diplomatique Corps being returned +to store in a motor lorry. The +disappointing thing about them was +that, for all their fiery propaganda and +for all their drastic resolutions, never +a one of them produced so much as +a squib-cracker. The only people to +derive any excitement from the affair +were the small children, who took it +for a circus.</p> + +<p>The best they could do for us was a +general strike. What all this had to do +with trades or unions nobody seemed +to know, least of all the workers. But +there was an attractive sound about +the then novel phrase, "Direct Action," +and it gave a sense of useful business +to that otherwise over-portly word, +"Proletariat." And the local politicians, +promised good jobs in <span class="sc">Lenin's</span> millennium, +made great use of the phrase, +"Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Thus +many an honest workman joined in +under the belief that it meant an +extra hour's holiday on Saturdays, an +extra hour in bed on Mondays and an +extra bob or two of wages.</p> + +<p>While it lasts, even a bloodless revolution +can be very tiresome; almost as +disquieting as a general election. Everybody +who isn't revoluting is mobilised +to keep the revolution from being molested. +There are no trams, because the +drivers are demonstrating; no shops, +because the shopmen are mobilised; no +anything, because everyone is out watching +the fun. So you go into the square +to watch also. You see little groups of +revolutionaries looking sullen and laboriously +class-hating. You see a lot of +soldiers looking very ordinary but trying +not to. The riff-raff scowl at the +soldiers, who are ordered out to shoot +at them. The soldiers scowl at the riff-raff +at whom they are ordered not to +shoot. And, for some reason which the +experts have not yet fathomed, it always +pours with rain.</p> + +<p>When we had succeeded in persuading +the soldier who was posted to guard +our hotel that we were not the proletariat +and might safely be let pass, we +found a gathering of inside-knowledge +people discussing the situation. The +Government ought to have known all +about it long before—how the Bolshevists +were stirring up trouble. "They +did," said we; "we told them." There +was a silence at this, but a smile on the +face of the audience which we at first +mistook for incredulity. We referred +darkly to our private information, derived, +as I told you in my last, from the +Italian juggler. "Did he do juggling +tricks with <i>your</i> ink-pots too?" asked the +French element. "How much money +did <i>you</i> give him?" asked all the other +elements. "And I suppose he also told +you," said the Italian officer, "that he +had no confidence in his own people +and that the British alone enjoyed his +respect?"</p> + +<p>At this moment the Americans came +in and asked us to quit arguing and +attend while they told us how they had +unearthed the great plot.... When +together we reckoned up the Italian +juggler's net takings we realised that it +is an ill revolution which brings no +one any good.</p> + + +<p class="author">Yours ever, +<span class="sc">Henry</span>.</p> + + +<h4>(<i>To be continued.</i>)</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h3>CUBBIN' THRO' THE RYE.</h3> + + +<p class="note"> +[Suggested by a recently reported incident +in the Midlands, when a pack divided, one +part getting out of hand and running among +standing crops.] +</p> + +<table summary="center the poem"> +<tr><td> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Gin a body meet a body</p> +<p class="i2">Cubbin' thro' the rye,</p> +<p>Gin a body tell a body,</p> +<p class="i2">"Seed 'em in full cry,"</p> +<p>Useless then to blame the puppies,</p> +<p class="i2">Useless too to lie;</p> +<p>Whippers-in can't <i>always</i> stop 'em,</p> +<p class="i2">Even when they try.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Gin a body meet a body</p> +<p class="i2">Cubbin' thro' the rye,</p> +<p>What a body calls a body</p> +<p class="i2">Dare I say?—not I;</p> +<p>Farmers get distinctly stuffy,</p> +<p class="i2">Neither are they shy,</p> +<p>And Masters, when they're really rattled,</p> +<p class="i2">Sometimes make reply.</p> + </div> </div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr /> + + +<h3>Brave News for Pussyfoot.</h3> + +<blockquote><p> +"A good many Church-people at home have +been pressing teetotalism, and are now pressing +Prohibition, and it is possible that they +may succeed about the time when the moon +grows cold."—<i>Weekly Paper.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267"></a>[pg 267]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"><a href="./images/256.png"> +<img src="./images/256_th.png" alt="Sketches of Man playing games" /></a> +<h3>THE MAN YOU GIVE A GAME TO.</h3></div> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>[pg 268]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="./images/257.png"><img src="./images/257_th.png" alt="Group of boys under a tree." /></a> +<p><span class="sc">"Right-o. If yer wants a fight I'm ready. An' as we've only one pair +o' gloves, an' you're the youngest, I'll be a sport an' let you wear 'em."</span></p></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE MYSTERY OF THE APPLE-PIE BEDS.</h2> + +<h4>(<i>Leaves from a holiday diary.</i>)</h4> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>An outrage has occurred in the hotel. +Late on Monday night ten innocent +visitors discovered themselves the possessors +of apple-pie beds. The beds were +not of the offensive hair-brush variety, +but they were very cleverly constructed, +the under-sheet being pulled up in the +good old way and turned over at the top +as if it were the top-sheet.</p> + +<p>I had one myself. The lights go out +at eleven and I got into bed in the dark. +When one is very old and has not been +to school for a long time or had an +apple-pie bed for longer still, there is +something very uncanny in the sensation, +especially if it is dark. I did not like it +at all. My young +brother-in-law, Denys, +laughed immoderately +in the other bed at my +flounderings and imprecations. +He did +not have one. I suspect +him....</p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p>Naturally the hotel +is very much excited. +It is the most thrilling +event since the +mixed foursomes. Nothing +else has been discussed +since breakfast. +Ten people had beds +and about ten people +are suspected. The +really extraordinary +thing is that numbers +of people seem to suspect +<i>me</i>! That is the +worst of being a professional +humourist; +everything is put down to you. When I +was accompanying Mrs. F. to-day she +suddenly stopped fiddling and said hotly +that someone had been tampering with +her violin. I know she suspected me. +Fortunately, however, I have a very +good answer to this apple-pie bed +charge. Eric says that his bed must +have been done after dinner, and I was +to be seen at the dance in the lounge +all the evening. I have an alibi.</p> + +<p>Besides I had a bed myself; surely +they don't believe that even a professional +humourist could be so bursting +with humour as to make himself an +apple-pie bed and not make one for his +brother-in-law in the same room! It +would be too much like overtime.</p> + +<p>But they say that only shows my +cleverness....</p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p>Then there is the question of the +Barkers. Most of the victims were +young people, who could not possibly +mind. But the Barkers had two, and +the Barkers are a respected middle-aged +couple, and nobody could possibly +make them apple-pie beds who did not +know them very well. That shows you +it can't have been me—I—me—that +shows you I couldn't have done it. I +have only spoken to them once.</p> + +<p>They say Mr. Barker was rather +annoyed. He has rheumatism and +went to bed early. Mrs. Barker discovered +about her bed before she got +in, but she didn't let on. She put out +the candle and allowed her lord to get +into his apple-pie in the dark. I think +I shall like her.</p> + +<p>They couldn't find the matches. I +believe he was quite angry....</p> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p>I suspect Denys and Joan. They +are engaged, and people in that state +are capable of anything. Neither of +them had one, and they were seen slipping +upstairs during the dance. They +say they went out on the balcony—a +pretty story....</p> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p>I suspect the Barkers. You know, +that story about Mrs. B. letting Mr. +B. get into his without warning him +was pretty thin. Can you imagine an +English wife doing a thing of that kind? +If you can it ought to be a ground for +divorce under the new Bill. But you +can't.</p> + +<p>Then all that stuff about the rheumatism—clever +but unconvincing. Mr. +Barker stayed in his room all the next +morning <i>when the awkward questions +were being asked</i>. Not well; oh, no! +But he was down for lunch and conducting +for a glee-party in the drawing-room +afterwards, as perky and active +as a professional. Besides, the really +unanswerable problem is, who could +have <i>dared</i> to make the Barkers' apple-pie +beds? And the answer is, nobody—except +the Barkers.</p> + +<p>And there must have been a lady in +it, it was so neatly done. Everybody +says no <i>man</i> could have done it. So +that shows you it couldn't have been +me—I—myself....</p> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p>I suspect Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop +is fifty-three. He has been in +the hotel since this time last year, and +he makes accurate forecasts of the +weather. My experience is that a man +who makes accurate forecasts of the +weather may get up to any devilry. +And he protests too much. He keeps +coming up to me and making long +speeches to prove that he didn't do it. +But I never said he +did. Somebody else +started that rumour, +but of course he thinks +that I did. That comes +of being a professional +humourist.</p> + +<p>But I do believe he +did it. You see he is +fifty-three and doesn't +dance, so he had the +whole evening to do it +in.</p> + +<p>To-night we are going +to have a Court +of Inquiry....</p> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<p>We have had the +inquiry. I was judge. +I started with Denys +and Joan in the dock, +as I thought we must +have somebody there +and it would look +better if it was somebody +in the family. The first witness +was Mrs. Barker. Her evidence was +so unsatisfactory that I had to have +her put in the dock too. So was Mr. +Barker's. I was sorry to put him in +the dock, as he still had rheumatics. +But he had to go.</p> + +<p>So did Mr. Winthrop. I had no +qualms about him. For a man of his +age to do a thing like that seems to me +really deplorable. And the barefaced +evasiveness of his evidence! He simply +could not account for his movements +during the evening at all. When I +asked him what he had been doing at +9.21, and where, he actually said he +<i>didn't know</i>.</p> + +<p>Rather curious—very few people <i>can</i> +account for their movements, or anyone +else's. In most criminal trials the witnesses +remember to a minute, years +after the event, exactly what time they +went upstairs and when they passed +the prisoner in the lounge, but nobody +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>[pg 269]</span> +seems to remember anything in this +affair. No doubt it will come in time.</p> + +<p>The trial was very realistic. I was +able to make one or two excellent judicial +jokes. Right at the beginning I +said to the prosecuting counsel, "What +<i>is</i> an apple-pie bed?" and when he had +explained I said with a meaning look, +"You mean that the bed was not in +<i>apple-pie order</i>?" Ha, ha! Everybody +laughed heartily....</p> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<p>In my address to the jury of matrons +I was able to show pretty clearly that +the crime was the work of a gang. I +proved that Denys and Joan must have +done the bulk of the dirty work, under +the tactical direction of the Barkers, +who did the rest; while in the background +was the sinister figure of Mr. +Winthrop, the strategical genius, the +lurking Macchiavelli of the gang.</p> + +<p>The jury were not long in considering +their verdict. They said: "We find, +your Lordship, that you did it yourself, +with some lady or ladies unknown."</p> + +<p>That comes of being a professional +humourist....</p> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<p>I ignored the verdict. I addressed +the prisoners very severely and sentenced +them to do the Chasm hole from +6.0 <span class="sc">a.m.</span> to 6.0 <span class="sc">p.m.</span> every day for a +week, to take out cards and play out +every stroke. "You, Winthrop," I +said, "with your gentlemanly cunning, +your subtle pretensions of righteousness—" +But there is no space for +that....</p> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<p>As a matter of fact the jury were +quite right. In company with a lady +who shall be nameless I did do it. At +least, at one time I thought I did. Only +we have proved so often that somebody +else did it, we have shown so conclusively +that we can't have done it, that we find +ourselves wondering if we really did.</p> + +<p>Perhaps we didn't.</p> + +<p>If we did we apologise to all concerned—except, +of course, to Mr. Winthrop. +I suspect him.</p> + +<p class="author">A.P.H.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="./images/258.png"><img src="./images/258_th.png" alt="THE END OF THE SEASON." /></a> +<h3>THE END OF THE SEASON.</h3> + +<p><i>Sympathetic Friend.</i> <span class="sc">"Well, you've laid her up nicely for the winter, anyhow."</span></p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>MIXED METEOROLOGICAL MAXIMS.</h2> + +<h4>(<i>By a Student of Psychology.</i>)</h4> + +<table summary="center the poem"> +<tr><td> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>When the glass is high and steady</p> +<p>For domestic broils be ready.</p> +<p>When the glass is low and jerky</p> +<p>Then look out for squalls in Turkey.</p> +<p>When the air is dull and damp</p> +<p>Keep your eye on Mr. <span class="sc">Cramp</span>.</p> +<p>When the air is clear and dry</p> +<p>On <span class="sc">Bob Williams</span> keep your eye.</p> +<p>When it's fine and growing finer</p> +<p>Keep your eye upon the miner.</p> +<p>When it's wet and growing wetter</p> +<p>'Twill be worse before it's better.</p> +<p>When the tide is at its ebb</p> +<p>Fix your gaze on <span class="sc">Sidney Webb</span>.</p> +<p>When the tide is at high level</p> +<p>Modernists discuss the Devil.</p> +<p>Floods upon the Thames or Kennet</p> +<p>Stimulate the brain of <span class="sc">Bennett</span>;</p> +<p>While a waterspout foretells</p> +<p>Fresh activities in <span class="sc">Wells</span>.</p> +<p>When it's calm in the Atlantic</p> +<p>Gooseberries become gigantic.</p> +<p>When it's rough in the Pacific</p> +<p>Laying hens are less prolific.</p> +<p>When the clouds are moving <i>largo</i></p> +<p>There is no restraining <span class="sc">Margot</span>.</p> +<p>When their movement is <i>con brio</i></p> +<p>'Ware <span class="sc">Chiozza Money (Leo)</span>!</p> +<p>When the sun is bright but spotty</p> +<p>Diarists become more dotty.</p> +<p>When the sun is dim and hazy</p> +<p>Diarists become more crazy.</p> +<p>When the nights are calm and still</p> +<p>Faster travels <span class="sc">Garvin's</span> quill.</p> +<p>When the blizzard's blast is hissing</p> +<p><span class="sc">Repington</span> is reminiscing.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>If you ponder well these lines</p> +<p>You can read the weather signs</p> +<p>In accordance with the rule</p> +<p>Binding both on sage and fool:—</p> +<p><i>Anything in mortal ken</i></p> +<p><i>May befall us anywhen.</i></p> + </div> </div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr /> + + +<h3>Commercial Importunity.</h3> + +<blockquote><p> +"Services! Dozens other cars available, +£1,500 to £50. Call and insult us."—<i>Motor Journal.