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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159,
+July 21, 1920, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: January 24, 2006 [EBook #17596]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Paul Ereaut, Cori Samuel and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARIVARIA.
+
+VOL. 159.
+
+
+JULY 21, 1920
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+To judge by the Spa Conference it looks as if we might be going to have
+a peace to end peace.
+
+       ***
+
+It will soon be necessary for the Government to arrange an old-age
+pension scheme for Peace Conference delegates.
+
+       ***
+
+It is difficult to know whom or what to blame for the exceptionally wet
+weather we have been having, says an evening paper. Pending a denial
+from Mr. Lloyd George, _The Times_ has its own opinion as to
+who is at the bottom of it.
+
+       ***
+
+Mr. Stanton pointed out in the House of Commons that, unless
+increased salaries are given to Members, there will be a strike. Fears
+are entertained, however, that a settlement will be reached.
+
+       ***
+
+"The Derry shirt-cutters," says a news item, "have decided to continue
+to strike." The Derry throat-cutters, on the other hand, have postponed
+striking to a more favourable opportunity.
+
+       ***
+
+The way to bring down the price of home-killed meat, the Ministry of
+Food announces officially, is for the public not to buy it. You can't
+have your cheap food and eat it.
+
+       ***
+
+Harborough Rocks, one of the few Druid Circles in the kingdom, has been
+sold. Heading-for-the-Rocks, the famous Druid Circle at Westminster, has
+also been sold on several occasions by the Chief Wizard.
+
+       ***
+
+A gossip writer states that he saw a man carrying two artificial legs
+while travelling in a Tube train. There is nothing like being prepared
+for all emergencies while travelling.
+
+       ***
+
+"The ex-Kaiser," says an American journal, "makes his own clothes to
+pass the time away." This is better than his old hobby of making wars to
+pass other people's time away.
+
+       ***
+
+"Danger of infection from Treasury notes," says _The Weekly Dispatch_,
+"has been exaggerated." Whenever we see a germ on one of our notes we
+pat it on the back and tell it to lie down.
+
+       ***
+
+A West Riding paper states that a postman picked up a pound Treasury
+note last week. It is said that he intends to have it valued by an
+expert.
+
+       ***
+
+An engineer suggests that all roads might be made of rubber. For
+pedestrians who are knocked down by motor-cars the resilience of this
+material would be a great boon.
+
+       ***
+
+According to _The Evening News_ a bishop was seen the other day passing
+the House of Commons smoking a briar pipe. We can only suppose that he
+did not recognise the House of Commons.
+
+       ***
+
+"We can find work for everybody and everything," says a Chicago journal.
+But what about corkscrews?
+
+       ***
+
+How strong is the force of habit was illustrated at Liverpool Docks the
+other day when two Americans, on reaching our shores, immediately
+fainted, and only recovered when it was explained that spirits were not
+sold here solely for medical purposes.
+
+       ***
+
+"Watches are often affected by electrical storms such as we have
+experienced of late," states a science journal. Only yesterday we heard
+of a plumber and his mate who arrived at a job simultaneously.
+
+       ***
+
+We sympathise with the unfortunate housewife who cannot obtain a servant
+because her reference is considered unsatisfactory. It appears she was
+only six weeks with her last maid.
+
+       ***
+
+A pedestrian knocked down by a taxi in Oxford Street last Tuesday
+managed to regain his feet only to be again bowled over by a motor-bus.
+Luckily, however, noticing a third vehicle standing by to complete the
+job, the unfortunate fellow had the presence of mind to remain on the
+ground.
+
+       ***
+
+According to a local paper cat-skins are worth about 5½_d._ each. Of
+course it must be plainly understood that the accuracy of this estimate
+is not admitted by the cats themselves.
+
+       ***
+
+"Too much room is taken up by motor-vehicles when turning corners,"
+declares a weekly journal. This is a most unfair charge against those
+self-respecting motorists who negotiate all corners on the two inside
+wheels only.
+
+       ***
+
+An American named J. Thomas Looney has written a book to prove that
+Shakspeare was really the Earl of Oxford. We cannot help thinking that
+Shakspeare, who went out of his way to prove that _Ophelia_ was one of
+the original Looneys, has brought this on himself.
+
+       ***
+
+Fashionable Parisians, says a correspondent, have decided that the
+correct thing this year is to be invited to Scotland for July. It may be
+correct, but it won't be an easy matter if we know our Scotland.
+
+       ***
+
+American women-bathers with an inclination to embonpoint, it is stated,
+have taken to painting dimples on their knees. The report that a
+fashionable New Yorker who does not care for the water has created the
+necessary illusion by having a lobster painted on her toe is probably
+premature.
+
+       ***
+
+A Bridgewater, Somerset, man of eighty (or octogeranium) has cancelled
+his wedding on the morning of the ceremony. A few more exhibitions of
+that kind and he will end up by being a bachelor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _First Indian Chief_ (_of travelling show_). "Brother
+Bellowing-Papoose, which is the way back to the circus?"
+
+_Second Ditto._ "I know not. Let us ask this paleface."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+      There was a young lady of Beccles
+      Whose face was infested with freckles,
+                But nobody saw
+                Any facial flaw,
+      For she had an abundance of shekels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE GRASSHOPPER.
+
+The Animal Kingdom may be divided into creatures which one can feed and
+creatures which one cannot feed. Animals which one cannot feed are
+nearly always unsatisfactory; and the grasshopper is no exception.
+Anyone who has tried feeding a grasshopper will agree with me.
+
+Yet he is one of the most interesting of British creatures. _The
+Encyclopædia Britannica_ is as terse and simple as ever about him.
+"Grasshoppers," it says, "are specially remarkable for their saltatory
+powers, due to the great development of the hind legs; and also for
+their stridulation, which is not always an attribute of the male only."
+To translate, grasshoppers have a habit of hopping ("saltatory powers")
+and chirping ("stridulation").
+
+It is commonly supposed that the grasshopper stridulates by rubbing his
+back legs together; but this is not the case. For one thing I have tried
+it myself and failed to make any kind of noise; and for another, after
+exhaustive observations, I have established the fact that, though he
+does move his back legs every time he stridulates, _his back legs do not
+touch each other_. Now it is a law of friction that you cannot have
+friction between two back legs if the back legs are not touching; in
+other words the grasshopper does not rub his back legs together to
+produce stridulation, or, to put it quite shortly, he does not rub his
+back legs together _at all_. I hope I have made this point quite clear.
+If not, a more detailed treatment will be found in the Paper which I
+read to the Royal Society in 1912.
+
+Nevertheless I have always felt that there was something fishy about the
+grasshopper's back legs. I mean, why _should_ he wave his back legs
+about when he is stridulating? My own theory is that it is purely due to
+the nervous excitement produced by the act of singing. The same
+phenomenon can be observed in many singers and public speakers. I do not
+think myself that we need seek for a more elaborate hypothesis. _The
+Encyclopædia Britannica_, of course, says that "the stridulation or song
+in the _Acridiidæ_ is produced by friction of the hind legs against
+portions of the wings or wing-covers," but that is just the sort of
+statement which the scientific man thinks he can pass off on the public
+with impunity. Considering that stridulation takes place about every ten
+seconds, I calculate that the grasshopper must require a new set of
+wings every ten days. It would be more in keeping with the traditions of
+our public life if the scientific man simply confessed that he was
+baffled by this problem of the grasshopper's back legs. Yet, as I have
+said, if a public speaker may fidget with his back legs while he is
+stridulating, why not a public grasshopper? The more I see of science
+the more it strikes me as one large mystification.
+
+But I ought to have mentioned that "the _Acridiidæ_ have the auditory
+organs on the first abdominal segment," while "the _Locustidæ_ have the
+auditory organ on the _tibia_ of the first leg." In other words one kind
+of grasshopper hears with its stomach and the other kind listens with
+its leg. When a scientific man has committed himself to that kind of
+statement he would hardly have qualms about a little invention like the
+back-legs legend.