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + + +<h3>More Visions of the Unseen.</h3> + +<blockquote><p> +"The roads are peculiarly situated, and are +dangerous not only because they are main +cross roads, but also on account of the hidden +view they afford of each other."—<i>Local Paper.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>[pg 270]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="./images/259.png"><img src="./images/259_th.png" alt="Teacher and girl at piano." /></a> +<p><i>Teacher.</i> "<span class="sc">And what does</span> <i>ff</i> <span class="sc">mean</span>?" + +<i>Pupil</i> (<i>after mature deliberation</i>). <span class="sc">"<i>Fump-Fump.</i></span>"</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE DEVOTED LOVER.</h2> + +<p class="note"> +["Loiterers will be treated as trespassers."—<i>Notice on Tube Station.</i>] +</p> + +<table summary="center the poem"> +<tr><td> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>No longer laud, my Jane, the ancient wooer</p> +<p class="i2">Who for the favours of his ladye fayre</p> +<p>Would sally forth to strafe the evil-doer</p> +<p class="i2">Or beard the dragon in his inmost lair;</p> +<p>Find it no more, dear heart, a ground for stray tiffs</p> +<p class="i2">Because, forsooth, you can't detect in me</p> +<p>A tendency to go out whopping caitiffs</p> +<p class="i2">Daily from ten till three.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>He proved himself in his especial fashion,</p> +<p class="i2">Daring the worst to earn a lover's boon,</p> +<p>But I, no less than he a prey to passion,</p> +<p class="i2">Faced risks as great this very afternoon,</p> +<p>When at the Tube a long half-hour I waited</p> +<p class="i2">(In fond obedience to your written beck)</p> +<p>Where loiterers, it practically stated,</p> +<p class="i2">Would get it in the neck.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The liftmen who from time to time ascended</p> +<p class="i2">To spill their loads (in which you had no part)</p> +<p>Regarded me with eagle eyes intended</p> +<p class="i2">To lay the touch of terror on my heart;</p> +<p>But through a wait thus perilously dreary</p> +<p class="i2">My spirits drooped not nor my courage flinched;</p> +<p>"She cometh not," I merely sighed, "I'm weary</p> +<p class="i2">And likely to be pinched."</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>You came at last, long last, to end my fretting,</p> +<p class="i2">And now you know how your devoted bard</p> +<p>Faced for your sake the risk of fine or getting</p> +<p class="i2">An unaccustomed dose of labour (hard);</p> +<p>Harbour no more that idiotic notion</p> +<p class="i2">That love to-day is unromantic, flat;</p> +<p>Gave <i>Lancelot</i> such a proof of his devotion,</p> +<p class="i2">Did <i>Galahad</i> do that?</p> + </div> </div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>[pg 271]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> +<a href="./images/260.png"><img src="./images/260_th.png" alt="THE PRINCE COMES HOME." /></a> +<h3>THE PRINCE COMES HOME.</h3></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>PAMELA'S ALPHABET.</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>Scene.</i>—<span class="sc">A Domestic Interior</span>.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Pamela's <i>father, in one armchair, is making a praiseworthy +effort to absorb an article in a review on "The Future of +British Finance." In another armchair</i> Pamela's <i>mother +is doing some sort of mending.</i> Pamela <i>herself, stretched +upon the hearthrug, is reading aloud interesting extracts +from a picture-book.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>in a cheerful sing-song</i>). A for Donkey; B for +Dicky.</p> + +<p><i>Her Father.</i> What sort of dicky?</p> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>examining the illustration more closely</i>). All +ugly black, bissect for his blue mouf.</p> + +<p><i>Her Mother</i> (<i>instructively</i>). Not blue; yellow. And it's +a beak, not a mouth.</p> + +<p><i>Pamela.</i> I calls it a mouf. He's eating wiv it. (<i>With +increasing disfavour</i>) A poor little worm he's eating. +Don't like him; he's crool. (<i>She turns the page hurriedly +and continues</i>) C for Pussy; D for Mick.</p> + +<p>[<i>This is the name of the family mongrel. That the +picture represents an absolutely thoroughbred collie +matters nothing to</i> Pamela. <i>She spends some time in +admiring</i> Mick, <i>then rapidly sweeps over certain illustrations +that fail to attract.</i></p> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>stopping at the sight of a web-footed fowl, triumphantly</i>). +G for Quack-quack.</p> + +<p><i>Her Father.</i> Oh, come, Pamela, that's not a quack-quack; +that's a goose. It makes quite a different noise.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>[pg 272]</span> + +<p>[<i>Anticipating an immediate demand for a goose's noise +he clears his throat nervously.</i></p> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>with authority</i>). This one isn't making any noise. +It's jus' thinking. (<i>Her father accepts the correction and +swallows again.</i>) H for Gee-gee. Stupid gee-gee.</p> + +<p><i>Her Father.</i> Why stupid?</p> + +<p><i>Pamela.</i> 'Acos its tail looks silly.</p> + +<p><i>Her Father</i> (<i>glancing at the tail, which bears some resemblance +to an osprey's feather</i>). You're right; it does.</p> + +<p><i>Her Mother.</i> I wonder whether it's wrong to let children +get accustomed to bad drawings?</p> + +<p><i>Her Father.</i> Pamela doesn't get accustomed—she criticises. +If it weren't for a silly tail here, a stupid face there, +her critical faculty might lie for ever dormant.</p> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>having turned over four or five pages with one +grasp of the hand, as if determined to suppress the unsatisfactory +horse</i>). R for Bunny.</p> + +<p><i>Her Mother.</i> No, dear, Rabbit. R for <i>R</i>abbit. B for <i>B</i>unny.</p> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>gently</i>). No; B is for Dicky. The ugly dicky wiv +the blue mouf.</p> + +<p><i>Her Father</i> (<i>rashly</i>). The blackbird.</p> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>conscious of superior knowledge</i>). That isn't its +name. That's what it looks like, all black; but its name +is Dicky. B for Dicky.</p> + +<p><i>Her Father.</i> Well, have it your own way. What does +S stand for?</p> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>turning to the likeness of an elderly quadruped, +with great assurance</i>). Baa-lamb!</p> + +<p><i>Her Father.</i> Sometimes we call baa-lambs sheep.</p> + +<p><i>Pamela.</i> I don't.</p> + +<p><i>Her Father.</i> You will when you grow older.</p> + +<p><i>Pamela.</i> I won't be any older, not for ever so long. Not +till next birfday. (<i>Pushing her book away and assuming an +air of extreme infancy</i>) Tired of reading. Want a piggy-back, +<i>please</i>!</p> + +<p><i>Her Father</i> (<i>firmly taking up his review again</i>). Not just +now. I'm busy with a picture-book.</p> + +<p>[<i>A reproachful silence falls upon the room.</i></p> + +<p><i>Pamela</i> (<i>presently, in a mournful chant</i>). A for Don-key. +B for Dicky—</p> + +<p class="center"><i>The Scene closes.</i></p> + + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="./images/261.png"><img src="./images/261_th.png" alt="Two sailors on the deck of a ship." /> +</a> +<h3>MORE OUTLINES OF HISTORY.</h3> + +<p><i>Sailor.</i> <span class="sc">"We have just seen some orange-peel and banana-skins floating on the starboard, Sir</span>."</p> + +<p><i>Columbus.</i> "<span class="sc">Was there any chewing-gum</span>?"</p> + +<p><i>Sailor.</i> "<span class="sc">No, Sir</span>."</p> + +<p><i>Columbus.</i> <span class="sc">"Then it must be the West Indies we're coming to, +and I'd hoped it was going to be America</span>."</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>FLOWERS' NAMES.</h2> + +<h4><span class="sc">Crow's-Foot</span>.</h4> +<table summary="center poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Have you noticed that the splendid dreams, the best dreams that there are,</p> +<p>Come always in the darkest nights without a single star?</p> +<p>When the moonless nights are blackest the best dreams are about;</p> +<p>I'll tell you why that should be so and how I found it out.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>There's a bird who comes at night-time, and underneath his wings,</p> +<p>All warm and soft and feathery, lie tiny fairy things;</p> +<p>He spreads his wings out widely (you see them, not the dark)</p> +<p>And you hear the fairies whispering, "Hush! hush!" "I'll tell you!" "Hark!"</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>The bird is black and feathery, but his feet are made of gold;</p> +<p>He chiefly comes in summer-time, for fairies hate the cold;</p> +<p>And if the nights are velvet-dark and full of summer airs</p> +<p>He lingers till the sun creeps up and finds him unawares.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>And so you'll see in summer-time, when all the dew is wet,</p> +<p>The footprints of his golden claws maybe will linger yet;</p> +<p>The little golden flower-buds will gleam like golden grain,</p> +<p>And if you pick and cherish them perhaps you'll dream again.</p> + </div> </div></td></tr></table> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>[pg 273]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="./images/262.png"><img src="./images/262_th.png" alt="Old man and boy." /></a> +<p class="sc">"Have you ever been up in an aeroplane, Grandpa?" + +"No, my boy—not yet."</p></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>HONOURS EASY.</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>Not very long ago the following +advertisements appeared in the same +column of <i>The Southshire Daily Gazette</i>:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +"Lost, a pure black Pekinese dog, wearing a +silver badge marked 'Cherub.' Handsome +reward offered. F.B., Grand Hotel, Brightbourne."</p> + +<p>"Found, a black Pekinese, wearing a silver +badge marked 'Cherub.' No reward required. +The Limes, Cheviot Road, Brightbourne." +</p></blockquote> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p>On the same morning the paper was +opened and scanned almost simultaneously +by Mrs. Frederick Bathurst in +the sitting-room which she and her +husband occupied at the Grand Hotel, +and by Mr. Hartley Friend in the +morning-room at "The Limes."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Fred," exclaimed Mrs. Bathurst, +"Cherub has been found. He's all +safe at a house called 'The Limes,' in +Cheviot Road. Isn't that splendid?"</p> + +<p>"Very good news," said her husband. +"I told you not to worry."</p> + +<p>"It's a direct answer to prayer," +said Mrs. Bathurst. "But—"</p> + +<p>"But what?" her husband inquired.</p> + +<p>"But I do wish you had taken my +advice not to offer any reward. You +might so easily have left it open. +People aren't so mercenary as all that. +It stands to reason that anyone staying +at an hotel like this and bringing a +dog with them—always an expensive +thing to do—and valuing it enough to +advertise its loss, would behave properly +when the time came."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Mr. Bathurst replied. +"Does anything stand to reason? The +ordinary dog-thief, holding up an animal +to ransom, might be deterred from returning +it if no mention of money was +made. You remember we decided on +that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I don't think so. You +merely had your way again, that was +all. I was always against offering a +reward. And the word 'handsome' too. +In any case I never agreed to that. +You put that in later. Another thing," +Mrs. Bathurst continued, "I knew it +in some curious way—in my bones, as +they say—that the fineness of Cherub's +nature, its innocence, its radiant friendliness, +would overcome any sordidness +in the person who found him, poor darling, +all lost and unhappy. No one +who has been much with that simple +sweet character could fail to be the +better for it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Bathurst coughed.</p> + +<p>"That is so?" his wife persisted.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Bathurst, after +helping himself to another egg, "let us +hope so, at any rate."</p> + +<p>"It's gone beyond mere hope," said +his wife triumphantly. "Listen to +this;" and she read out the sentence +from the second advertisement, "'No +reward required.' There," she added, +"isn't that proof? I'll go round to +Cheviot Road directly after breakfast +and say how grateful we are, and bring +the darling back."</p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p>Meanwhile at "The Limes" Mr. +Hartley Friend was pacing the room +with impatient steps.</p> + +<p>"I do wish you would try to be less +impulsive," he was saying to his wife. +"Anything in the nature of business +you would be so much wiser to leave +to me."</p> + +<p>"What is it now?" Mrs. Friend asked +with perfect placidity.</p> + +<p>"This dog," said her husband, "that +fastened itself on you in this deplorable +way—whatever possessed you to rush +into print about it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I rushed, as you say. +Think of the feelings of the poor woman +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg 274]</span> +who has lost her pet. It was the only +kind thing to do."</p> + +<p>"'Poor woman' indeed! I assure +you she's nothing of the sort. One +would think you were a millionaire to +be ladling out benefactions like this. +'No reward required.' Fancy not even +asking for the price of the advertisement +to be refunded!"</p> + +<p>"But that would have been so +squalid."</p> + +<p>"'Squalid!' I've no patience with +you. Justice isn't squalor. It's—it's +justice. As for your 'poor woman,' +listen to this." And he read out the +Bathurst advertisement with terrible +emphasis on the words "Handsome +reward offered." "Do you hear that—'handsome'?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I hear," said his wife amiably; +"but that isn't my idea of making +money."</p> + +<p>"I hope you don't suppose it's mine," +said her husband. "But there is such +a thing as common sense. Why on +earth the accident of this little brute +following us home should run us into +the expense of an advertisement and a +certain amount of food and drink I'm +hanged if I can see."</p> + +<p>"Well, dear," said his wife with the +same amiability, "if you can't see it I +can't make you."</p> + + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p>A few minutes later the arrival of "a +lady who's come for the Peek" was +announced.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mr. Friend as his wife +rose, "leave it to me. I'll deal with +it. The situation is very delicate."</p> + +<p>"How can I thank you enough," began +Mrs. Bathurst, "for being so kind +and generous about our little angel? +My husband and I agreed that nothing +more charmingly considerate can ever +have been done."</p> + +<p>At this point Mrs. Friend followed +her husband into the room, and Mrs. +Bathurst renewed her expressions of +gratitude.</p> + +<p>"But at any rate," she added to her, +"you will permit me to defray the cost +of the advertisement? I could not allow +you to be at that expense."</p> + +<p>Before Mrs. Friend could speak her +husband intervened. "No, madam," +he said, "I couldn't think of it. Please +don't let the mention of money vulgarize +a little friendly act like this. We +are only too glad to have been the +means of reuniting you and your pet."</p> + +<p class="author">E.V.L.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 340px;"> +<a href="./images/263.png"><img src="./images/263_th.png" +alt="Street scene--Man on corner, two women and a child." /></a> +<p><i>Lady with Pram</i> (<i>who has been pointing out to newcomer the beauties of the neighbourhood, +where a strike is threatened</i>). <span class="sc">"That's one of the 'Ot 'Eads</span>."