+
+With this scientific preliminary we now come to the really intriguing
+part of our subject, and that is the place of the grasshopper in modern
+politics. And the first question is, Why did Mr. Lloyd George call
+Lord Northcliffe a grasshopper? I think it was in a speech about
+Russia that Mr. Lloyd George said, in terms, that Lord Northcliffe
+was a grasshopper. And he didn't leave it at that. He said that Lord
+Northcliffe was not only a grasshopper but a something something
+grasshopper, grasshopping here and grasshopping there--that sort of
+thing. There was nothing much in the accusation, of course, and Lord
+Northcliffe made no reply at the time; in fact, so far as I know, he has
+never publicly stated that he is _not_ a grasshopper; for all we know it
+may be true. But I know a man whose wife's sister was in service at a
+place where there was a kitchen-maid whose young man was once a gardener
+at Lord Northcliffe's, and this man told me--the first man, I mean--that
+Lord Northcliffe took it to heart terribly. No grasshoppers were allowed
+in the garden from that day forth; no green that was at all like
+grasshopper-green was tolerated in the house, and the gardener used to
+come upon his Lordship muttering in the West Walk: "A grasshopper! He
+called me a grasshopper--me--a Grasshopper!" The gardener said that his
+Lordship used to finish up with, "_I_'ll teach him;" but that is hardly
+the kind of thing a lord would say, and I don't believe it. In fact I
+don't believe any of it. It is a stupid story.
+
+But this crisis we keep having with France owing to Mr. Lloyd George's
+infamous conduct does make the story interesting. The suggestion is, you
+see, that Lord Northcliffe lay low for a long time, till everybody had
+forgotten about the grasshopper and Mr. Lloyd George thought that Lord
+Northcliffe had forgotten about the grasshopper, and then, when Mr.
+Lloyd George was in a hole, Lord Northcliffe said, "_Now_ we'll see if I
+am a grasshopper or not," and started stridulating at high speed about
+Mr. Lloyd George. A crude suggestion. But if it were true it would mean
+that the grasshopper had become a figure of national and international
+importance. It is wonderful to think that we might stop being friends
+with France just because of a grasshopper; and, if Lord Northcliffe
+arranged for a new Government to come in, it might very well be called
+"The Grasshopper Government." That would look fine in the margins of the
+history-books.
+
+Yes, it is all very "dramatic." It is exciting to think of an English
+lord nursing a grievance about a grasshopper for months and months,
+seeing grasshoppers in every corner, dreaming about grasshoppers.... But
+we must not waste time over the fantastic tale. We have not yet solved
+our principal problem. Why did Mr. Lloyd George call him a
+grasshopper--a modest friendly little grasshopper? Did he mean to
+suggest that Lord Northcliffe hears with his stomach or stridulates with
+his back legs?
+
+Why not an earwig, or a black-beetle, or a wood-louse, or a centipede?
+There are lots of insects more offensive than the grasshopper, and
+personally I would much rather be called a grasshopper than an earwig,
+which gets into people's sponges and frightens them to death.
+
+Perhaps he had been reading that nice passage in the Prophet Nahum: "Thy
+captains are as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the
+cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is
+not known where they are." I do not know. But _The Encyclopædia_ has a
+suggestive sentence: "All grasshoppers are vegetable feeders and have an
+incomplete metamorphosis, so that _their destructive powers are
+continuous from the moment of emergence from the egg until death_."
+
+A.P.H.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The Mayor gave details showing how the Engineer's salary had
+    increased from £285 when he was appointed in 1811 to £600 at the
+    present time."--_Local Paper._
+
+And think what he must have saved the ratepayers by not taking a pension
+years ago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Mr. ---- thought that the whole Committee would wish to
+    associate themselves with the Cemeteries Sub-Committee in their
+    congratulations to Alderman ---- upon his marriage."--_Local
+    Paper._
+
+We do not quite see why this particular sub-committee should have taken
+the initiative.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: EVIL COMMUNICATIONS.
+
+The Telephone. "I'M GOING TO COST YOU MORE."
+
+Householder. "WHY?"
+
+The Telephone. "OH, THE USUAL REASON--INCREASING
+INEFFICIENCY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A QUESTION OF TASTE.
+
+_The Wife._ "You Must Get Yourself a Straw 'at, George. A bowler
+don't seem to go with a camembert."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"French Leave."
+
+The Mandarins of the Theatre, who are no wiser than other mandarins (on
+the contrary), have been long repeating the formula that the public
+won't look at a War play. If I'm not mistaken it will for many moons be
+looking at Captain Reginald Berkeley's _French Leave_. He
+labels it a "light comedy." That's an understatement. It is, as a matter
+of fact, a very skilful, uproarious and plausible farce, almost too
+successful in that you can't hear one-third of the jokes because of the
+laughter at the other two-thirds (and a little because of the indistinct
+articulation of one or two of the players). Of course when I say
+"plausible" I don't exactly mean that any Brigade Headquarters was run
+on the sketchy lines of _General Archibald Root's_, or that the gallant
+author or anybody else who was in the beastly thing ever thought of the
+Great War as a devastating joke, but rather that if it be true, as has
+been rumoured, that not all generals were miracles of wisdom and
+forbearance; that British subalterns and privates sometimes put on the
+mask of humour; that _Venus_ did wander, as the observatories punctually
+reported she did occasionally wander, into the orbit of _Mars_--then
+_French Leave_ is a piece of artistically justifiable selection. Its
+absurdity seems the most natural thing in the world and its machinery
+(rare virtue!) does not creak.
+
+_Rooty Tooty's_ brigade then was resting--if in the circumstances you
+can call it resting. The rather stodgy Brigade-Major's leave being due,
+his wife has come over to Paris to wait for him. The leave being
+cancelled (and you could see how desperately overworked Headquarters
+was) there suddenly appears what purports to be a niece of the billet
+landlady's, a _Mdlle. Juliette_, of the Paris stage, with a distinctly
+coming-on disposition (and frock). The uxorious Brigade-Major, weakly
+consenting to the deception, suffers the tortures of the damned by
+reason of the gallantries of the precocious Staff-Captain and the
+old-enough-to-know-better Brigadier. There is marching and
+counter-marching of detached units in the small hours; arrival of the
+Brigade Interpreter with Intelligence's reports; sorrowful conviction in
+the Brigadier's mind that _Juliette_ is _Olga--Olga Thingummy_, the
+famous German spy. Confusions; explosions; solutions.
+
+That's a dull account of a bright matter. The players were not, with the
+exception of Miss Renée Kelly, of the star class and (I don't
+necessarily say therefore) were almost uniformly admirable. I suppose
+the honours must go to Mr. M.R. Morand's excellently studied
+_Brigadier_--the most laughter-compelling performance I have seen on the
+"legitimate" for some years. But the _Mess Corporal_ (Mr. Charles
+Groves), the _Staff-Captain_ (Mr. Henry Kendall), the _Brigade-Major_
+(Mr. Hylton Allen), the _Interpreter_ (Mr. George de Warfaz) and the
+_Mess Waiter_ (Mr. Arthur Riscoe)--all deserve mention in despatches. As
+for the "business" it was positively inspired at times, as when the
+_Mess Corporal_ retrieved the red-hat (which the passionate
+_Brigade-Major_ had kicked in his jealous fury) with an address which
+would have done credit to the admirable Grock. Miss Renée Kelly had her
+pretty and effective moments, but somebody should ask her (no doubt in
+vain) to be less tearful in the tearful and just a little less bright in
+the bright parts--a little less fidgetty and fidgetting and out of key,
+in fact.
+
+I should say in general that author and producer (Mr. Eille Norwood)
+would do well to watch the serious passages--always the danger-points in
+farce. As nobody on our side of the footlights takes these seriously the
+folk on the other side must substantially dilute the seriousness. The
+tragically uttered, "O God!" at the end of the Second Act ruined an
+otherwise excellent curtain. But I must not end on a note of censure. I
+was much too thoroughly entertained for that. Here's a quite first-rate
+piece of fooling, with dialogue of humorous rather than smart sayings.
+And humour's a much rarer and less cheap a gift than smartness.
+
+T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _First Newly-Rich._ "It's a great secret, but I must
+tell you. My husband has been offered a peerage."
+
+_Second ditto._ "Really! That's rather interesting. We thought of
+having one, but they're so expensive and we are economising just now."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Considerate Scribes.
+
+    "Presumptious is a hard word that I would not readily apply to
+    any man."--_Daily Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "PASSIVE PESSIMISM.
+
+    BERLIN'S ATTITUDE TO THE SPAR CONDITIONS."
+
+    _Sunday Paper._
+
+But, after all, Berlin does not seem to have taken them lying down.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "At the start he made most of his runs by clever strokes on the
+    leg side, but, once settled down, he drove with fin power."
+    _Sunday Paper._
+
+Cricketers need to be amphibious in these days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SONGS OF AN OVALITE.
+
+  There was a young man who said, "Hobbs
+  Should never be tempted with lobs;
+      He would knock them about
+      Till the bowlers gave out
+  And watered the pitch with their sobs."
+
+  There is no one so dreadful as Fender
+  For batmen whose bodies are tender;
+      He gets on their nerves
+      With his murderous swerves
+  That insist upon death or surrender.
+
+  When people try googlies on Sandham,
+  You can see he will soon understand 'em;
+      With a laugh at their slows
+      He will murmur, "Here goes,"
+  And over the railings will land 'em.
+
+  I am always attracted by Harrison
+  When arrayed in his batting caparison;
+      If others look worried
+      He never gets flurried,
+  But quite unconcernedly carries on.
+
+  All classes of bowlers have stuck at
+  Their efforts to dislocate Ducat;
+      Their wiliest tricks
+      He despatches for six,
+  Which is what they decidedly buck at.
+
+  You should never be down in the dumps
+      When Strudwick is guarding the stumps;
+      His opponents depart
+      One by one at the start,
+  But later in twos or in _clumps_.
+
+  "Like father like son," says the fable,
+  And is justified clearly in Abel;
+      No bowling he fears
+      And his surname appears
+  An extremely appropriate label.
+
+  If I were tremendously rich
+  I would buy a cathedral in which
+      I would build me a shrine
+      Of a noble design
+  And worship a statue of Hitch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Sleuths Again.
+
+    "His wrists were tied together with a piece of webbing, two
+    bricks were in his coat pockets, and, most remarkable of all,
+    the soles of his boots were found to be nailed to his toes....
+    The police theory is that somebody 'owed the dead man a
+    grudge.'"--_Provincial Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AUTHORSHIP FOR ALL.
+
+[Being specimens of the work of Mr. Punch's newly-established Literary
+Ghost Bureau, which supplies appropriate Press contributions on any
+subject and over any signature.]
+
+III.--Are we going to the Dogs?
+
+_By Vice-Admiral (Retd.) Sir Boniface Bludger, K.C.B_.
+
+I was standing the other day at the window of the only Club in London
+where they understand (or used to understand) what devilled kidneys
+really are, musing in post-prandial gloom on the vanished glories of
+this England of ours. "_Ichabod!_" I cried aloud to the unheeding stream
+of Piccadilly wayfarers; and echo answered, "_Bod_."
+
+What is wrong with us? Or what is wrong with me? Are we actually going
+to the dogs, or is it merely that the Club kidneys are going to the
+devil? Jeremiah or _Mrs. Gummidge_--which am I? Let the facts
+attest and let posterity decide; thank Heaven I shall not be there to
+hear the verdict.
+
+After our half-baked victory over the Hun the popular watchword was
+"Reconstruction." We have now enjoyed a year and more of this
+"building-up" process, and the net result is that houses for those that
+lack them are as scarce as iced soda-fountains in the Sahara.
+
+In this work of restoration, we were told, our women voters and
+legislators would play a leading part. What part are they in truth
+playing? Their main object apparently is still further to embitter the
+Drink question, although if they would only put a little more bitter
+into our national beverage they might help to lubricate matters. Is it
+not a significant fact that the slackness evidenced in every phase of
+industry manifests itself at a time when it becomes more and more
+difficult to get a decent drink? In this respect our progress is not so
+much to the dogs as to the cats, who sneak along on the padded paws of
+Prohibition.
+
+The crazy conditions to be observed in the industrial world are well
+matched by the state of anarchy that prevails in the sphere of the arts.
+Take music, for example. I do not lay claim to more than a nodding
+acquaintance with Euterpe, and at a classical concert, I am afraid, the
+nodding character of the relation becomes especially marked. To me the
+sweetest music in the world is the roar of a fifteen-inch gun on a day
+when the visibility is good and plentiful. But I do know enough to be
+able to say that the wild asses who with their jazz-bands "stamp o'er
+our heads and will not let us sleep" (slightly to amend my old friend
+FitzGerald) are nothing less than musical Trotskys.
+
+Music was once regarded as the staple nourishment of the tender passion,
+and in my younger days the haunting strains of "The Blue Danube"
+assisted many a budding love-affair to blossom. But these non-stop
+stridencies of the modern ballroom, even if they left a man with breath
+enough to propose, would effectually prevent the girl from catching the
+drift of the avowal. You can't roar, "Will you be mine?" into a maiden's
+ear as if you were conversing from the quarterdeck, and if you did she'd
+only think you were ecstatically emulating the coloured gentleman in the
+orchestra with the implements of torture and the misguided voice.
+
+I will pass over in the silence of despair such other symptoms of
+national decadence as zigzag painting, whirlpool poetry, cinema
+star-gazing and the impossibility of procuring a self-respecting Stilton
+(which assuredly is not "living at this hour"). Nor can I trust myself
+to speak of the spirit of Bolshevism that seems to animate our so-called
+Labour Party, though I comfort myself with the conviction that this
+doctrine will not wash, any more than will its authors.
+
+I will conclude these few reflections by drawing attention to the
+manners of the modern girl, who is so busily engaged in kicking over the
+traces that formerly kept her in her proper place. Nowadays flappers who
+should still be in the schoolroom consider themselves called upon to
+teach their grandmothers how to conduct their lives; and, to complete
+the chaos, the grandmothers are eagerly lapping it up, and in the matter
+of dress and deportment are even bettering the instruction. _Si
+vieillesse savait!_
+
+Oh for a prophet's tongue to lash our visionless leaders into a
+realisation of the rocks on to which we are drifting! We need the
+scourge of a Savonarola, but all we get is the boom of a
+Bottomley.
+
+  "Gone are our country's glories.
+  _O tempora, O mores!_"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALL SORTS.
+
+  It takes all sorts to make the world, an' the same to make a crew;
+  It takes the good an' middlin' an' the rotten bad uns too;
+  The same's there are on land (says Bill) you'll find 'em all at sea--
+  The freaks an' fads an' crooks an' cads an' ornery chaps like me.
+
+  It takes a man for all the jobs--the skippers and the mates,
+  A chap to give the orders an' a chap to chip the plates;
+  It takes the brass-bound 'prentices--an' ruddy plagues they be--
+  An' chaps as shirk an' chaps as work--just ornery chaps like me.
+
+  It takes the stiffs an' deadbeats an' the decent shell-backs too,
+  The chaps as always pull their weight an' them as never do;
+  The sort the Lord 'as made 'em knows what bloomin' use they be,
+  An' crazy folks an' musical blokes an' ornery chaps like me.
+
+  It takes a deal o' fancy breeds--the Dagoes an' the Dutch,
+  The Lascars an' calashees an' the seedy boys an' such;
+  It takes the greasers an' the Chinks, the Jap and Portugee,
+  The blacks an' yellers an' half-bred fellers and ornery folk like me.
+
+  It takes all sorts to make the world an' the same to make a crew,
+  It takes more kinds o' people than there's creeters in the Zoo;
+  You meet 'em all ashore (says Bill) an' you find 'em all at sea--
+  But do me proud if most o' the crowd ain't ornery chaps like me!
+      C.F.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+      "---- UNITED FREE CHURCH.
+
+      Evening--Monthly Sermon for Young Men and Women.
+
+      'Love, Courtship, and Marriage.'