</p></div> + + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p> +"Rufford Abbey is, of course, a wonderful +old place, and all the front, from gable to +gable, is genuine tenth-century, built in 1139."—<i>Sunday Times.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>It looks as if the ca' canny idea was +not so new as we thought it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>AT THE PLAY.</h2> + +<h3 class="sc">"Every Woman's Privilege."</h3> + +<p>When <i>Dahlia</i> refused the hand of a +wealthy middle-aged nut, with faultless +knickerbockers and a gift for lucubrated +epigrams, preferring to throw in +her lot (platonically) with a young and +penniless social reformer, we took no +notice of those who feared a scandal +("scandals are not what they were," as +she said), nor of the girl's assertion +that she had no use for the alleged +romance of marriage. We were confident +that the little god whose image, +with bow and arrow, stood in the garden +of <i>Dahlia's</i> ancestral home, would put +things right for us in the end. Yet we +were not greatly annoyed when he made +a mess of his business and married her +to the wrong man; for in the meantime +such strange things had been +allowed to occur and the right man +had proved such a disappointment that +we didn't much care what happened to +anybody.</p> + +<p>It was the rejected lover, <i>Mortimer +Jerrold</i>, who conceived two bright ideas +for conquering her independence of +mind, apparently for the benefit of his +rival. First he contrived to get <i>Harold +Glaive</i>, the young socialist, selected as a +candidate for Parliament, hoping (if I +read the gentleman's motive rightly) +that his probable failure would touch +the place where her heart should have +been. This scheme did not go very +well, for he was chosen to contest the +seat held by <i>Dahlia's</i> own father (which +caused a lot of trouble), and in the +result beat him.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile <i>Jerrold</i> had had an alternative +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>[pg 275]</span> +brain-wave. He thought that +if he pinched the latchkey of <i>Dahlia's</i> +Bloomsbury flat, broke in at night, and +made a show of assaulting her modesty +he could prove to her that she was only +a poor weak woman after all. Nothing, +you would say, could well have been more +stupid. Yet, according to Mr. <span class="sc">Hastings +Turner's</span> showing (and who were we +to challenge his authority?) it came off. +We were, in fact, asked to believe that +a girl who had protested her freedom +from all sense of sex was suddenly made +conscious of it by the violence of a man +whose advances, when decently conducted, +had left her cold; and from that +moment developed an inclination to +marry him. An assault by a tramp or +an apache would apparently have served +almost as well for the purpose. If this +is "Every Woman's Privilege" it is +fortunate that so few of them get the +chance of exercising it.</p> + +<p>Miss <span class="sc">Marie Löhr</span> herself came very +well out of a play that can hardly add +to the author's reputation. Her personality +lent itself to a part which +demanded a blend of feminine charm +with a boyish contempt for romance. +And she had a few good things to say. +It was not Mr. <span class="sc">Hallard's</span> fault if he +failed to win our perfect sympathy for +a hero whom the heroine addressed as +"Spats." As for Mr. <span class="sc">Basil Rathbone</span>, +who played the part of <i>Harold Glaive</i>, +I cannot imagine why he took it on. +Apart from his timorous declaration of +love, conveyed on a typewriter, there +was no colour in it, and nothing whatever +to show why his passion petered out. +I think that the author, in his surprise at +the success of <i>Harold's</i> rival, must have +forgotten all about it. Mr. <span class="sc">Herbert +Ross</span> was excellent as <i>Dahlia's</i> father, +a pleasantly futile baronet under the +thumb of a sour-tongued managing +female, an old-fashioned part in which +Miss <span class="sc">Helen Rous</span> has nothing to learn. +Miss <span class="sc">Vane Featherston</span>, as the lady +who finally absorbed the baronet, did +her little gratuitous piece all right.</p> + +<p>I cannot get myself to believe that +all these intelligent actors are under +any illusion as to the merits of the +comedy. With the best wishes in the +world for the success of Miss <span class="sc">Marie +Löhr's</span> enterprises, I am bound to regard +it as yet another instance of a play +where the attractions of the leading +part have a little deranged the judgment +of the actor-manager.</p> + +<p class="author">O.S.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3 class="sc">"The Crossing."</h3> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 290px;"> +<a href="./images/264.png"><img src="./images/264_th.png" alt="Two men talking." /></a> +<p><i>Richard Petafor</i> (Mr. <span class="sc">Hubert Harben</span>), the +apostle of Materialism and Physical Exercise, +trying to convert <i>Antony Grimshaw</i> (Mr. <span class="sc">Herbert +Marshall</span>), the believer in Mysticism +and Armchairs.</p></div> + +<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Algernon Blackwood</span> and Mr. +<span class="sc">Bertram Forsyth</span> (assisted by Mr. +<span class="sc">Donald Calthrop</span>) present to us in +<i>The Crossing</i> a certain <i>Mr. Anthony +Grimshaw</i>, a princely egotist of the +poetic-idealist type who gets up on the +hearth-rug and says to his family, "I +am a humanitarian before everything," +and things like that, and then wonders +why his wife is estranged from him. +He has a daughter, <i>Nixie</i>, who is not old +enough to know how bad all this is, and +together they hear the wind singing +glees without words (or in Volapuk, +but anyway not intelligible to us poor +normals), a thing Mr. <span class="sc">Algernon Blackwood</span> +has been doing or pretending to +do for years without once taking me in.</p> + +<p><i>Anthony</i> is run over and (as we say) +dies. After an extraordinarily tiresome +conversation in the morning-room with +his friend and his son and his mother +(who are also what people call dead) it +dawns upon him that something odd +has happened to himself also. His wife +and two children, after his (so-called) +death, become blissfully happy and set +to work to finish his book, that being, +as they think, his wish. Well, I wonder. +At any rate in death (as we say) +he was not divided—from his egotisms.</p> + +<p>One knows well enough, alas, how +the temptation to spiritual drug-taking +has grown as the result of the accumulated +sorrows of these past years, but +it is not well that such a treatment +of the eternal question should be taken +seriously. Is this sort of thing really +better than the harp-and-cloud theory? +It is not. One looked in vain for any +trace of real vision, any true sense of the +height and depth of the problem.</p> + + +<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Marshall</span> struggled quite manfully +with the part of <i>Anthony</i>, and of +course he had his moments. I hope +so good a player is not developing the +"actor's pause," of which I detected +signs. Miss <span class="sc">Irene Rooke</span> had nothing +in particular to do and did it very well. +Mr. <span class="sc">Hubert Harben</span> as the impenitent +profiteer from Lancashire, <i>Anthony's</i> +brother-in-law, was better suited than +I have seen him for some time, and +provided the very necessary relief. The +precocious children infuriated me, but +that is purely temperamental. The +actors who played the parts of those who +had "crossed" were wrapped in such +an atmosphere of gloom, to the strains +of such meretricious music that (on the +evidence) I can only advise people to +defer their crossing as long as possible; +a thing they will doubtless do, even if +they have a friendlier feeling to the new +religion than I can command.... I +am afraid I proved a bad sailor.</p> + +<p class="author">T.</p> +<hr /> + + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>[pg 276]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 348px;"><a href="./images/265.png"><img src="./images/265_th.png" alt="THE DREAM OF BLISS." /></a><h3>THE DREAM OF BLISS.</h3></div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>[pg 277]</span> +<hr /> + +<h2>TWO STUDIES IN MUSICAL +CRITICISM.</h2> + +<h4>(<i>With grateful acknowledgments to "The +Times" and "The Morning Post."</i>)</h4> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>We had quite a hectic time at the +Philharmonic—I nearly wrote the +Phillemonade—concert last night, what +with two Czechs, Dabçik and Ploffskin, +slabs of <span class="sc">Wagner</span>, and Carl Walbrook's +Humorous Variations, "The Quangle +Wangle," conducted by Carl himself. +If the honest truth be told, we sat down +to the Variations with no more pleasurable +anticipation than one sits down with +in the dentist's chair, preparatory to the +application of gags, electric drills and +other instruments of odontological torture. +(Strange, by the way, that no +modernist has translated the horrors +of the modern Tusculum into terms of +sound and fury!) But we were most +agreeably surprised to find ourselves +following every one of the forty-nine +Variations with breathless interest. Mr. +Walbrook is indeed a case of the deformed +transformed. We found hardly +a trace of the poluphloisboisterous pomposity +with which he used to camouflage +his dearth of ideas. His main +theme is shapely and sinuous, and its +treatment in most of the Variations +titillated us voluptuously. But, since +it is the function of the critic to criticise, +let us justify our <i>rôle</i> by noting that the +scoring throughout tends to glutinousness, +like that of the pre-war Carlsbad +plum; further, that a solo on the muted +viola against an accompaniment of sixteen +sarrusophones is only effective if +the sarrusophones are prepared to roar +like sucking-doves, which, as <span class="sc">Lear</span> +would have said, "they seldom if ever +do." Still, on the whole the Variations +arrided us vastly.</p> + + +<p>It was a curious but exhilarating +experience to hear the Bohemians, the +playboys of Central Europe, interpreted +in the roast-beef-and-plum-pudding +style of the Philharmonic at its beefiest +and plummiest. Dabçik survived the +treatment fairly well, but poor Ploffskin +was simply stodged under. But they +were in the same boat with <span class="sc">Richard</span> +the Elder, whose Venusberg music was +given with all the orgiastic exuberance +of a Temperance Band at a Sunday-School +Treat, recalling the sarcastic +jape of old <span class="sc">Hans Richter</span> during the +rehearsal of the same work: "You play +it like teetotalers—which you are +not." Yet the orchestra were lavish +of violent sonority where it was not +required; the well-meaning but unfortunate +Mr. Orlo Jimson, who essayed +the "Smithy Songs" from <i>Siegfried</i>, +being submerged in a very Niagara of +noise. <span class="sc">Wagner's</span> scoring no doubt is +"a bit thick," but then he devised a +special "spelunk" (as <span class="sc">Bacon</span> says) for +his orchestra to lurk in, and there is +no cavernous accommodation at the +Queen's Hall.</p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p>Though fashion considers September +as an unpropitious time for the production +of novelties, the scheme arranged +for the patrons of the Philharmonic Concert +last night, under the direction of +Sir Henry Peacham, was successful in +bringing together an audience of eminently +respectable dimensions. The +occasion served for the launching under +favourable circumstances of what constituted +the chief landmark of the programme—a +set of orchestral variations +with the quaint title of "The Quangle +Wangle," from the prolific pen of +Mr. Carl Walbrook. It is satisfactory +to be able to record the gratifying fact +that this work met with cordial acceptance. +In the interests of serious art, +the borrowing of a title from one of the +works of a writer so addicted to levity +as <span class="sc">Edward Lear</span> may perhaps be deprecated, +but there can be no doubt of the +ingenuity and sprightliness with which +Mr. Walbrook has addressed himself +to, and accomplished, his task. If we +cannot discover in his composition the +manifestation of any pronounced individuality +or high artistic uplift, it none +the less commands the respect due to +the exhibition of a vigorous mentality +combined with a notable mastery of +orchestral resource and mellifluous +modulation. At the conclusion of the +performance Mr. Walbrook was constrained +to make the transit from the +artistes' room to the platform no fewer +than three times before the applausive +zeal of the audience could be allayed.</p> + +<p>The remainder of the scheme was +copious and well-contrived. Pleasurable +evidence of the friendly interest +shown in the fortunes of the Czecho-Slovakian +Republic was forthcoming +in the performance of two works by +composers of that interesting race—Messrs. +Dabçik and Ploffskin—of +which it may suffice to say that the +temperamental peculiarities of the +Bohemian genius were elicited with +conspicuous brilliancy under the inspiring +direction of Sir Henry Peacham. In +a vocal item from <i>Siegfried</i>, Mr. Orlo +Jimson evinced a sympathetic appreciation +of the emotional needs of the situation +which augurs favourably for his +further progress, and the powerful +support furnished him by the orchestra +was an important factor in the enjoyment +of his praiseworthy efforts. An +almost too vivacious rendering of the +Venusberg music brought the scheme to +a strepitous conclusion. It may, however, +be submitted that so realistic an +interpretation of the Pagan revelries +depicted by the composer is hardly in +accordance with the best traditions of +the British musical public.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a href="./images/266.png"> +<img src="./images/266_th.png" alt="Lady talking to bus driver" /></a> +<p><i>Fussy Old Party</i> (<i>who likes to make sure</i>). +<span class="sc">"Are you <i>certain</i> you go to Tunbridge Wells</span>?"</p> + +<p><i>Driver</i> (<i>to Conductor</i>). <span class="sc">"'Ere, Bill, we <i>are</i> careless. Someone must have pinched the name-boards when we weren't looking</span>."</p></div> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p> +"There is no such thing as infallibility in +rerum naturæ."—<i>Provincial Paper.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Nor, apparently, in journalistic Latin.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<blockquote><p> +"Reward.—Bedroom taken Tuesday, 27th, +between Holborn and Woburn-place. A basket +and umbrella left."—<i>Daily Paper.</i> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>We compliment the victim of this theft +on his courtesy in calling the thieves' +attention to their oversight.</p> + +<hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>[pg 278]</span> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="./images/267.png"><img src="./images/267_th.png" alt="Man lying on ground in field" /></a> +<p><i>Exhausted War Profiteer.</i> "<span class="sc">Deer forests for the 'idle rich' be blowed! The 'new poor' can 'ave 'em for me</span>."