+
+      Anthem--'And it shall come to pass.'"
+
+      _Scotch Paper._
+
+The organist seems to be a sympathetic soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The fees for Burial will in the future be doubled, in order to meet the
+increased cost of present-day living."--_Parish Magazine._
+
+At this rate we shall soon be unable to afford either to live or to die,
+and must try a state of suspended animation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "As Lady ---- was stepping aboard she dropped a waterproof
+    satchel containing a pair of the Queen's shoes, and Their
+    Majesties laughed heartily at her Ladyship's discomfiture. One
+    of the sailors adroitly recovered the satchel with the aid of a
+    boot-hook." _Scotch Paper_.
+
+The handy-man! Prepared for all eventualities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE HOUSE THAT JACK WANTS BUILT.
+
+[Illustration: This is the house that Jack wants built.]
+
+[Illustration: This is the landowner who (if the talk of a railway
+being made over this bit of land doesn't come to anything, and the
+corporation cannot, after all, be induced to buy it as a
+recreation-ground, and no one makes a better offer) is willing to sell
+the ground to carry the house that Jack wants built.]
+
+[Illustration: This is the architect and surveyor who (as soon as he
+has finished his designs for the new Town Hall, the proposed County
+Hospital, the Cathedral Extension, the Borough power station and the
+drinking-fountain, and provided that no more important commission turns
+up) is going to design the house to go on the ground of the landowner
+who ...]
+
+[Illustration: This is the local authority who (if he can obtain
+details of the several requirements of the County Council, Parish
+Council, Central Housing Authority, Ministry Of Health, Board Of
+Agriculture, Ministry of Transport, Congested Districts Board, and any
+other departments interested, either now in existence or contemplated
+for the future) is going to inspect, revise, amend, and positively
+finally approve the designs of the architect and surveyor who ...]
+
+[Illustration: This is the building contractor who (provided that
+pressure of work allows him, and that he can get the materials, which is
+doubtful, and the men, which is hardly probable, and the price, which is
+practically out of the question) is going to carry out the designs, as
+finally approved by the local authority who ...]
+
+[Illustration: This is the railway official who (on the supposition
+that the congestion on the line will possibly be easier later, and that
+the supply of goods wagons is very considerably augmented, and that new
+loops and sidings not yet suggested will be constructed to relieve the
+pressure, and that a reorganisation of the railway staff does not move
+him elsewhere, as will almost certainly happen) has promised to do his
+best to expedite the transport of the necessary materials to the
+building contractor who ...]
+
+[Illustration: This is the merchant who (if prices are left entirely
+to his discretion and time is of no importance, and if he finds that,
+after all, it is to his advantage to sell in this country rather than to
+export, and if he doesn't retire in the meantime, as he is thinking of
+doing) has consented to try to send materials through the medium of the
+railway official who ...]
+
+[Illustration: These are the representatives of the building trades
+who (if all matters in dispute are satisfactorily settled by that time,
+and provided that they can all get their own houses sited, designed,
+passed, contracted for, supplied and built first) are going to erect the
+materials provided by the merchant who ...]
+
+[Illustration: And this? This, incidentally, is Jack.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CONVERTED CASTLES.
+
+Rural England, I learn, is rapidly changing hands--not for the first
+time, by the way, but we cannot go into that just now. Excellent
+treatises on feudal tenure, wapentake, the dissolution of the
+monasteries and the enclosure of common lands may be picked up dirt
+cheap at any second-hand bookshop in the Charing Cross Road with the
+words "Presentation Copy" erased from the flyleaf by a special and
+ingenious process. What is happening now is that farmers are buying up
+the big estates in pieces, and Norman piles or Elizabethan manors are
+beginning to be too expensive to maintain, what with coal and the rise
+in the minimum wage of vassals and one thing and another.
+
+  "The stately homes of England
+    How beautiful they stood
+  Before their recent owners
+    Relinquished them for good,"
+
+as the poet justly observes. And even if there is enough money to keep
+up the castle without the broad acres (though as a matter of fact an
+acre is not any broader than it is long) there is no fun in having a
+castle at all when the deer park has been divided into allotments and
+the Dutch garden is under swedes.
+
+The question is then what is going to happen to Montmorency (pronounced
+"Mumsie") Castle, and The Towers at Barley Melling?
+
+In London the difficulty of dealing with huge houses has been solved in
+a very subtle manner by turning them into a couple of maisonettes
+apiece, so that under the portico of what used to be 105 Myrtle Crescent
+you discover two perfectly good doors, marked 105a and 105b. Into the
+letter-box of the door marked 105a the postman invariably puts the
+letters intended for 105b, and _vice versá_, but, as these are always
+letters addressed to the last tenant but two, it does not really very
+much matter. Both are desirable maisonettes, though the tenants of 105a
+have the sole enjoyment of the lincrusta dadoes in the original
+dining-room. In some cases there are as many as three maisonettes, and
+the notice on the area gate says, "105c. _Mrs. Orlando Smith_," where it
+used to say simply "No bottles." I never really understood that notice
+myself, for whenever I am walking along with an empty bottle that I want
+to get rid of I do not throw it down into an area, where it would make a
+most horrible crash, but softly into the thick shrubs of the Crescent
+Gardens.
+
+This brings me back to the country again.
+
+There will not be enough of the new rich to purchase a castellated
+mansion apiece, partly because of the Excess Profits Duty, which is
+crippling this kind of enterprise, and partly because so many baronial
+seats, romantic and picturesque in their way, are terribly
+under-garaged. On the other hand you cannot expect a farmer who happens
+to be buying the fields round Badgery Mortimer to have any use for a
+dungeon keep or the haunted picture-gallery in the west wing. No, there
+is only one thing to do and that is to break these places up into a
+number of self-contained homes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MODERN AND ANCIENT.
+
+_Young Cricketer_. "Yes, I cocked one off the splice in the gully
+and the blighter gathered it."
+
+_Father_. "Yes, but how did you get out? Were you caught, stumped or
+bowled, or what?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HISTORIC FLATS TO LET
+
+is the house-agents' advertisement which I seem to see, and what you
+will actually find will be a sort of concentrated hamlet where modern
+improvements are mixed with ancient grandeur and the white-haired
+seneschal is kept on to operate the electric lift.
+
+Let us take, for instance, the case of Soping Hall. There will be none
+of that untidy straggling arrangement about it which detracts so largely
+from the beauty of Soping Barnet, Little Soping and Soping Monachorum.
+In Soping Hall the billiard-room will be the village club, the armoury
+the blacksmith's shop, the housekeeper's room the place where you buy
+buttons and balls of string and barley-sugar, the cellars the village
+tavern, and very nice too. In the state-saloon, with a few trifling
+alterations, such as the introduction of a geyser and a sink, will live
+Mrs. Ponsonby-Smith, who will sniff a little at the Jeffries in their
+attic suite and the Mutts who live in the moat. But Mrs. Jeffries will
+have compensations, because the air is really so much more bracing, my
+dear, on the higher ground, and on fine days one can walk about the roof
+and peep through the boiling-oil holes, while as for the Mutts they are
+protected, at any rate, from those bitterly piercing east winds and have
+an excellent view of the draw-bridge.
+
+A further advantage of residing at Soping Hall will be that you can do
+all your shopping and pay your calls without going out-of-doors on a wet
+day, and, if you like, have a communal dining-room or restaurant, where
+only those who have been recognised by the county should sit above the
+salt. And if your friends come to visit you in expensive motor-cars they
+will have the privilege of passing through the great iron gates on the
+main road and up the large gravel drive planted on each side with the
+cedars of Lebanon which Roger de Soping brought back in his haversack
+from the Second Crusade.
+
+I am quite aware that when federal devolution becomes really infectious
+and every county insists on a legislative assembly of its own it may be
+necessary to turn some of these great houses into Parliament chambers,
+and the rural civil service will also no doubt insist on having offices
+comparable with the vast hotels which their parent bodies occupy in
+London. But this will not account for nearly all the ancestral seats,
+and, in calling the attention of the Minister of Health and Housing to
+this little memorandum of mine, I would specially urge him to note how
+it will solve some of the most difficult problems which confront him
+to-day.