</p> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2> + +<h4>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</h4> + +<p>The long-promised <i>Herbert Beerbohm Tree</i> (<span class="sc">Hutchinson</span>), +than which I have expected no book with more impatience, +turns out to be a volume full of lively interest, though +rather an experiment in snap-shot portraiture from various +angles than a full-dress biography. Mr. <span class="sc">Max Beerbohm</span> +has arranged the book, himself contributing a short memoir +of his brother, which, together with what Lady <span class="sc">Tree</span> aptly +calls her <i>Reverie</i>, fills some two-thirds of it with the more +intimate view of the subject, the rest being supplied by the +outside appreciations of friends and colleagues. If I were +to sum up my impression of the resulting picture it would +be in the word "happiness." Not without reason did the +<span class="sc">Trees</span> name a daughter <span class="sc">Felicity</span>. Here was a life spent +in precisely the kind of success that held most delight for +the victor—honour, love, obedience, troops of friends; all +that <i>Macbeth</i> missed his exponent enjoyed in flowing measure. +Perhaps <span class="sc">Tree</span> was never a great actor, because he +found existence too "full of a number of things"; if so he +was something considerably jollier, the enthusiastic, often +inspired amateur, approaching each new part with the zest +of a brief but brilliant enthusiasm. I suppose no popular +favourite ever had his name associated with more good +stories and wit, original and vicarious. Despite some entertaining +extracts from his commonplace book I doubt if this +side of him is quite worthily represented; at least nothing +here quoted beats Lady <span class="sc">Tree's</span> own <i>mot</i> for a mendacious +newspaper poster—<i>Canard à la Press</i>. Possibly we are still +to look for a more official volume of reference; meantime the +present memoir gives a vastly readable sketch of one whose +passing left a void perhaps unexpectedly hard to fill.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>In the prefatory chapter of <i>Our Women</i> (<span class="sc">Cassell</span>) +Mr. <span class="sc">Arnold Bennett</span> coyly disclaims any intention of +tackling his theme on strictly scientific principles. The +warning is perhaps hardly necessary, since, apart from the +duty which the author owes to his public as a novelist +rather than a philosopher, the title alone should be a sufficient +guide. One would hardly expect a serious zoologist, for +instance, in attempting to deal with the domesticated fauna, +to entitle his work <i>Our Dumb Friends</i>. The book is divided +in the main between adjuration and prophecy. As a result +of their emancipation from economic slavery, Mr. <span class="sc">Bennett</span> +expects women—women, that is to say, of the "top class," +as he calls it—to adopt more and more the <i>rôle</i> of professional +wage-earners; but at the same time he insists +that they do not as yet take themselves seriously enough +as professional housekeepers. How the two functions are +to be combined it is a little difficult to see, but apparently +women are to retain a profession as a stand-by in case they +fail to marry or to remain married. At the same time +Mr. <span class="sc">Bennett</span> takes it for granted that woman will never +relinquish her position as a charmer of man, or even the +use of cosmetics and expensive lingerie. Speaking neither +as a novelist nor as a philosopher, I cannot help feeling +that Mr. <span class="sc">Bennett</span> is too apt to consider the things he +particularly likes about women to be eternal, and those +that he does not like so much to be susceptible of alteration +and improvement. Anyhow, it looks as if Our Men were +going to have rather a thin time.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Miss <span class="sc">Beatrice Harraden</span> calls her latest story <i>Spring +Shall Plant</i> (<span class="sc">Hodder and Stoughton</span>). She might equally +well have called it <i>The Successes of a Naughty Child</i>. +Certainly it is chiefly concerned with the many triumphant +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279"></a>[pg 279]</span> +insubordinations of <i>Patuffa</i> (whom I suspect of having +been encouraged by her too challenging name) both at home +and at the various schools from which she either ran away +or was returned with thanks. This is all mildly attractive +if only from the vivacity of its telling; but I confess to +having felt a mild wonder whether a child's book had not +got on to my table by error—when the grown-ups suddenly +began to carry on in a way that placed all such doubts at +rest. There was, for example, a Russian lady, godmother +of <i>Patuffa</i>, who escaped from somewhere and established +herself, with others of her kind, in an attic in Coptic Street. +My welcome for this interesting fugitive was to some extent +shaken by a realisation that she was (so to speak) a refugee +from the other side and, in a sense, a spiritual ancestress +of Bolshevism. Miss <span class="sc">Harraden</span> would however object, +and justly, that the clean-purposed conspirators of the +earlier revolution had little in common with the unsavoury +individuals who at present obscure the Russian dawn. +Soon after this, <i>Patuffa's</i> papa begins to go quite dreadfully +off the rails, even to +the extent of wishing +to elope with her +governess and eventually +losing all his +money and shooting +himself. There was +also a famous violinist—well, +you can see +already that <i>Patuffa's</i> +vernal experiences +were on generous lines. +It is to the credit of +all concerned that she +and her story retain +an appreciable charm +under adverse conditions.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Nothing, one would +imagine, could promise +much more restful +reading than a +book that concerns +itself with such things +as christening robes +for caterpillars, the +dyeing blue of white chickens and searches among Californian +lilies and pine-trees for the soul of a hog unseasonably defunct. +But, since this most uncharitable age refuses to +believe anything just because it is told it should, the peaceful +pages of <i>The Diary of Opal Whiteley</i> (<span class="sc">Putnam</span>) are unfortunately +fussed over with a controversy that no one who +reads them can quite escape. Miss <span class="sc">Whiteley's</span> diary is presented +with every circumstance of solemn asseveration as the +unaided work of a child of seven, only now pieced together +by the writer after quite a number of years. If you care +to throw yourself into the argument you will certainly find +heaps of reasons for thinking unkind thinks, as the writer +would say, of the truth of this claim, particularly in the +completeness with which every incident is carried through +various stages to its literary finish; but, if you will be ruled +by me, you will try to forget anything but the book itself, +with its quite charming pictures of many animals and one +little girl, their understanding friend. The quaint idiom +in which the diary is supposed to have been written (or, of +course, was written) adds to the delight of a rather uncommon +feeling for nature at its simplest, while the scrapes for which +the small heroine receives (or, you may say, is alleged to +receive) well-deserved punishment preserve the book from +ever dropping into mere mawkishness. A great pity, I +think, that it was not published rather as based on childish +memories than as the actual printed script of a prodigy.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>Moon Mountains</i> (<span class="sc">Hurst and Blackett</span>) is a story which +with the best will in the world I found it impossible to regard +wholly seriously. The greater part of the scene is laid in +Darkest Africa, where the father of the hero, <i>Peter</i> (my hope +that the <i>Peter</i> habit had blown over appears to have been +premature), disappears at an early stage. The subsequent +course of events reminds me of the words of the musical-comedy +poet, popular in my youth, who wrote, "It were +better for you rather not to try and find your father, than +to find him"—well, certainly better than to find him as +<i>Peter</i> found his. Perhaps it would not be unfair to suppose +that Miss <span class="sc">Margaret Peterson</span> had at this point her eye +already firmly fixed upon her big situation. Certainly the +course of <i>Peter</i> is rather impatiently and spasmodically +sketched till the moment when matters are sufficiently advanced +to ship him +also to Africa, in +company with an +elderly hunter of butterflies +named <i>Mellis</i>. +Their adventures form +the bulk of the tale +(filled out with some +chat about elephants, +and a sufficiency of +love-making on the +part of <i>Peter</i>), and I +suppose I need hardly +tell you how one of +them, poor <i>Mellis</i>, is +immediately captured +and brought before +the terrible white king +of the hidden lands, +nor how this same +monarch, a really +dreadfully unpleasant +person, turns out to +be—Precisely. So +there the tale is; little +more incredible than, +I dare say, most of +its kind; and if you have no rooted objection to characters +all of whom behave like persons who know they are in a +book there is no reason why you should not find it at +least passably entertaining.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Mr. <span class="sc">F. Brett Young's</span> manner of presenting <i>The Tragic +Bride</i> (<span class="sc">Secker</span>) is not free from affectation, and this is the +more irritating because his literary style is in itself admirably +unpretentious. But having recorded this complaint +I gladly go on to declare that his tale of <i>Gabrielle Hewish</i> +has both charm and distinction. I protest my belief in +<i>Gabrielle</i> both in her Irish and English homes, but my +protest would have been superfluous if Mr. <span class="sc">Brett Young</span> +had not almost super-taxed my powers of belief. So also +with <i>Arthur Payne</i>; he is a fascinating lad, and the battle +between his mother and <i>Gabrielle</i> for possession of him was +a royal struggle, fought without gloves yet very fairly. +All the same I caught myself doubting once or twice +whether any boy could at the same time be so human +and so inhuman. It is to Mr. <span class="sc">Brett Young's</span> credit that +these doubts do not interfere with one's enjoyment of his +book, and the reason is that he is first and last and all the +time an artist.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="./images/268.png"><img src="./images/268_th.png" alt="Clerk talking to man seated at desk." /></a> +<p><i>New Clerk.</i> "<span class="sc">Beg pardon, Sir, but there's a gentleman outside who says +that you've robbed him of all he had.</span>"</p> + +<p><i>Turf Accountant.</i> "<span class="sc">Well, what's his name? Ask him to give you his +name. How am I to distinguish him if he doesn't send his name in?</span>"</p></div> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 159, OCTOBER 6, 1920***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 17397-h.txt or 17397-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/3/9/17397">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/3/9/17397</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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, October 6, 1920 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Owen Seaman + + + +Release Date: December 26, 2005 [eBook #17397] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, +VOL. 159, OCTOBER 6, 1920*** + + + +E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 17397-h.htm or 17397-h.zip: + (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/7/3/9/17397/17397-h/17397-h.htm) + or + (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/7/3/9/17397/17397-h.zip) + + + + + +PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI + +VOL. 159 + +OCTOBER 6, 1920. + + + + + + + +CHARIVARIA. + +"Motorists," says a London magistrate, "cannot go about knocking people +down and killing them every day." We agree. Once should be enough for +the most grasping pedestrian. + + * * * + +"A Kensington lady," we read, "has just engaged a parlourmaid who is +only three feet seven inches in height." The shortage of servants is +becoming most marked. + + * * * + +A play called _The Man Who Went to Work_ is shortly to be produced in +the West End. It sounds like a farce. + + * * * + +A police-sergeant of Ealing is reported to have summoned six hundred +motorists since March. There is some talk of his being presented with +the illuminated addresses of another three hundred. + + * * * + +All the recent photographs of Sir ERIC GEDDES show him with a very broad +smile. "And I know who he's laughing at," writes a railway traveller. + + * * * + +With reference to the Press controversy between Mr. H.G. WELLS and Mr. +HENRY ARTHUR JONES, we understand that they have decided to shake hands +and be enemies. + + * * * + +"In New Zealand," says a weekly paper, "there is a daisy which is often +mistaken for a sheep by the shepherds." This is the sort of statement +that the Prohibitionist likes to make a note of. + + * * * + +A statistician informs us that a man's body contains enough lime to +whitewash a small room. It should be pointed out however that it is +illegal for a wife to break up her husband for decorative purposes. + + * * * + +The Manchester Communist Party have decided to have nothing whatever to +do with Parliament. We understand that the PREMIER has now decided to +sell his St. Bernard dog. + + * * * + +"There are no very rich people in England," says a gossip-writer. We can +only say we know a club porter who recently stated that he had a cousin +who knew a miner who ... but we fear it was only gossip. + + * * * + +"It is possible for people to do quite well without a stomach," says a +Parisian doctor. Judged by the high prices, we know a grocer who seems +to think along the same lines. + + * * * + +Special aeroplanes to carry fish from Holland to this country are to run +in the winter. The idea of keeping the fish long enough to enable them +to cross under their own power has been abandoned. + + * * * + +An Ashford gardener has grown a cabbage which measures twelve feet +across. It is said to be uninhabited. + + * * * + +The Rules of Golf Committee now suggest a standard ball for England and +America. The question of a standard long-distance expletive for foozlers +is held over. + + * * * + +A youth charged at a police-court in the South of London with stealing +five hundred cigars, valued at threepence each, admitted that he had +smoked twenty-six of them. We are glad to learn that no further +punishment was ordered. + + * * * + +_The Waste Trade World_ states that there is a great demand for rubbish. +Editors, however, don't seem to be moving with the times. + + * * * + +Off Folkestone, a few days ago, a trawler captured a blue-nosed shark. +Complaints about the temperature of the sea have been very common among +bathers this year. + + * * * + +"No one has yet been successful in filming an actual murder," states a +Picture-goers' Journal. It certainly does seem a pity that our murderers +are so terribly self-conscious in the presence of a cinematograph man. + + * * * + +_The Daily Express_ states that Mrs. BAMBERGER has decided not to appeal +against her sentence. If that be so, this high-handed decision will be +bitterly resented by certain of the audience who were in court during +the trial and eagerly looked forward to the next edition. + + * * * + +A _Daily Mail_ reader writes to our contemporary to say that he found +forty-two toads in his garden last week. We can only suppose that they +were there in ignorance of the fact that he took in _The Daily Mail_. + + * * * + +A pike weighing twenty-six pounds, upon being hooked by a Cheshire +fisherman, pulled him into the canal. His escape was much regretted by +the fish, who had decided to have him stuffed. + + * * * + +It is possible that Mr. TOM MANN, the secretary of the A.S.E., will +shortly retire under the age limit. It is rumoured that members have +started to collect for a souvenir strike as a parting tribute. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Bus Conductor_ (_after passenger's torrents of invective +on the subject of increased fare_). "RIGHT-O, MA. I'LL TELL 'EM +EVERYTHINK YOU'VE SAID WEN I TAKES THE CHAIR AT THE NEXT DIRECTORS' +MEETING."] + + * * * * * + +THE ETHIOPIAN AGAIN. + +"COAL STILL BLACK." + +_Heading in "Church Family Newspaper."