+
+There will be a rush upon these potted villages, and that will ease the
+situation in towns and free a number of cottages for agricultural
+labourers too. There will be a rush, not only because of the advantages
+which I have already enumerated, but because all the people who live in
+Soping Hall will be able to put "Soping Hall" on their notepaper, and,
+if they like to pay for it, two _wyverns rampant_ as well, and everyone
+outside the circle of their immediate friends will imagine that they
+have not only bought the whole place but even become the possessors of
+the flock of wyverns that used to be pastured on the Home Farm.
+
+Three acres and a cow was all very well in its way, but what about two
+wyverns and a flat? Evoe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Dame_ (_seeing the signpost_). "Stop, Jenkins--stop!
+I think it would be safer to turn back. They may have catapults or
+something dangerous."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TIPS FOR UNCLES.
+
+Dear Mr. Punch,--I am writing to you about uncles because you
+are in a way a kind of general uncle. Uncles are much more useful than
+aunts, because uncles always give money and aunts mostly give advice.
+Only, as the Head always says when he jaws our form, "I regret to see in
+this form a serious deterioration"--I mean in uncles. They come down
+here and trot us round and say what a luxurious place it is compared
+with the stern old Spartan days. They know something, though. They ask
+us to have meals with them at an hotel. They take care not to face a
+luxurious house-dinner. And while we dine they tell yarns about the
+hardness of the old days and how it toughened a fellow. And then,
+because about 1870 it was the custom to tip a boy five bob, they fork
+out five bob and tell you not to waste it.
+
+If the Head had any sense--only you can't expect sense from Heads--he'd
+put up a notice at the school gates: "Parents, Uncles and Friends are
+respectfully reminded that the cost of tuck has increased three hundred
+per cent. since 1914." Why, old Badham, my bedroom prefect, who was a
+fag in 1914, turned up the other day and declared that then he could buy
+four pounds of strawberries for a bob, and that a fag could get enough
+chocolate for two bob to give him a week in the sick-room.
+
+Yet we have uncles coming down in trains (fare fifty per cent. extra),
+smoking cigars (costing two hundred per cent. extra), cabbing it up to
+school (a hundred-and-fifty per cent. extra) and then tipping as if the
+old Kaiser was still swanking in Potsdam.
+
+Now Sutton minor, who has a positive beast of a house-master and is
+practically a Bolshevist, says that we ought to go on strike against the
+tipping system and demand a regular living wage from relations. He says
+that if a scavenger gets four quid a week a fellow who has to tackle
+Greek aorists ought to get eight quid a week.
+
+But I'm afraid a strike might aggravate uncles. It's no use upsetting
+the goose that lays the silver eggs, so I thought it better to write to
+you, pointing out that there was one luxury still at pre-war prices and
+that uncles should never miss a chance of indulging in it, and whenever
+high prices bothered them they should write us a bright cheerful letter
+enclosing a postal order--they're still quite cheap.
+
+Chalmers major, who has read this and leads a sad life, having only
+aunts, says that the only hope for him is in fixing a standard tip of
+9_s._ 11¾_d._ or, better still, 19_s._ 11¾_d._, that women couldn't
+help giving.
+
+So hoping that all uncles will put their hands to the plough--I mean in
+their pockets--and then the bitter cry of the New Poor will cease in our
+public schools,
+
+Yours respectfully, Bruce Tertius.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Notice.
+
+    My wife, Roxie M. ----, having left my bed and board, I will not
+    be responsible for any bills contracted after this date, June
+    21, 1920. Fred ----." _American Paper_.
+
+"Notice.
+
+    The undersigned wishes to state I had just cause to leave, but I
+    left neither bed nor board as I furnished my own board, and the
+    bed being mine I took it. Roxie ----."
+
+_Same Paper, following day._
+
+A good example of what _Touchstone_ calls "The lie with circumstance."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "To-Night at 9.30.
+    NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.
+    For the first time in Calcutta."
+    _Indian Paper._
+
+Where was the Censor?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Bridegroom-Elect_."--and we wants to have the hymn,
+'The flag that waved o'er Eden.'"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE STATE AND THE SCREEN.
+
+(_By a Student of Film Politics._)
+
+Great satisfaction has been evinced in film circles over the conferment
+of a signal honour on Signor Pavanelli, the outstanding Italian
+screen luminary. The rank of Chevalier of the Crown of Italy is
+equivalent to a knighthood in this country, and Pavanelli's
+elevation is a gratifying proof of the paramount position which the
+cinema is assuming in Italian national affairs. But gratification is
+sadly tempered by the deplorable lack of State recognition from which
+film-artists suffer in this country. The joint co-starring Sovereigns of
+the Screen, though acclaimed by the populace with an enthusiasm
+unparalleled in the annals of adoration, were allowed to depart from our
+shores without a single official acknowledgment of their services to
+humanity. No vote of congratulation was passed by the Houses of
+Parliament; no honorary degree was conferred on them by any University;
+no ode of welcome was forthcoming from the pen of the Poet
+Laureate.
+
+The discontent caused by the indifference of the Government to the
+wishes of the people is fraught with formidable possibilities. Already
+there are serious rumours of the summoning of a Special Trade Union
+Congress to discuss the desirability of direct action as a means of
+compelling the Government to abandon their attitude of hostility to the
+only form of monarchy which the working-classes can conscientiously
+support. It is further reported that Lieutenant-Commander
+Kenworthy, M.P., will seize the first opportunity to move the
+impeachment of Dr. Bridges. The indignation in Printing House
+Square has reached boiling-point, and it is reported that the
+authorities are only awaiting the delivery of a huge consignment of
+small pica type to launch a fresh and final onslaught on the Coalition.
+
+[Illustration: BAD FOR THE BULL.]
+
+The provocation has undoubtedly been intense. It was proved in an
+article of studied moderation and exquisite taste that the time had come
+to revise our estimates of bygone grandeur and substitute for the
+devotion to a Queen of tarnished fame and disastrous tendencies the
+spontaneous and chivalrous worship of her beneficent and prosperous
+namesake. Yet in spite of this dignified and convincing appeal no
+invitation was sent to the one person whose presence at the recent
+proceedings at Holyrood would have lent them a crowning lustre. The
+action or inaction of the Lord Chamberlain is inexplicable,
+except on the assumption that Queen Pickford's engagement to attend the
+Spa Conference would have rendered it impossible for her to accept the
+invitation to Edinburgh. None the less the invitation should have been
+sent. Besides, the resources of aviation might have surmounted the
+difficulty. In any case this deplorable oversight has knocked one more
+nail in the coffin of the Prime Minister.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "At the fifth each played a magnificent tea shot. Hodgson again
+    used his favourite spoon."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+Obviously the right club for the purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "'The Tongue Can no Man Tame.'
+                    _St. Peter._"
+            _Heading in Daily Paper_.
+
+A clear case of robbing James to pay Peter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+_Monday, July 12th._--Viscount Curzon's complaint about "crawling"
+taxi-cabs was ostensibly based upon the obstruction thus caused to more
+rapidly moving traffic. But I fancy that it was really due to an
+inherent belief that the motor-car is a noble creature, only happy when
+exceeding the speed-limit and dashing through police-controls, and that
+to compel the poor thing to crawl is "agin natur'" and ought to be dealt
+with by the R.S.P.C.A.
+
+As usual much of Question-time was devoted to Russian affairs. Colonel
+Wedgwood wanted to know whether the Cabinet had approved a message from
+Mr. Churchill to the late Admiral Kolchak, advising him how to commend
+his Administration to the Prime Minister, who was described in the
+telegram as "all-powerful, a convinced democrat and particularly devoted
+to advanced views on the land question." Mr. Law, while provisionally
+promising a Blue-book on Siberia, declined to pick out a single message
+from a whole bunch.
+
+The news that the Soviet Government had accepted the British conditions
+with regard to the resumption of trade and had thereupon been requested
+to conclude an armistice with Poland did not seem particularly welcome
+to any section of the House. Those whom Mr. Stanton in stentorian
+whispers daily describes as the "Bolshies" evidently feared that the
+request had been accompanied by a threat, while others were horrified at
+the idea of recognising the present _régime_ in Russia, and drew from
+Mr. Law a hasty disclaimer. The House as a whole would, I think, have
+liked to learn how you can do business with a person whom you do not
+recognise?
+
+The Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to accept Mr. George Terrell's
+proposal to reduce the Excess Profits Tax from sixty per cent. to forty,
+but, in reply to Sir G. Younger--who "has such a way wid him"--promised
+that next year he would make the reduction. He admitted that it was in
+many ways an unsatisfactory tax, but the Government could not afford to
+part with it unless a substitute was provided. Somebody suggested
+"Economy," and Sir F. Banbury proved to his own satisfaction that the
+present estimates could be reduced by a hundred-and-fifty millions. But
+unexpected support for the Government came from Mr. Asquith, who as the
+original sponsor of the tax felt it his duty to support it.
+
+[Illustration: SIR FREDERICK BANBURY SHOWS HOW IT'S DONE. "To produce a
+saving of one hundred-and-fifty millions you merely have to hold the hat
+firmly in the left hand--thus."]
+
+There was a perfect E.P.D.mic of criticism, but it was brilliantly
+countered by Mr. Baldwin, who declared that the Chancellor, far from
+leading the country down the rapids, "was the one man who had seized a
+rock in mid-stream and was hanging on to it with hands and feet." The
+Amendment was rejected by 289 to 117, and the clause as a whole was
+passed by 202 to 16.
+
+[Illustration: THE LIMPET OF THE EXCHEQUER. Mr. Baldwin portrays his
+chief "hanging to a rock with hands and feet."]
+
+_Tuesday, July 13th._--Lord O'Hagan was one of the Peers who helped
+to outvote the Government a few days ago on a motion excusing them
+of extravagance. Yet that did not prevent him to-day from saying that
+the War Office should be more generous in their financial treatment
+of the Territorial Force, and particularly of the Cadet Corps.
+Naturally Lord Peel did not refrain from calling attention to this
+inconsistency--common to most of the financial critics of the
+Administration--but nevertheless he made a reply indicating that the
+grants for the Territorial Force were being revised, presumably in an
+upward direction, since Lord O'Hagan expressed himself grateful.
+
+The Commons, like the Lords, are all for economy collectively, if not
+individually. General cheers greeted Mr. Bonar Law's announcement that
+all war-subsidies--save that on wheat--were to be brought to an end as
+soon as possible, but then there were similar cheers for those Members
+who urged the substitution of ex-service men for the less highly-paid
+women in various Public Departments.
+
+The House enjoyed the unusual experience of hearing from
+Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy an apology--and a very handsome one too--for
+something that he had said in debate about Colonel Croft. It was
+accompanied by a tribute to his military efficiency which made that
+gallant warrior blush. It only now remains for the Leader of the
+National Party to reciprocate by rescuing from the Naval archives some
+equally complimentary reference to the services of Lieut.-Commander
+Kenworthy.
+
+A new sport has been invented by Colonel Guinness. It consists in
+sending two telegrams simultaneously to Paris, one _viâ_ London and the
+other _viâ_ New York, and seeing which gets there first. At present New
+York wins by twenty minutes. Mr. Illingworth excused himself from giving
+an immediate explanation on the ground that he had not had time to check
+the facts. No doubt he hopes that in the interim other Members will
+follow Colonel Guinness's example and, by joining in the new pastime,
+bring grist to the Post-Office mill.
+
+_Wednesday, July 14th._--Lord Milner must have thought he was back in
+the era of "Chinese Slavery" when he found himself assailed on all sides
+because the Chief Native Commissioner in Kenya Colony (late British East
+Africa) had issued a circular instructing the chiefs to influence their
+followers in the direction of honest toil. Lord Islington described this
+as "perilously near forced labour;" His Grace of Canterbury facetiously
+suggested that the chiefs' idea of influence would be the sjambok; and
+Lord Emmott talked of "Prussianism."
+
+Taught by past experience Lord Milner did not make light of the
+accusations, but set himself to show how little real substance they
+contained. The Chief Native Commissioner was "not a Prussian"; on the
+contrary the local white population thought him too great an upholder of
+native privileges. But he was very keen on getting the black man to
+work, and had therefore issued this circular, which was open to
+misinterpretation. An explanatory document would be issued shortly.
+
+Echoes of the Dyer debate are still reverberating through the Commons,
+and Mr. Montagu was put through a searching cross-examination regarding
+his relations with Mr. Gandhi. Apparently that gentleman has a very
+simple plan of campaign. He agitates more and more dangerously until he
+is threatened with prosecution. Then he says "Sorry!" and Mr. Montagu
+begs him off. After a brief interval of quiescence he starts again. Just
+now he is once more nearing the imaginary line that separates proper
+from impropa-Gandhism.
+
+[Illustration: B.C. 1920. _Sir Alfred Mond._ "What a topping idea!
+They'll never get a more suitable design from the Office of Works--not
+if they wait 3840 Years."]
+
+The House was delighted to see Mr. Devlin and Mr. MacVeagh back in their
+places. A little honest Irish obstruction would be a refreshing change
+after the feeble imitations of the Kenworthies and Wedgwoods. But the
+Speaker could not accept the proposition that a speech delivered three
+weeks ago, in which an Irish official was alleged to have prophesied
+some dreadful things which as a matter of fact had not happened, could
+be regarded as "a definite matter of urgent public importance."
+
+It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister was unable to get back from
+Spa in order to assist in the final suppression of his famous
+land-duties. Most of the speeches delivered were made up of excerpts
+from his old orations of ten years ago--that almost prehistoric era
+known as the Limehouse Period--and it would have been an object-lesson
+in political gymnastics to see him explaining himself away.
+
+The land-taxers made a gallant effort to frighten their opponents away
+by chanting the "Land Song" in the Lobby, but it is supposed that the
+Government supporters had copied Ulysses' method with the Sirens, for
+enough of them remained faithful to defeat the land-taxers by 190 to 68.
+
+[Illustration: _Mr. Neal._ "Your fares will cost you more."]
+
+_Thursday, July 15th._--Mr. Neal's announcement that the proposed
+increase in rail way fares had been postponed until August 5th, in order
+not to spoil the Bank Holiday, was far from satisfying the House. Mr.
+Clynes pointed out that large numbers of the working-classes now took
+their long holidays in August. Mr. Palmer was of opinion that the
+working-classes could pay well enough; it was the middle-class that
+would suffer most; and Mr. R. McNeill, following up this assertion,
+suggested (without success) that for the sake of poverty-stricken M.P.'s
+the House should adjourn before the fateful date.
+
+Sir H. Greenwood gave particulars of the Sinn Fein raid on the Dublin
+Post-Office, but declined to give an opinion as to whether there had
+been any collusion with the staff inside. Judging by the promptitude and
+efficiency of the raiders' procedure it seems highly improbable that
+postal officials had anything to do with it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Each day the barometer seems to drop a little lower, the rain
+    seems to drop a little more persistent and wet."--_Provincial
+    Paper_.
+
+It is this persistent wetness that is so annoying. Nobody would mind a
+little dry rain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Farmer._ "I wonder what some of these London folks
+'ud say to this?"
+
+_Farm-hand._ "Zay? They'd zay as we must be makin' our fortunes out
+o' mushrooms."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TWENTY YEARS ON.
+
+We were sitting in the verandah, Ernest and I. On the greensward before
+us Ernest Junior and James Junior (I am James) disported themselves as
+became their years, which were respectively 1-3/4 and 1-5/8. In the
+middle distance, or as middle as the size of our lawn permits, might be
+seen the mothers of Ernest Junior and James Junior deep in conversation,
+discussing, perhaps, the military prowess of their lords, though I
+rather fear I caught the word "jumper" every now and then.
+
+A loud difference of opinion between James II. and Ernest II. as to the
+possession of a wooden horse momentarily disturbed the peaceful scene.