_ + + * * * * * + + "The output in the first quarter this year was at the rate of + 248,000,000 million tons a year. It fell in the second quarter + to 232,000,000. Between and beyond these lines there is an + ample margin for bargaining." + + _Evening Paper._ + +Abundantly ample. + + * * * * * + +LESSONS FROM NATURE. + +TO AN AUTUMN PRIMROSE. + + "If this belief from heaven be sent, + If such be Nature's holy plan, + Have I not reason to lament + What man has made of man?" + _Wordsworth._ + + + Symbol of innocence, to Tories dear, + Whom I detect beside the silvan path + Doing your second time on earth this year + That I may cull a generous aftermath, + Let me divine your reason + For thus repullulating out of season. + + Associated with the vernal prime + And widely known as "rathe," why bloom so late? + Was it the lure of so-called "Summer-time," + Extended well beyond the usual date? + Our thanks for which reprieve + Are SMILLIE'S, though they didn't ask his leave. + + Rather I think you have some lofty plan, + Such as your old friend WORDSWORTH loved to sing; + That for a fair ensample set to Man + You duplicate your output of the Spring; + That in your heart there lodges + Dimly the hope of shaming Mr. HODGES. + + Ah! gentle primrose by the river's brim! + Like _Peter Bell_ (unversed in woodland lore), + He'll miss your meaning; you will be to him + A yellow primrose--that and nothing more; + He'll read in you no sign + Of Nature's views about the datum-line. + +O.S. + + * * * * * + +THE MINERS' OPERA. + +About a week ago, when they took Titterby away to the large red-brick +establishment which he now adorns, certain papers which were left lying +in his study passed into my hands, for I was almost his only friend. It +had long been Titterby's belief that a great future lay before the +librettist who should produce topical light operas on the GILBERT and +SULLIVAN model, dealing with our present-day economic crises. The thing +became an _idee fixe_, as the French say, or, as we lamely put it in +English, a fixed idea. There can be no doubt that he was engaged in the +terrible task of fitting the current coal dispute to fantastic verse +when a brain-cell unhappily buckled, and he was found destroying the +works of his grand piano with a coal-scoop. + +Most of the MS. in my possession is blurred and undecipherable, full of +erasures, random stage-directions and marginal notes, amongst which +occasional passages such as the following "emerge" (as Mr. SMILLIE would +say):-- + + "_Secretary._ The fellow is standing his ground, + He's as stubborn and stiff as a war-mule. + + _Minister._ A + Means will be found + If we look all around + To arrive at a suitable formula. + + _Chorus._ Yes, you've got to arrive at a formula." + +Difficult though my task may be I feel it the duty of friendship to +attempt to give the public some faint outline of this fascinating and +curious work. Scenarios, _dramatis personae_ and choruses had evidently +caused the author inordinate trouble, for at the top of one sheet I +find:-- + +"ACT I. + +_Interior of a coal-mine. Groups of colliers with lanterns and picks (? +tongs). Enter Chorus of female consumers._" + +Then follows this note:-- + + "_MEM. Can one dance in coal-mine? Look up COAL + in 'Ency. Brit.' Also CELLAR FLAP_;" + +and later on, at the end of a passage which evidently described the +dresses of the principal female characters introduced, we have the +words:-- + + "_BRITANNIA. ? jumper, bobbed hair. + ANARCHY. ? red tights_." + +Nothing in this Act survives in a legible form, but in Act II. we are +slightly more fortunate:-- + + "SCENE.--_Downing Street_ (it begins). _Enter mixed Chorus of + private secretaries, female shorthand writers and + representatives of the Press, followed by Sir ROBERT HORNE, Mr. + ROBERT WILLIAMS and Mr. SMILLIE._" + +What happens after this I can only roughly surmise, but most probably +Mr. SMILLIE proves false to Britannia and flirts for some time with +Anarchy, egged on by Mr. WILLIAMS and urged by Sir ROBERT HORNE to +return to his earlier flame. At any rate, after a little, the +handwriting grows clearer, and I read:-- + + "_Mr. SMILLIE (striking the pavement with his pick)_. + We mean to strike. + + _Chorus._ He means to strike, he means to strike, + Rash man! Did ever you hear the like + Of what he has just asserted? + Living is dear enough now, on my soul, + What will it be when we can't get coal? + + _PRIME MINISTER (entering suddenly)._ + This strike must be averted." + +There seems to have been some doubt as to how the PRIME MINISTER'S +entrance should be effected, for at this point we get the marginal note: +"_? From door of No. 10. ? On wings. ? Trap door. ? Riding St. Bernard +Dog._" + +But the difficulty was evidently settled, and the Chorus begins again:-- + + "Oh, here is the wizard from Wales, + The wonderful wizard from Wales, + The British Prime Minister, + + _MR. WILLIAMS._ Subtle and sinister. + + _Chorus._ Oh, no! That is only your fancy. + Disputes he can manage and check; + All parties respond to his beck. + + _MR. WILLIAMS._ He talks through the back of his neck! + + _Chorus._ When he talks through the back of his neck + We call it his neck-romancy." + +Of the arguments used by Mr. LLOYD GEORGE after this spirited +encouragement no record remains but the following passage:-- + + "My dear Mr. SMILLIE, + We value you highly + Howe'er so ferociously raven you. + We must find a way out, + And we shall do, no doubt, + If we only explore every avenue. + + _Chorus._ Yes, please, do explore every avenue. + + [_Exeunt Mr. LLOYD GEORGE and Mr. SMILLIE arm-in-arm, R. (? + followed by St. Bernard) and return C. Exeunt L. and return C. + again, and so on._ + + _Chorus._ Oh, have you explored every avenue?" + +Apparently they have, for later on we get-- + + "_PRIME MINISTER._ Then why should you want to strike + When the Government saves your faces? + You can get more pay when you like + On the larger output basis." + +And the Chorus of course chimes in:-- + + "They can get more pay when they like + On the larger output basis." + +And there is a note at the side: "_Chorus to wave arms upwards and +outwards, indicating increased production of coal._" + +It seems to have been at some time after this, and probably in Act III., +that Titterby went, if I may put it so vulgarly, off the hooks. I think +he must have got on to the conference between the mineowners and the +representatives of the miners, and struggled until the gas became too +thick for him. At any rate, after several unreadable pages, the +following unhappy fragment stands out clear:-- + + "_Mr. SMILLIE still stands irresolute, running his fingers + through his hair._ + + _Chorus of Mineowners_ (_pointing at him_). + + Ruffled hair requires, I ween, + Something in the brilliantine + Or else in the pomatum line. + How shall we devise a balm + Mr. SMILLIE'S locks to calm? + Hullo! here comes the Datum-Line! + + _Enter_ Datum-Line. (_? can Datum-Line be personified? ? comic. + ? check trousers. ? red whiskers._)" + +Nothing more has been written, and it must have been at this point, I +suppose, that Titterby got up and assaulted his piano. It all seems very +sad. + +EVOE. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: A PROSPECTIVE JONAH? + +THE CAPTAIN (_to Sir ERIC GEDDES_). "I SOMETIMES WONDER WHETHER A MAN OF +YOUR ABILITY OUGHT NOT TO FIND A BETTER OPENING." + +[It is rumoured that the Ministry of Transport is to have a limited +existence.]] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Lady._ "NO COD LEFT, MR. BROWN?" + +_Fishmonger_ (_confidentially_). "WELL, MRS. SNIPPS, I'LL OBLIGE YOU. I +ALWAYS KEEPS A BIT UP MY SLEEVE FOR REG'LAR CUSTOMERS."] + + * * * * * + +CONSOLATION. + + You may be very ugly and freckledy and small + And have a little stubby nose that's not a nose at all; + You may be bad at spelling and you may be worse at sums, + You may have stupid fingers that your Nanna says are thumbs, + And lots of things you look for you may never, never find, + But if you love the fairies--you don't mind. + + You may be rather frightened when you read of wolves and bears + Or when you pass the cupboard-place beneath the attic stairs; + You may not always like it when thunder makes a noise + That seems so much, much bigger than little girls and boys; + You may feel rather lonely when you waken in the night, + But if the fairies love you--_it's all right_. + +R.F. + + * * * * * + + "I trust it may be sufficient to convince readers that Mr. + Chesterton is CONTINUED AT FOOT OF NEXT COLUMN." + + _Sunday Paper._ + +At last the ever-recurring problem of where to put the rest of Mr. +CHESTERTON has been solved. + + * * * * * + +THE LITTLE MOA + +(_and how much it is_). + +I have been reading a lot about Polynesia lately, and the conclusion has +been forced upon me that dining out in that neighbourhood might be +rather confusing to a stranger. + +Imagine yourself at one of these Antipodean functions. Your host is +seated at the head of the table with a large fowl before him. Looking +pleasantly in your direction he says:-- + +"Will you have a little moa?" + +Not being well up in the subject of exotic fauna you will be tempted to +make one of the following replies:-- + +(1) (With _Alice in Wonderland_ in your mind) "How can I possibly have +more when I haven't had anything at all yet?" + +(2) "Yes, please, a lot more, or just a little more," as capacity and +appetite dictate. + +(3) "No, thank you." + +The objection to reply No. 1 is that it may cause unpleasantness, or +your host may retort, "I didn't ask you if you would have a little more +moa," and thus increase your embarrassment. + +No. 2 is a more suitable rejoinder, but probably No. 3 is the safest +reply, as some of these big birds require a lot of mastication. + +In the event of your firing off No. 3, your host glances towards the +hostess and says-- + +"Oo, then" (pronounced "oh-oh"). + +To your startled senses comes the immediate suggestion, "Is the giver of +the feast demented, or is he merely rude?" + +Just as you are meditating an excuse for leaving the table and the +house, your hostess saves the situation by saying sweetly, "Do let me +give you a little oo," playfully tapping with a carvingknife the +breastbone of a winged creature recumbent on a dish in front of her. + +It gradually dawns upon you that you are among strange birds quite +outside the pale of the English Game Laws, and that you will have to +take a sporting chance. + +While you are still in the act of wavering the son of the house says, +"Try a little huia." + +If you like the look of this specimen of Polynesian poultry you signify +your acceptance in the customary manner; otherwise, in parliamentary +phraseology, "The Oos have it." + +For my own part I fancy that, unless or until some of these unusual +fowls are extinct, I shall not visit Polynesia, but rest content with +Purley. Our dinner-parties may be dull, but at least one knows one's way +about among the dishes. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Fed-up Owner_ (_to holiday Artist_). "CHARMING, MY DEAR +YOUNG LADY--CHARMING--WITH ONE IMPORTANT OMISSION. YOU'VE FORGOTTEN TO +PUT IN THE NOTICE ON THE TREE."] + + * * * * * + +A BALLAD OF THE EARLY WORM. + + The gentle zephyr lightly blows + Across the dewy lawn, + And sleepily the rooster crows, + "Beloved, it is dawn." + + The little worms in bed below + Can hear their father wince, + While, up above, a feathered foe + Is busy making mince. + + In vain they seize his slippery tail + And try to pull him back; + It makes their little cheeks turn pale + To hear his waistband crack. + + They draw him down and crowd around; + Their tears bespeak their love; + For part of him is underground + And part has gone above. + + But not for long does sorrow seize + The subterranean mind, + For father grows another piece + In front or else behind. + + And now he's up before the dawn, + Long ere the world has stirred, + And eats his breakfast on the lawn + Before the early bird. + + * * * * * + +WHEN THE YOUNG LEAD THE YOUNG. + + "Lady Nurse or Nursery Governess (young) wanted for post near + Ventnor, I.W., for boy 21/2 years. Experience, similar age, and + happy disposition essential."--_Weekly Paper._ + + * * * * * + + "Oxford, Tuesday. + + The Royal Commission on Oxford and Cambridge Universities began + its Oxford session this afternoon in the Extermination Schools." + + _Daily Paper._ + +_Absit omen!_ + + * * * * * + +THE CONSPIRATORS. + +II. + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--The Third International is not a Rugby football match. +It is a corporation of thrusters whose prospectus announces that it will +very shortly have your blood, having first acquired exclusive rights in +your money. Have you two acres and a cow? Have you seven pounds three +and threepence in the Post-Office Savings Bank? Have you any blood? Very +well, then; THIS CONCERNS YOU. + +There was a meeting of shareholders in Moscow as recently as July last. +The Chairman said: "Gentlemen--I beg your pardon, Comrades,--I am happy +to be able to report promising developments. Our main enterprise in +Russia, for technical reasons with which I will not now trouble you, is +not for the moment profit-producing; but we have been able to promote +some successful ventures abroad. In all parts of the civilised +world--and Ireland--we may anticipate a distribution of assets in the +near future." And among those assets to be parcelled out are, I may say, +your acres, your cow, your savings and yourself. + +There followed a meeting of the Executive Committee (I wish they would +avoid that tactless word "executive," don't you?). Simple and brisk +instructions were drafted for foreign agents, bidding them get on with +it and not spare themselves, or in any case not spare anyone else. These +were inscribed on linen, which was folded over, with the writing inside, +and neatly hemmed. Shortly afterwards a number of earnest young men +wearing tall collars and an air of exaggerated innocence sought to cross +various frontiers and were surprised and offended when rough and rude +officials stole their collars and set about taking them to pieces. + +I hate to speak slightingly of anyone, but these world-revolutionaries +have no business to be so young. According to my view a professor of +anarchy and assassination ought to be a man of middle-age with stiff +stubble on his chin. He has no business to be a pale and perspiring +youth, tending to long back hair and apt to be startled by the slightest +sound when he is alone. And what a lot of them write poetry, and such +poetry too! That is the manner of the man who is going to seize your +house and usurp your cow, while you will be lucky if you are allowed a +place on a perch in your own fowl-house. + +We had an opportunity of seeing them in procession when a consignment of +these world-revolutionaries drove off in state from Berne about the time +of the Armistice. I told you, last week, that we had a Legation of them, +very kindly lent by the Moscow management, and I also told you that our +Italian juggler had let us into the secret of their midnight lucubrations, +of which we had duly informed the officials interested in such matters. +We had front places when the motor lorry called for them and the +military escort arrived to assist all the passengers to take, and keep, +their seats. Into the lorry were packed the Minister Plenipotentiary and +Envoy Extraordinary, the Charge d'Affaires, the First Secretary, the +Second Secretary, the Third Secretary, the Legal and Spiritual Advisers +and the Lady Typist. Their features were not easy to distinguish; when +the Bolshevists assume dominion over us they will not nationalize our +soap. One or two fell out, but were carefully replaced by willing hands +and bayonets; and so home. + +Now that is a sight you don't often see: a Diplomatique Corps being +returned to store in a motor lorry. The disappointing thing about them +was that, for all their fiery propaganda and for all their drastic +resolutions, never a one of them produced so much as a squib-cracker. +The only people to derive any excitement from the affair were the small +children, who took it for a circus. + +The best they could do for us was a general strike. What all this