+It was left to Ernest and myself to settle it, our incomparable wives
+being still completely engrossed with the subject of our military
+prowess (or of jumpers). When quiet reigned once more Ernest said, "Have
+you ever looked twenty years on?"
+
+"Practically never," I answered. "It is too exhausting."
+
+"It is exhausting, but with my usual energy I do it all the same," said
+Ernest, who is as a fact the world's champion lotus-eater. "Last night I
+was picturing a little scene in the year 1940. Shall I tell you of it?"
+And without waiting for my assent he proceeded:--
+
+"The scene is laid in an undergraduate's rooms. Ernest Junior and James
+Junior are discovered in _négligé_ attitudes and the conversation
+proceeds something like this:--
+
+"_Ernest Junior._ What are you going to do with yourself in the Vac.?
+
+"_James Junior._ I shall go abroad, in spite of my choice of objectives
+being so terribly restricted.
+
+"_Ernest Junior._ Why restricted?
+
+"_James Junior._ Well, I wouldn't say this to anybody else, but to tell
+you the truth it is impossible for me to go to either France, Belgium or
+Italy. You see my dear old father was in these countries during the
+first Great War, and if I were so much as to mention them he'd never
+stop talking. If I were to say that I proposed spending a fortnight in
+the Ardennes it would let loose such a flood of reminiscence that I
+should hardly get away before next term begins.
+
+"He gets a little confused too at times. He told me the other day a long
+story about the relief of Ypres, and he also boasted of having himself
+captured a large number of Turks on the Somme.
+
+"And it isn't only that. My mother was a V.A.D. in France, you know. And
+when the old man had done talking of Ypres and the Somme she'd begin
+about Rouen and Etaples."
+
+I laughed, but without mirth, for I did not really think this at all
+funny. And after all I might have said just the same about Ernest, if
+only I'd thought of it first.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"CHAR-À"-VARIA.
+
+    [_The Manchester Daily Dispatch_ gives a most distressing
+    account of the bibulous hooliganism which is becoming more
+    rampant week by week among char-à-bancs trippers.]
+
+  The patrons of the charabang
+  Employ the most outrageous slang
+  And talk with an appalling twang.
+  Their manners ape the wild orang;
+  They do not care a single hang
+  For sober folk on foot who gang,
+  But as they roll, with jolt and clang,
+  For parasang on parasang,
+  They cause a vulgar _Sturm und Drang_.
+  They never heard of Andrew Lang,
+  Or even Mr. William Strang;
+  They are, I say it with a pang,
+  A most intolerable gang;
+  In fact I wish them at Penang
+  Or on the banks of Yang-tse-Kiang--
+  _Some_ folk who use the charabang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Wanted, a good, clean General, for private."--_Provincial
+    Paper_.
+
+Discipline is going to the dogs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+POINTS OF VIEW.
+
+The manager had seen to it that the party of young men, being very
+obviously rich, at any rate for this night, had some of the best
+attendance in the restaurant. Several waiters had been told off
+specially to look after them, the least and busiest of whom was little
+more than a boy--a slender pale boy, who was working very hard to give
+satisfaction. The cynic might think--and say, for cynics always say what
+they think--that this zeal was the result of his youth; but the cynic
+for once would be only partly right. The zeal also had sartorial
+springs, this eventful day being the first on which the boy had been
+promoted to full waiter-hood, and the first therefore on which he had
+ever worn a suit of evening dress; which by dint of hard saving his
+family had been able to obtain for him. Wearing a uniform of such
+dignity and conscious that he was on the threshold of his career, he was
+trying very hard to make good and hoping very fervently that he would
+get through without any drops or splashes to impair the freshness of his
+new and wonderful attire.
+
+The party of young men, who had been at a very illustrious English
+school together and now were either at a university or in the world,
+were celebrating an annual event and were very merry about it. For the
+most part they had, between the past and the present, as many topics of
+conversation as were needed, but now and then came a lull, during which
+some of them would look around at the other tables, note the prettier of
+the girls or the odder of the men and comment upon them; and it chanced
+that in such a pause one of the diners happened for the first time to
+notice with any attention the assiduous young waiter. Although not old
+enough to have given any thought to the anomaly of youth (though lowly)
+attending upon youth (though gilded) at its meals in this way--not old
+enough indeed to have pondered at all upon the relations of Capital and
+Labour or of the domineering and the servile--he had reflected a good
+deal upon the cut and fit of clothes, and there was something about the
+waiting-boy's evening coat that outraged his critical sense. Nor did the
+fact that the other's indifferent tailoring throw the perfection of his
+own into such brilliant contrast--the similarity between the livery of
+service and the male costume _de luxe_ fostering such comparisons--make
+him any more lenient.
+
+"Did you ever see," he asked his neighbour, "such a coat-collar as that
+waiting Johnnie's? I ask you. How can anyone, even a waiter, wear a
+thing like that? Don't they ever see themselves in the glass, or if they
+do can't they see straight? Why, it covers his collar altogether."
+
+His companion agreed. "And the shoulders! You'd have thought that in a
+restaurant like this the management would be more particular. By George,
+that's a jolly pretty girl coming in! Look--over there, just under the
+clock, with the red hair." And the waiter was forgotten. Only, however,
+by his table critics, for at that moment a little woman who had made
+friends with the hall-porter for this express purpose was peering
+through the window of the entrance, searching the room for her son. She
+had never yet seen him at his work at all, and certainly not in his
+grand waiting clothes, and naturally she wanted to.
+
+"Ah!" she said at last, pointing the boy out to the porter, "there he
+is! At that table with all the young gentlemen. Doesn't he look fine?
+And don't they fit him beautifully? Why, no one would know the
+difference if he were to sit down and one of those young gentlemen were
+to wait on him."
+
+E.V.L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PIGLETS.
+
+While waiting for proof-sheets of my book on _The Dynamic Force of
+Modern Art_ I thought I might get a certain amount of amusement out of a
+little correspondence with my neighbour, Mr. Gibbs, small farmer and
+dairyman, between whom and myself letters had passed a short time ago on
+the subject of a noisy cow, since removed from the field below the study
+window of the house that has been lent me by my friend Hobson. With this
+end in view I wrote to Mr. Gibbs as follows:--
+
+My dear Mr. Gibbs,--The field of the uproarious cow has, I
+notice, suddenly become tenanted again, this time by what appears to be
+a school, herd or murrain of swine. Their number seems to vary.
+Sometimes I count ten younglings, sometimes as many as thirteen, and
+once I made it as much as fourteen.
+
+Did you know they were there, or are they a crop? Or is the field
+suffering from swine fever, of which they are the outward manifestation?
+Anyhow, whether they are friends of yours or have merely just happened,
+as it were, they are distinctly intriguing.
+
+My wife was remarking to me only yesterday how nice some pork would be
+as a change from the eternal verities, beef and mutton, and I told her
+that if she would look out of my window she would see the pork running
+about, simply asking for it. There are so many of these piglets that I
+don't think the old sow would miss one. Swine can't count, can they?
+
+But apart from food values they interest me as subjects for the Cubist,
+the Vorticist and other exploiters of dynamic force in the Art of to-day
+(I fancy I told you in a previous letter that I am engaged upon a tome
+on this subject).
+
+Figure to yourself, _mon ami_, what delightful rhomboidal figures
+Wyndham Lewis and his school would make of these budding
+porkers with the sleek torso and the well-poised angular snout, and,
+having visualised their treatment of the theme, compare it with the
+painted effigies of such animals by George Morland, which were
+merely pigs, Sir, and nothing more. No symbolism, no force. You get
+me--what?
+
+But looking at these piglets from a more intimate point of view, don't
+you think (if they should happen to be yours, and you have any influence
+with their parents) that something should be done about their faces?
+They have such a pushed-in appearance. Can this be normal? If so, it
+must seriously interfere with their truffling. But perhaps this is not
+good truffle-hunting country. I'm sorry if this is so, as I could do
+with a nice brace of truffles now and again.
+
+Remember me kindly to our mooing friend, and believe me, dear Mr. Gibbs,
+
+      Yours sincerely,
+      Arthur K. Wilkinson.