had to +do with trades or unions nobody seemed to know, least of all the +workers. But there was an attractive sound about the then novel phrase, +"Direct Action," and it gave a sense of useful business to that +otherwise over-portly word, "Proletariat." And the local politicians, +promised good jobs in LENIN'S millennium, made great use of the phrase, +"Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Thus many an honest workman joined in +under the belief that it meant an extra hour's holiday on Saturdays, an +extra hour in bed on Mondays and an extra bob or two of wages. + +While it lasts, even a bloodless revolution can be very tiresome; almost +as disquieting as a general election. Everybody who isn't revoluting is +mobilised to keep the revolution from being molested. There are no +trams, because the drivers are demonstrating; no shops, because the +shopmen are mobilised; no anything, because everyone is out watching the +fun. So you go into the square to watch also. You see little groups of +revolutionaries looking sullen and laboriously class-hating. You see a +lot of soldiers looking very ordinary but trying not to. The riff-raff +scowl at the soldiers, who are ordered out to shoot at them. The +soldiers scowl at the riff-raff at whom they are ordered not to shoot. +And, for some reason which the experts have not yet fathomed, it always +pours with rain. + +When we had succeeded in persuading the soldier who was posted to guard +our hotel that we were not the proletariat and might safely be let pass, +we found a gathering of inside-knowledge people discussing the +situation. The Government ought to have known all about it long +before--how the Bolshevists were stirring up trouble. "They did," said +we; "we told them." There was a silence at this, but a smile on the face +of the audience which we at first mistook for incredulity. We referred +darkly to our private information, derived, as I told you in my last, +from the Italian juggler. "Did he do juggling tricks with _your_ +ink-pots too?" asked the French element. "How much money did _you_ give +him?" asked all the other elements. "And I suppose he also told you," +said the Italian officer, "that he had no confidence in his own people +and that the British alone enjoyed his respect?" + +At this moment the Americans came in and asked us to quit arguing and +attend while they told us how they had unearthed the great plot.... When +together we reckoned up the Italian juggler's net takings we realised +that it is an ill revolution which brings no one any good. + + Yours ever, + HENRY. + +(_To be continued._) + + * * * * * + +CUBBIN' THRO' THE RYE. + + [Suggested by a recently reported incident in the Midlands, + when a pack divided, one part getting out of hand and running + among standing crops.] + + Gin a body meet a body + Cubbin' thro' the rye, + Gin a body tell a body, + "Seed 'em in full cry," + Useless then to blame the puppies, + Useless too to lie; + Whippers-in can't _always_ stop 'em, + Even when they try. + + Gin a body meet a body + Cubbin' thro' the rye, + What a body calls a body + Dare I say?--not I; + Farmers get distinctly stuffy, + Neither are they shy, + And Masters, when they're really rattled, + Sometimes make reply. + + * * * * * + +BRAVE NEWS FOR PUSSYFOOT. + + "A good many Church-people at home have been pressing + teetotalism, and are now pressing Prohibition, and it is + possible that they may succeed about the time when the moon + grows cold."--_Weekly Paper._ + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE MAN YOU GIVE A GAME TO.] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: "RIGHT-O. IF YER WANTS A FIGHT I'M READY. AN' AS WE'VE +ONLY ONE PAIR O' GLOVES, AN' YOU'RE THE YOUNGEST, I'LL BE A SPORT AN' +LET YOU WEAR 'EM."] + + * * * * * + +THE MYSTERY OF THE APPLE-PIE BEDS. + +(_Leaves from a holiday diary._) + +I. + +An outrage has occurred in the hotel. Late on Monday night ten innocent +visitors discovered themselves the possessors of apple-pie beds. The +beds were not of the offensive hair-brush variety, but they were very +cleverly constructed, the under-sheet being pulled up in the good old +way and turned over at the top as if it were the top-sheet. + +I had one myself. The lights go out at eleven and I got into bed in the +dark. When one is very old and has not been to school for a long time or +had an apple-pie bed for longer still, there is something very uncanny +in the sensation, especially if it is dark. I did not like it at all. My +young brother-in-law, Denys, laughed immoderately in the other bed at my +flounderings and imprecations. He did not have one. I suspect him.... + +II. + +Naturally the hotel is very much excited. It is the most thrilling event +since the mixed foursomes. Nothing else has been discussed since +breakfast. Ten people had beds and about ten people are suspected. The +really extraordinary thing is that numbers of people seem to suspect +_me_! That is the worst of being a professional humourist; everything is +put down to you. When I was accompanying Mrs. F. to-day she suddenly +stopped fiddling and said hotly that someone had been tampering with her +violin. I know she suspected me. Fortunately, however, I have a very +good answer to this apple-pie bed charge. Eric says that his bed must +have been done after dinner, and I was to be seen at the dance in the +lounge all the evening. I have an alibi. + +Besides I had a bed myself; surely they don't believe that even a +professional humourist could be so bursting with humour as to make +himself an apple-pie bed and not make one for his brother-in-law in the +same room! It would be too much like overtime. + +But they say that only shows my cleverness.... + +III. + +Then there is the question of the Barkers. Most of the victims were +young people, who could not possibly mind. But the Barkers had two, and +the Barkers are a respected middle-aged couple, and nobody could +possibly make them apple-pie beds who did not know them very well. That +shows you it can't have been me--I--me--that shows you I couldn't have +done it. I have only spoken to them once. + +They say Mr. Barker was rather annoyed. He has rheumatism and went to +bed early. Mrs. Barker discovered about her bed before she got in, but +she didn't let on. She put out the candle and allowed her lord to get +into his apple-pie in the dark. I think I shall like her. + +They couldn't find the matches. I believe he was quite angry.... + +IV. + +I suspect Denys and Joan. They are engaged, and people in that state are +capable of anything. Neither of them had one, and they were seen +slipping upstairs during the dance. They say they went out on the +balcony--a pretty story.... + +V. + +I suspect the Barkers. You know, that story about Mrs. B. letting Mr. B. +get into his without warning him was pretty thin. Can you imagine an +English wife doing a thing of that kind? If you can it ought to be a +ground for divorce under the new Bill. But you can't. + +Then all that stuff about the rheumatism--clever but unconvincing. Mr. +Barker stayed in his room all the next morning _when the awkward +questions were being asked_. Not well; oh, no! But he was down for lunch +and conducting for a glee-party in the drawing-room afterwards, as perky +and active as a professional. Besides, the really unanswerable problem +is, who could have _dared_ to make the Barkers' apple-pie beds? And the +answer is, nobody--except the Barkers. + +And there must have been a lady in it, it was so neatly done. Everybody +says no _man_ could have done it. So that shows you it couldn't have +been me--I--myself.... + +VI. + +I suspect Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop is fifty-three. He has been in the +hotel since this time last year, and he makes accurate forecasts of the +weather. My experience is that a man who makes accurate forecasts of the +weather may get up to any devilry. And he protests too much. He keeps +coming up to me and making long speeches to prove that he didn't do it. +But I never said he did. Somebody else started that rumour, but of +course he thinks that I did. That comes of being a professional +humourist. + +But I do believe he did it. You see he is fifty-three and doesn't dance, +so he had the whole evening to do it in. + +To-night we are going to have a Court of Inquiry.... + +VII. + +We have had the inquiry. I was judge. I started with Denys and Joan in +the dock, as I thought we must have somebody there and it would look +better if it was somebody in the family. The first witness was Mrs. +Barker. Her evidence was so unsatisfactory that I had to have her put in +the dock too. So was Mr. Barker's. I was sorry to put him in the dock, +as he still had rheumatics. But he had to go. + +So did Mr. Winthrop. I had no qualms about him. For a man of his age to +do a thing like that seems to me really deplorable. And the barefaced +evasiveness of his evidence! He simply could not account for his +movements during the evening at all. When I asked him what he had been +doing at 9.21, and where, he actually said he _didn't know_. + +Rather curious--very few people _can_ account for their movements, or +anyone else's. In most criminal trials the witnesses remember to a +minute, years after the event, exactly what time they went upstairs and +when they passed the prisoner in the lounge, but nobody seems to +remember anything in this affair. No doubt it will come in time. + +The trial was very realistic. I was able to make one or two excellent +judicial jokes. Right at the beginning I said to the prosecuting +counsel, "What _is_ an apple-pie bed?" and when he had explained I said +with a meaning look, "You mean that the bed was not in _apple-pie +order_?" Ha, ha! Everybody laughed heartily.... + +VIII. + +In my address to the jury of matrons I was able to show pretty clearly +that the crime was the work of a gang. I proved that Denys and Joan must +have done the bulk of the dirty work, under the tactical direction of +the Barkers, who did the rest; while in the background was the sinister +figure of Mr. Winthrop, the strategical genius, the lurking Macchiavelli +of the gang. + +The jury were not long in considering their verdict. They said: "We +find, your Lordship, that you did it yourself, with some lady or ladies +unknown." + +That comes of being a professional humourist.... + +IX. + +I ignored the verdict. I addressed the prisoners very severely and +sentenced them to do the Chasm hole from 6.0 A.M. to 6.0 P.M. every day +for a week, to take out cards and play out every stroke. "You, +Winthrop," I said, "with your gentlemanly cunning, your subtle +pretensions of righteousness--" But there is no space for that.... + +X. + +As a matter of fact the jury were quite right. In company with a lady +who shall be nameless I did do it. At least, at one time I thought I +did. Only we have proved so often that somebody else did it, we have +shown so conclusively that we can't have done it, that we find ourselves +wondering if we really did. + +Perhaps we didn't. + +If we did we apologise to all concerned--except, of course, to Mr. +Winthrop. I suspect him. + +A.P.H. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE END OF THE SEASON. + +_Sympathetic Friend._ "WELL, YOU'VE LAID HER UP NICELY FOR THE WINTER, +ANYHOW."] + + * * * * * + +MIXED METEOROLOGICAL MAXIMS. + +(_By a Student of Psychology._) + + When the glass is high and steady + For domestic broils be ready. + When the glass is low and jerky + Then look out for squalls in Turkey. + When the air is dull and damp + Keep your eye on Mr. CRAMP. + When the air is clear and dry + On BOB WILLIAMS keep your eye. + When it's fine and growing finer + Keep your eye upon the miner. + When it's wet and growing wetter + 'Twill be worse before it's better. + When the tide is at its ebb + Fix your gaze on SIDNEY WEBB. + When the tide is at high level + Modernists discuss the Devil. + Floods upon the Thames or Kennet + Stimulate the brain of BENNETT; + While a waterspout foretells + Fresh activities in WELLS. + When it's calm in the Atlantic + Gooseberries become gigantic. + When it's rough in the Pacific + Laying hens are less prolific. + When the clouds are moving _largo_ + There is no restraining MARGOT. + When their movement is _con brio_ + 'Ware CHIOZZA MONEY (LEO)! + When the sun is bright but spotty + Diarists become more dotty. + When the sun is dim and hazy + Diarists become more crazy. + When the nights are calm and still + Faster travels GARVIN'S quill. + When the blizzard's blast is hissing + REPINGTON is reminiscing. + + If you ponder well these lines + You can read the weather signs + In accordance with the rule + Binding both on sage and fool:-- + _Anything in mortal ken + May befall us anywhen._ + + * * * * * + +COMMERCIAL IMPORTUNITY. + + "Services! Dozens other cars available, L1,500 to L50. Call and + insult us." + + _Motor Journal._ + + * * * * * + +MORE VISIONS OF THE UNSEEN. + + "The roads are peculiarly situated, and are dangerous not only + because they are main cross roads, but also on account of the + hidden view they afford of each other."--_Local Paper._ + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Teacher._ "AND WHAT DOES _ff_ MEAN?" + +_Pupil_ (_after mature deliberation_). "_Fump-Fump._"] + + * * * * * + +THE DEVOTED LOVER. + + ["Loiterers will be treated as trespassers."--_Notice on Tube + Station._] + + No longer laud, my Jane, the ancient wooer + Who for the favours of his ladye fayre + Would sally forth to strafe the evil-doer + Or beard the dragon in his inmost lair; + Find it no more, dear heart, a ground for stray tiffs + Because, forsooth, you can't detect in me + A tendency to go out whopping caitiffs + Daily from ten till three. + + He proved himself in his especial fashion, + Daring the worst to earn a lover's boon, + But I, no less than he a prey to passion, + Faced risks as great this very afternoon, + When at the Tube a long half-hour I waited + (In fond obedience to your written beck) + Where loiterers, it practically stated, + Would get it in the neck. + + The liftmen who from time to time ascended + To spill their loads (in which you had no part) + Regarded me with eagle eyes intended + To lay the touch of terror on my heart; + But through a wait thus perilously dreary + My spirits drooped not nor my courage flinched; + "She cometh not," I merely sighed, "I'm weary + And likely to be pinched." + + You came at last, long last, to end my fretting, + And now you know how your devoted bard + Faced for your sake the risk of fine or getting + An unaccustomed dose of labour (hard); + Harbour no more that idiotic notion + That love to-day is unromantic, flat; + Gave _Lancelot_ such a proof of his devotion, + Did _Galahad_ do that? + + * * * * * + +PAMELA'S ALPHABET. + +_Scene._--A DOMESTIC INTERIOR. + +Pamela's _father, in one armchair, is making a praiseworthy effort to +absorb an article in a review on "The Future of British Finance." In +another armchair_ Pamela's _mother is doing some sort of mending._ +Pamela _herself, stretched upon the hearthrug, is reading aloud +interesting extracts from a picture-book._ + +_Pamela_ (_in a cheerful sing-song_). A for Donkey; B for Dicky. + +_Her Father._ What sort of dicky? + +_Pamela_ (_examining the illustration more closely_). All ugly black, +bissect for his blue mouf. + +_Her Mother_ (_instructively_). Not blue; yellow. And it's a beak, not a +mouth. + +_Pamela._ I calls it a mouf. He's eating wiv it. (_With increasing +disfavour_) A poor little worm he's eating. Don't like him; he's crool. +(_She turns the page hurriedly and continues_) C for Pussy; D for Mick. + + [_This is the name of the family mongrel. That the picture + represents an absolutely thoroughbred collie matters nothing to_ + Pamela. _She spends some time in admiring_ Mick, _then rapidly + sweeps over certain illustrations that fail to attract._ + +_Pamela_ (_stopping at the sight of a web-footed fowl, triumphantly_). G +for Quack-quack. + +_Her Father._ Oh, come, Pamela, that's not a quack-quack; that's a +goose. It makes quite a different noise. + + [_Anticipating an immediate demand for a goose's noise he clears + his throat nervously._ + +_Pamela_ (_with authority_). This one isn't making any noise. It's jus' +thinking. (_Her father accepts the correction and swallows again._) H +for Gee-gee. Stupid gee-gee. + +_Her Father._ Why stupid? + +_Pamela._ 'Acos its tail looks silly. + +_Her Father_ (_glancing at the tail, which bears some resemblance to an +osprey's feather_). You're right; it does. + +_Her Mother._ I wonder whether it's wrong to let children get accustomed +to bad drawings? + +_Her Father._ Pamela doesn't get accustomed--she criticises. If it +weren't for a silly tail here, a stupid face there, her critical faculty +might lie for ever dormant. + +_Pamela_ (_having turned over four or five pages with one grasp of the +hand, as if determined to suppress the unsatisfactory horse_). R for +Bunny. + +_Her Mother._ No, dear, Rabbit. R for _R_abbit. B for _B_unny. + +_Pamela_ (_gently_). No; B is for Dicky. The ugly dicky wiv the blue +mouf. + +_Her Father_ (_rashly_). The blackbird. + +_Pamela_ (_conscious of superior knowledge_). That isn't its name. +That's what it looks like, all black; but its name is Dicky. B for +Dicky. + +_Her Father._ Well, have it your own way. What does S stand for? + +_Pamela_ (_turning to the likeness of an elderly quadruped, with great +assurance_). Baa-lamb! + +_Her Father._ Sometimes we call baa-lambs sheep. + +_Pamela._ I don't. + +_Her Father._ You will when you grow older. + +_Pamela._ I won't be any older, not for ever so long. Not till next +birfday. (_Pushing her book away and assuming an air of extreme +infancy_) Tired of reading. Want a piggy-back, _please_! + +_Her Father_ (_firmly taking up his review again_). Not just now. I'm +busy with a picture-book. + + [_A reproachful silence falls upon the room._ + +_Pamela_ (_presently, in a mournful chant_). A for Don-key. B for +Dicky-- + +_The Scene closes._ + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE PRINCE COMES HOME.] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: MORE OUTLINES OF HISTORY. + +_Sailor._ "WE HAVE JUST SEEN SOME ORANGE-PEEL AND BANANA-SKINS FLOATING +ON THE STARBOARD, SIR." + +_Columbus._ "WAS THERE ANY CHEWING-GUM?" + +_Sailor._ "NO, SIR." + +_Columbus._ "THEN IT MUST BE THE WEST INDIES WE'RE COMING TO, AND I'D +HOPED IT WAS GOING TO BE AMERICA."] + + * * * * * + +FLOWERS' NAMES. + +CROW'S-FOOT. + + Have you noticed that the splendid dreams, the best dreams that there are, + Come always in the darkest nights without a single star? + When the moonless nights are blackest the best dreams are about; + I'll tell you why that should be so and how I found it out. + + There's a bird who comes at night-time, and underneath his wings, + All warm and soft and feathery, lie tiny fairy things; + He spreads his wings out widely (you see them, not the dark) + And you hear the fairies whispering, "Hush! hush!" "I'll tell you!" "Hark!" + + The bird is black and feathery, but his feet are made of gold; + He chiefly comes in summer-time, for fairies hate the cold; + And if the nights are velvet-dark and full of summer airs + He lingers till the sun creeps up and finds him unawares. + + And so you'll see in summer-time, when all the dew is wet, + The footprints of his golden claws maybe will linger yet; + The little golden flower-buds will gleam like golden grain, + And if you pick and cherish them perhaps you'll dream again. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: "HAVE YOU EVER BEEN UP IN AN AEROPLANE, GRANDPA?" + +"NO, MY BOY--NOT YET."] + + * * * * * + +HONOURS EASY. + +I. + +Not very long ago the following advertisements appeared in the same +column of _The Southshire Daily Gazette_: + + "Lost, a pure black Pekinese dog, wearing a silver badge marked + 'Cherub.' Handsome reward offered. F.B., Grand Hotel, + Brightbourne." + + "Found, a black Pekinese, wearing a silver badge marked + 'Cherub.' No reward required. The Limes, Cheviot Road, + Brightbourne." + +II. + +On the same morning the paper was opened and scanned almost +simultaneously by Mrs. Frederick Bathurst in the sitting-room which she +and her husband occupied at the Grand Hotel, and by Mr. Hartley Friend +in the morning-room at "The Limes." + +"Oh, Fred," exclaimed Mrs. Bathurst, "Cherub has been found. He's all +safe at a house called 'The Limes,' in Cheviot Road. Isn't that +splendid?" + +"Very good news," said her husband. "I told you not to worry." + +"It's a direct answer to prayer," said Mrs. Bathurst. "But--" + +"But what?" her husband inquired. + +"But I do wish you had taken my advice not to offer any reward. You +might so easily have left it open. People aren't so mercenary as all +that. It stands to reason that anyone staying at an hotel like this and +bringing a dog with them--always an expensive thing to do--and valuing +it enough to advertise its loss, would behave properly when the time +came." + +"I don't know," Mr. Bathurst replied. "Does anything stand to reason? +The ordinary dog-thief, holding up an animal to ransom, might be +deterred from returning it if no mention of money was made. You remember +we decided on that." + +"Oh, no, I don't think so. You merely had your way again, that was all. +I was always against offering a reward. And the word 'handsome' too. In +any case I never agreed to that. You put that in later. Another thing," +Mrs. Bathurst continued, "I knew it in some curious way--in my bones, as +they say--that the fineness of Cherub's nature, its innocence, its +radiant friendliness, would overcome any sordidness in the person who +found him, poor darling, all lost and unhappy. No one who has been much +with that simple sweet character could fail to be the better for it." + +Mr. Bathurst coughed. + +"That is so?" his wife persisted. + +"Well," said Mr. Bathurst, after helping himself to another egg, "let us +hope so, at any rate." + +"It's gone beyond mere hope," said his wife triumphantly. "Listen to +this;" and she read out the sentence from the second advertisement, "'No +reward required.' There," she added, "isn't that proof? I'll go round to +Cheviot Road directly after breakfast and say how grateful we are, and +bring the darling back." + +III. + +Meanwhile at "The Limes" Mr. Hartley Friend was pacing the room with +impatient steps. + +"I do wish you would try to be less impulsive," he was saying to his +wife. "Anything in the nature of business you would be so much wiser to +leave to me." + +"What is it now?" Mrs. Friend asked with perfect placidity. + +"This dog," said her husband, "that fastened itself on you in this +deplorable way--whatever possessed you to rush into print about it?" + +"Of course I rushed, as you say. Think of the feelings of the poor +woman who has lost her pet. It was the only kind thing to do." + +"'Poor woman' indeed! I assure you she's nothing of the sort. One would +think you were a millionaire to be ladling out benefactions like this. +'No reward required.' Fancy not even asking for the price of the +advertisement to be refunded!" + +"But that would have been so squalid." + +"'Squalid!' I've no patience with you. Justice isn't squalor. It's--it's +justice. As for your 'poor woman,' listen to this." And he read out the +Bathurst advertisement with terrible emphasis on the words "Handsome +reward offered." "Do you hear that--'handsome'?" + +"Yes, I hear," said his wife amiably; "but that isn't my idea of making +money." + +"I hope you don't suppose it's mine," said her husband. "But there is +such a thing as common sense. Why on earth the accident of this little +brute following us home should run us into the expense of an +advertisement and a certain amount of food and drink I'm hanged if I can +see." + +"Well, dear," said his wife with the same amiability, "if you can't see +it I can't make you." + +IV. + +A few minutes later the arrival of "a lady who's come for the Peek" was +announced. + +"No," said Mr. Friend as his wife rose, "leave it to me. I'll deal with +it. The situation is very delicate." + +"How can I thank you enough," began Mrs. Bathurst, "for being so kind +and generous about our little angel? My husband and I agreed that +nothing more charmingly considerate can ever have been done." + +At this point Mrs. Friend followed her husband into the room, and Mrs. +Bathurst renewed her expressions of gratitude. + +"But at any rate," she added to her, "you will permit me to defray the +cost of the advertisement? I could not allow you to be at that expense." + +Before Mrs. Friend could speak her husband intervened. "No, madam," he +said, "I couldn't think of it. Please don't let the mention of money +vulgarize a little friendly act like this. We are only too glad to have +been the means of reuniting you and your pet." + +E.V.L. + + * * * * * + + "Rufford Abbey is, of course, a wonderful old place, and all + the front, from gable to gable, is genuine tenth-century, built + in 1139." + + _Sunday Times._ + + +It looks as if the ca' canny idea was not so new as we thought it. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Lady with Pram_ (_who has been pointing out to newcomer +the beauties of the neighbourhood, where a strike is threatened_). +"THAT'S ONE OF THE 'OT 'EADS."] + + * * * * * + +AT THE PLAY. + +"EVERY WOMAN'S PRIVILEGE." + +When _Dahlia_ refused the hand of a wealthy middle-aged nut, with +faultless knickerbockers and a gift for lucubrated epigrams, preferring +to throw in her lot (platonically) with a young and penniless social +reformer, we took no notice of those who feared a scandal ("scandals are +not what they were," as she said), nor of the girl's assertion that she +had no use for the alleged romance of marriage. We were confident that +the little god whose image, with bow and arrow, stood in the garden of +_Dahlia's_ ancestral home, would put things right for us in the end. Yet +we were not greatly annoyed when he made a mess of his business and +married her to the wrong man; for in the meantime such strange things +had been allowed to occur and the right man had proved such a +disappointment that we didn't much care what happened to anybody. + +It was the rejected lover, _Mortimer Jerrold_, who conceived two bright +ideas for conquering her independence of mind, apparently for the +benefit of his rival. First he contrived to get _Harold Glaive_, the +young socialist, selected as a candidate for Parliament, hoping (if I +read the gentleman's motive rightly) that his probable failure would +touch the place where her heart should have been. This scheme did not go +very well, for he was chosen to contest the seat held by _Dahlia's_ own +father (which caused a lot of trouble), and in the result beat him. + +Meanwhile _Jerrold_ had had an alternative brain-wave. He thought that +if he pinched the latchkey of _Dahlia's_ Bloomsbury flat, broke in at +night, and made a show of assaulting her modesty he could prove to her +that she was only a poor weak woman after all. Nothing, you would say, +could well have been more stupid. Yet, according to Mr. HASTINGS +TURNER'S showing (and who were we to challenge his authority?) it came +off. We were, in fact, asked to believe that a girl who had protested +her freedom from all sense of sex was suddenly made conscious of it by +the violence of a man whose advances, when decently conducted, had left +her cold; and from that moment developed an inclination to marry him. An +assault by a tramp or an apache would apparently have served almost as +well for the purpose. If this is "Every Woman's Privilege" it is +fortunate that so few of them get the chance of exercising it. + +Miss MARIE LOeHR herself came very well out of a play that can hardly add +to the author's reputation. Her personality lent itself to a part which +demanded a blend of feminine charm with a boyish contempt for romance. +And she had a few good things to say. It was not Mr. HALLARD'S fault if +he failed to win our perfect sympathy for a hero whom the heroine +addressed as "Spats." As for Mr. BASIL RATHBONE, who played the part of +_Harold Glaive_, I cannot imagine why he took it on. Apart from his +timorous declaration of love, conveyed on a typewriter, there was no +colour in it, and nothing whatever to show why his passion petered out. +I think that the author, in his surprise at the success of _Harold's_ +rival, must have forgotten all about it. Mr. HERBERT ROSS was excellent +as _Dahlia's_ father, a pleasantly futile baronet under the thumb of a +sour-tongued managing female, an old-fashioned part in which Miss HELEN +ROUS has nothing to learn. Miss VANE FEATHERSTON, as the lady who +finally absorbed the baronet, did her little gratuitous piece all right. + +I cannot get myself to believe that all these intelligent actors are +under any illusion as to the merits of the comedy. With the best wishes +in the world for the success of Miss MARIE LOeHR'S enterprises, I am +bound to regard it as yet another instance of a play where the +attractions of the leading part have a little deranged the judgment of +the actor-manager. + +O.S. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Richard Petafor_ (Mr. HUBERT HARBEN), the apostle of +Materialism and Physical Exercise, trying to convert _Antony Grimshaw_ +(Mr. HERBERT MARSHALL), the believer in Mysticism and Armchairs.] + + * * * * * + +"THE CROSSING." + +Mr. ALGERNON BLACKWOOD and Mr. BERTRAM FORSYTH (assisted by Mr. DONALD +CALTHROP) present to us in _The Crossing_ a certain _Mr. Anthony +Grimshaw_, a princely egotist of the poetic-idealist type who gets up on +the hearth-rug and says to his family, "I am a humanitarian before +everything," and things like that, and then wonders why his wife is +estranged from him. He has a daughter, _Nixie_, who is not old enough to +know how bad all this is, and together they hear the wind singing glees +without words (or in Volapuk, but anyway not intelligible to us poor +normals), a thing Mr. ALGERNON BLACKWOOD has been doing or pretending to +do for years without once taking me in. + +_Anthony_ is run over and (as we say) dies. After an extraordinarily +tiresome conversation in the morning-room with his friend and his son +and his mother (who are also what people call dead) it dawns upon him +that something odd has happened to himself also. His wife and two +children, after his (so-called) death, become blissfully happy and set +to work to finish his book, that being, as they think, his wish. Well, I +wonder. At any rate in death (as we say) he was not divided--from his +egotisms. + +One knows well enough, alas, how the temptation to spiritual drug-taking +has grown as the result of the accumulated sorrows of these past years, +but it is not well that such a treatment of the eternal question should +be taken seriously. Is this sort of thing really better than the +harp-and-cloud theory? It is not. One looked in vain for any trace of +real vision, any true sense of the height and depth of the problem. + +Mr. MARSHALL struggled quite manfully with the part of _Anthony_, and of +course he had his moments. I hope so good a player is not developing the +"actor's pause," of which I detected signs. Miss IRENE ROOKE had nothing +in particular to do and did it very well. Mr. HUBERT HARBEN as the +impenitent profiteer from Lancashire, _Anthony's_ brother-in-law, was +better suited than I have seen him for some time, and provided the very +necessary relief. The precocious children infuriated me, but that is +purely temperamental. The actors who played the parts of those who had +"crossed" were wrapped in such an atmosphere of gloom, to the strains of +such meretricious music that (on the evidence) I can only advise people +to defer their crossing as long as possible; a thing they will doubtless +do, even if they have a friendlier feeling to the new religion than I +can command.... I am afraid I proved a bad sailor. + +T. + + * * * * * + +TWO STUDIES IN MUSICAL CRITICISM. + +(_With grateful acknowledgments to "The Times" and "The Morning +Post."_) + +I. + +We had quite a hectic time at the Philharmonic--I nearly wrote the +Phillemonade--concert last night, what with two Czechs, Dabcik and +Ploffskin, slabs of WAGNER, and Carl Walbrook's Humorous Variations, +"The Quangle Wangle," conducted by Carl himself. If the honest truth be +told, we sat down to the Variations with no more pleasurable +anticipation than one sits down with in the dentist's chair, preparatory +to the application of gags, electric drills and other instruments of +odontological torture. (Strange, by the way, that no modernist has +translated the horrors of the modern Tusculum into terms of sound and +fury!) But we were most agreeably surprised to find ourselves following +every one of the forty-nine Variations with breathless interest. Mr. +Walbrook is indeed a case of the deformed transformed. We found hardly a +trace of the poluphloisboisterous pomposity with which he used to +camouflage his dearth of ideas. His main theme is shapely and sinuous, +and its treatment in most of the Variations titillated us voluptuously. +But, since it is the function of the critic to criticise, let us justify +our _role_ by noting that the scoring throughout tends to glutinousness, +like that of the pre-war Carlsbad plum; further, that a solo on the +muted viola against an accompaniment of sixteen sarrusophones is only +effective if the sarrusophones are prepared to roar like sucking-doves, +which, as LEAR would have said, "they seldom if ever do." Still, on the +whole the Variations arrided us vastly. + +It was a curious but exhilarating experience to hear the Bohemians, the +playboys of Central Europe, interpreted in the roast-beef-and-plum-pudding +style of the Philharmonic at its beefiest and plummiest. Dabcik survived +the treatment fairly well, but poor Ploffskin was simply stodged under. +But they were in the same boat with RICHARD the Elder, whose Venusberg +music was given with all the orgiastic exuberance of a Temperance Band +at a Sunday-School Treat, recalling the sarcastic jape of old HANS +RICHTER during the rehearsal of the same work: "You play it like +teetotalers--which you are not." Yet the orchestra were lavish of +violent sonority where it was not required; the well-meaning but +unfortunate Mr. Orlo Jimson, who essayed the "Smithy Songs" from +_Siegfried_, being submerged in a very Niagara of noise. WAGNER'S +scoring no doubt is "a bit thick," but then he devised a special +"spelunk" (as BACON says) for his orchestra to lurk in, and there is no +cavernous accommodation at the Queen's Hall. + +II. + +Though fashion considers September as an unpropitious time for the +production of novelties, the scheme arranged for the patrons of the +Philharmonic Concert last night, under the direction of Sir Henry +Peacham, was successful in bringing together an audience of eminently +respectable dimensions. The occasion served for the launching under +favourable circumstances of what constituted the chief landmark of the +programme--a set of orchestral variations with the quaint title of "The +Quangle Wangle," from the prolific pen of Mr. Carl Walbrook. It is +satisfactory to be able to record the gratifying fact that this work met +with cordial acceptance. In the interests of serious art, the borrowing +of a title from one of the works of a writer so addicted to levity as +EDWARD LEAR may perhaps be deprecated, but there can be no doubt of the +ingenuity and sprightliness with which Mr. Walbrook has addressed +himself to, and accomplished, his task. If we cannot discover in his +composition the manifestation of any pronounced individuality or high +artistic uplift, it none the less commands the respect due to the +exhibition of a vigorous mentality combined with a notable mastery of +orchestral resource and mellifluous modulation. At the conclusion of the +performance Mr. Walbrook was constrained to make the transit from the +artistes' room to the platform no fewer than three times before the +applausive zeal of the audience could be allayed. + +The remainder of the scheme was copious and well-contrived. Pleasurable +evidence of the friendly interest shown in the fortunes of the +Czecho-Slovakian Republic was forthcoming in the performance of two +works by composers of that interesting race--Messrs. Dabcik and +Ploffskin--of which it may suffice to say that the temperamental +peculiarities of the Bohemian genius were elicited with conspicuous +brilliancy under the inspiring direction of Sir Henry Peacham. In a +vocal item from _Siegfried_, Mr. Orlo Jimson evinced a sympathetic +appreciation of the emotional needs of the situation which augurs +favourably for his further progress, and the powerful support furnished +him by the orchestra was an important factor in the enjoyment of his +praiseworthy efforts. An almost too vivacious rendering of the Venusberg +music brought the scheme to a strepitous conclusion. It may, however, be +submitted that so realistic an interpretation of the Pagan revelries +depicted by the composer is hardly in accordance with the best +traditions of the British musical public. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE DREAM OF BLISS.] + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Fussy Old Party_ (_who likes to make sure_). "ARE YOU +_CERTAIN_ YOU GO TO TUNBRIDGE WELLS?" + +_Driver_ (_to Conductor_). "'ERE, BILL, WE _ARE_ CARELESS. SOMEONE MUST +HAVE PINCHED THE NAME-BOARDS WHEN WE WEREN'T LOOKING."] + + * * * * * + + "There is no such thing as infallibility in rerum + naturae."--_Provincial Paper._ + +Nor, apparently, in journalistic Latin. + + * * * * * + + "Reward.--Bedroom taken Tuesday, 27th, between Holborn and + Woburn-place. A basket and umbrella left."--_Daily Paper._ + +We compliment the victim of this theft on his courtesy in calling the +thieves' attention to their oversight. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _Exhausted War Profiteer._ "DEER FORESTS FOR THE 'IDLE +RICH' BE BLOWED! THE 'NEW POOR' CAN 'AVE 'EM FOR ME."] + + * * * * * + +OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. + +(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) + +The long-promised _Herbert Beerbohm Tree_ (HUTCHINSON), than which I +have expected no book with more impatience, turns out to be a volume +full of lively interest, though rather an experiment in snap-shot +portraiture from various angles than a full-dress biography. Mr. MAX +BEERBOHM has arranged the book, himself contributing a short memoir of +his brother, which, together with what Lady TREE aptly calls her +_Reverie_, fills some two-thirds of it with the more intimate view of +the subject, the rest being supplied by the outside appreciations of +friends and colleagues. If I were to sum up my impression of the +resulting picture it would be in the word "happiness." Not without +reason did the TREES name a daughter FELICITY. Here was a life spent in +precisely the kind of success that held most delight for the +victor--honour, love, obedience, troops of friends; all that _Macbeth_ +missed his exponent enjoyed in flowing measure. Perhaps TREE was never a +great actor, because he found existence too "full of a number of +things"; if so he was something considerably jollier, the enthusiastic, +often inspired amateur, approaching each new part with the zest of a +brief but brilliant enthusiasm. I suppose no popular favourite ever had +his name associated with more good stories and wit, original and +vicarious. Despite some entertaining extracts from his commonplace book +I doubt if this side of him is quite worthily represented; at least +nothing here quoted beats Lady TREE'S own _mot_ for a mendacious +newspaper poster--_Canard a la Press_. Possibly we are still to look for +a more official volume of reference; meantime the present memoir gives a +vastly readable sketch of one whose passing left a void perhaps +unexpectedly hard to fill. + + * * * * * + +In the prefatory chapter of _Our Women_ (CASSELL) Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT +coyly disclaims any intention of tackling his theme on strictly +scientific principles. The warning is perhaps hardly necessary, since, +apart from the duty which the author owes to his public as a novelist +rather than a philosopher, the title alone should be a sufficient guide. +One would hardly expect a serious zoologist, for instance, in attempting +to deal with the domesticated fauna, to entitle his work _Our Dumb +Friends_. The book is divided in the main between adjuration and +prophecy. As a result of their emancipation from economic slavery, Mr. +BENNETT expects women--women, that is to say, of the "top class," as he +calls it--to adopt more and more the _role_ of professional +wage-earners; but at the same time he insists that they do not as yet +take themselves seriously enough as professional housekeepers. How the +two functions are to be combined it is a little difficult to see, but +apparently women are to retain a profession as a stand-by in case they +fail to marry or to remain married. At the same time Mr. BENNETT takes +it for granted that woman will never relinquish her position as a +charmer of man, or even the use of cosmetics and expensive lingerie. +Speaking neither as a novelist nor as a philosopher, I cannot help +feeling that Mr. BENNETT is too apt to consider the things he +particularly likes about women to be eternal, and those that he does not +like so much to be susceptible of alteration and improvement. Anyhow, it +looks as if Our Men were going to have rather a thin time. + + * * * * * + +Miss BEATRICE HARRADEN calls her latest story _Spring Shall Plant_ +(HODDER AND STOUGHTON). She might equally well have called it _The +Successes of a Naughty Child_. Certainly it is chiefly concerned with +the many triumphant insubordinations of _Patuffa_ (whom I suspect of +having been encouraged by her too challenging name) both at home and at +the various schools from which she either ran away or was returned with +thanks. This is all mildly attractive if only from the vivacity of its +telling; but I confess to having felt a mild wonder whether a child's +book had not got on to my table by error--when the grown-ups suddenly +began to carry on in a way that placed all such doubts at rest. There +was, for example, a Russian lady, godmother of _Patuffa_, who escaped +from somewhere and established herself, with others of her kind, in an +attic in Coptic Street. My welcome for this interesting fugitive was to +some extent shaken by a realisation that she was (so to speak) a refugee +from the other side and, in a sense, a spiritual ancestress of +Bolshevism. Miss HARRADEN would however object, and justly, that the +clean-purposed conspirators of the earlier revolution had little in +common with the unsavoury individuals who at present obscure the Russian +dawn. Soon after this, _Patuffa's_ papa begins to go quite dreadfully +off the rails, even to the extent of wishing to elope with her governess +and eventually losing all his money and shooting himself. There was also +a famous violinist--well, you can see already that _Patuffa's_ vernal +experiences were on generous lines. It is to the credit of all concerned +that she and her story retain an appreciable charm under adverse +conditions. + + * * * * * + +Nothing, one would imagine, could promise much more restful reading than +a book that concerns itself with such things as christening robes for +caterpillars, the dyeing blue of white chickens and searches among +Californian lilies and pine-trees for the soul of a hog unseasonably +defunct. But, since this most uncharitable age refuses to believe +anything just because it is told it should, the peaceful pages of _The +Diary of Opal Whiteley_ (PUTNAM) are unfortunately fussed over with a +controversy that no one who reads them can quite escape. Miss WHITELEY'S +diary is presented with every circumstance of solemn asseveration as the +unaided work of a child of seven, only now pieced together by the writer +after quite a number of years. If you care to throw yourself into the +argument you will certainly find heaps of reasons for thinking unkind +thinks, as the writer would say, of the truth of this claim, +particularly in the completeness with which every incident is carried +through various stages to its literary finish; but, if you will be ruled +by me, you will try to forget anything but the book itself, with its +quite charming pictures of many animals and one little girl, their +understanding friend. The quaint idiom in which the diary is supposed to +have been written (or, of course, was written) adds to the delight of a +rather uncommon feeling for nature at its simplest, while the scrapes +for which the small heroine receives (or, you may say, is alleged to +receive) well-deserved punishment preserve the book from ever dropping +into mere mawkishness. A great pity, I think, that it was not published +rather as based on childish memories than as the actual printed script +of a prodigy. + + * * * * * + +_Moon Mountains_ (HURST AND BLACKETT) is a story which with the best +will in the world I found it impossible to regard wholly seriously. The +greater part of the scene is laid in Darkest Africa, where the father of +the hero, _Peter_ (my hope that the _Peter_ habit had blown over appears +to have been premature), disappears at an early stage. The subsequent +course of events reminds me of the words of the musical-comedy poet, +popular in my youth, who wrote, "It were better for you rather not to +try and find your father, than to find him"--well, certainly better than +to find him as _Peter_ found his. Perhaps it would not be unfair to +suppose that Miss MARGARET PETERSON had at this point her eye already +firmly fixed upon her big situation. Certainly the course of _Peter_ is +rather impatiently and spasmodically sketched till the moment when +matters are sufficiently advanced to ship him also to Africa, in company +with an elderly hunter of butterflies named _Mellis_. Their adventures +form the bulk of the tale (filled out with some chat about elephants, +and a sufficiency of love-making on the part of _Peter_), and I suppose +I need hardly tell you how one of them, poor _Mellis_, is immediately +captured and brought before the terrible white king of the hidden lands, +nor how this same monarch, a really dreadfully unpleasant person, turns +out to be--Precisely. So there the tale is; little more incredible than, +I dare say, most of its kind; and if you have no rooted objection to +characters all of whom behave like persons who know they are in a book +there is no reason why you should not find it at least passably +entertaining. + + * * * * * + +Mr. F. BRETT YOUNG'S manner of presenting _The Tragic Bride_ (SECKER) is +not free from affectation, and this is the more irritating because his +literary style is in itself admirably unpretentious. But having recorded +this complaint I gladly go on to declare that his tale of _Gabrielle +Hewish_ has both charm and distinction. I protest my belief in +_Gabrielle_ both in her Irish and English homes, but my protest would +have been superfluous if Mr. BRETT YOUNG had not almost super-taxed my +powers of belief. So also with _Arthur Payne_; he is a fascinating lad, +and the battle between his mother and _Gabrielle_ for possession of him +was a royal struggle, fought without gloves yet very fairly. All the +same I caught myself doubting once or twice whether any boy could at the +same time be so human and so inhuman. It is to Mr. BRETT YOUNG'S credit +that these doubts do not interfere with one's enjoyment of his book, and +the reason is that he is first and last and all the time an artist. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: _New Clerk._ "BEG PARDON, SIR, BUT THERE'S A GENTLEMAN +OUTSIDE WHO SAYS THAT YOU'VE ROBBED HIM OF ALL HE HAD." + +_Turf Accountant._ "WELL, WHAT'S HIS NAME? ASK HIM TO GIVE YOU HIS NAME. +HOW AM I TO DISTINGUISH HIM IF HE DOESN'T SEND HIS NAME IN?"] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, +VOL. 159, OCTOBER 6, 1920*** + + +******* This file should be named 17397.txt or 17397.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/3/9/17397 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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