+
+How this early touch of Spring has got into the blood, to be sure.
+
+To this letter Mr. Gibbs replied thus:--
+
+Dear Sir,--i cant make much of your letter except a riglemerole
+about pigs and dinamite and pictures but what they have to do with one
+another i dont know if you want some pork why dont you say so strait out
+like mr Hobson does i shall be killing one this week shall i send you a
+nice leg and remain
+
+      Yours obedient
+      Henry Gibbs.
+
+My reply, given in the affirmative, resulted in the arrival of a
+succulent-looking joint with a bill for leg of pork special 5½ lbs.
+at 2_s._ per lb. 11_s._
+
+As the price too was rather special I returned the bill with the
+following:--
+
+My dear Mr. Gibbs,--What a rapturous piece of pork! Lovely in
+life, and oh, how beautiful in death. I count the hours till 7.30
+to-morrow.
+
+I am truly sorry you couldn't read my letter with comfort. I have
+derived great pleasure from yours. You appear to have a strong leaning
+towards phonetic orthography which is very refreshing and seems to bear
+the same relation to the generally accepted rules of the art that the
+modern dynamic art (a favourite topic of mine, as you know) does to the
+academics of the late nineteenth century.
+
+When the proof-sheets of my book arrive I should be glad of your
+assistance in going through them. My tendency, I think, is to
+over-punctuate, and your proclivity would, I believe, counteract this.
+
+_Mais revenons à nos moutons_ (_mutatis mutandis_, of course). The
+specialist who superintends my diet allows me to eat pork at 1_s._ 9_d._
+per lb., but does not approve of my indulgence in it at a higher figure.
+If you will meet his views (and I am sure you will) I shall absorb my
+full share of the dainty you have provided. Otherwise I must return it
+with many exquisite regrets.
+
+Anticipating your favourable recognition of my specialist's absurd
+prejudice, I enclose a cheque for 9_s._ 8_d._
+
+      Accept my word for it that I am
+        Yours ever most truly,
+          Arthur K. Wilkinson.
+
+To this Mr. Gibbs offered the following reply:--
+
+Deer Sir,--i thought being a friend of mr Hobson you was a
+gentleman as wouldn't mind paying a bit extra for something special like
+this pork which these pigs was by Barnsley Champion III i cant charge
+less. i dont know who your specialist is but he dont know much about
+pork the bests the safest. please send ballance and remain
+
+      Yours obedient,
+        Henry Gibbs.
+
+We were still in March and pork had not yet been decontrolled, so I
+returned the bill again with this brief but incisive note:--
+
+My dear Mr. Gibbs,--I have never met your friend from Barnsley,
+but am surprised that you haven't come across my specialist, whose
+address is the Local Food Control Office at Harbury. Would you like to
+meet him? He is very interested in pigs, also in milk and other things
+in which you specialise expensively, so you would have lots to talk
+about, no doubt.
+
+      Yours sincerely,
+        Arthur K. Wilkinson.
+
+The receipt in full, which reached me in reply, was very satisfactory.
+The pork was delicious.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Country Postman._ "I'm sorry, Ma'am, I seem to have
+lost your postcard; but it only said Muriel thanked you for the parcel,
+and so did John, and they were both very well and the children are happy
+and she'll give your message to Margery. That'll be your other daughter,
+I'm thinkin'?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        FLOWERS' NAMES.
+
+    Lady's Bedstraw.
+
+  Under two secret arching hedges
+    Masses of Bedstraw grow,
+  Silvery-white among the sedges,
+    Like drifts of fairy-snow;
+  Deep's the middle, fringed the edges;
+    Who sleeps there? Do you know?
+  Do you? Or you?
+    Hark! for the breezes know.
+
+  "Oh, there my Lady Summer lies
+  Adream beneath cool April skies;
+    About her blossoms fall
+  On her long limbs and secret eyes.
+    Still she sleeps, virginal;
+    Then--hark! June's clarion call!
+  She lifts her wistful wilful eyes,
+  Springs light afoot and away she flies.
+  But her Bedstraw dies."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "We have received from ---- Manufacturing Company, New York,
+    makers of Distructive Stationery for Social Correspondence,
+    copies of their artistic Wall Calendars." _West Indian Paper._
+
+The calendars don't interest us, but a few samples of the "distructive
+stationery" would come in useful for answering bores.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOCTURNE.
+
+Of course I suppose I ought to be grateful for the opportunity of having
+a front seat at one of Nature's romances, but I imagine she reaps more
+applause at matinées than at soirées. I know that I--But judge for
+yourself.
+
+The _dramatis personæ_ were corncrakes, neighbours of mine. The
+heroine--a neat line in spring birdings--I labelled "Thisbe," and she
+had evidently inspired affection of no mean degree in the hearts of two
+enthusiastic swains, Strong-i'-th'-lung and Eugène. I know all this
+because Thisbe's home is a small tuft of grass not distant from my
+bedroom, and her admirers wooed her at long range from opposite corners
+of my field.
+
+Now, as a cursory study of ornithology will tell you, the corncrake's
+method of attracting his bride is by song, and the criterion of
+excellence in C.C. circles is that the song shall be protracted,
+consistent and perfectly monotonous. To those who are unacquainted with
+his note I would describe it as rather similar to the intermittent
+buzzing noise which an inexperienced telephone operator lets loose when
+she can't think of a wrong number to give you. It has also points of
+resemblance to the periodic thud of the valve of a motor-tube when one
+is running on a deflated tyre. But there is no real standard of
+comparison. As a musical feat it is unique, and I for one am glad it is.
+
+It was night. Eugène was in possession of the stage when I began to take
+an interest in the romance. I cannot say for how long he had serenaded
+his divinity before I became conscious of his lay, but I do know that
+thereafter he put in one and a half hours of good solid craking before
+he desisted. I then felt grateful for the silence, rolled over and
+prepared to get on with my postponed slumber.
+
+But Strong-i'-th'-lung decreed otherwise. With a contemptuous snort at
+his rival's performance he opened his epic. He was splendid. For one and
+three-ninths hours he descanted on the glories of field life, on the
+freshness of the night, on the brilliance of the June foliage; for the
+next two hours he ardently proclaimed the surpassing beauty of Thisbe's
+eye, the glossiness of her plumage, the neatness of her claw, and he
+wound up with a mad twenty minutes of piercing monotony as he depicted
+the depth of his devotion for her.
+
+When he ceased, in a silence which was almost deafening, I could
+visualise Thisbe dimpling with satisfaction and undoubtedly filled with
+tenderness toward a lover capable of expressing himself so eloquently. I
+turned over with a sigh of relief and closed my eyes in pleasurable
+anticipation of rest.
+
+But Eugène felt it necessary to reply. I think his intention was to
+crake disbelief of his rival's sincerity, to throw cold water on his
+burning professions, perhaps even to question the excellence of his
+intentions. But his nerve was obviously shaken by his competitor's
+undoubtedly fine performance, and he craked indecisively. At 4.30
+a.m. I distinctly heard him utter a flat note. At 4.47 he
+missed the second part of a bar entirely. Thisbe's beak, I must believe,
+curled derisively; Strong-i'-th'-lung laughed contemptuously, and at
+5.10 a.m. Eugène faltered, stammered and fled from the field
+defeated.
+
+The sequel I have had to build up on rather fragmentary data, but it
+appears that Eugène fled as far as Pudberry Parva, and endeavoured to
+cool his discomfiture in a dewy hayfield.
+
+To him there came an old crone, the "father and mother" of all
+corncrakes, who comforted him, cossetted him, and from a fund of deep
+experience offered him hints on voice production. She also gave him of a
+nostrum of toadwort and garlic, which mollified his lacerated chords,
+and she prescribed massage of the throat by rubbing against a young
+beech stem.
+
+Within two days Eugène was back in my field. In tones that feigned to
+falter he craked a few bars to open the performance. Strong-i'-th'-lung
+at once rose full of pitying confidence and craked for two and a half
+hours the song of the practically accepted suitor. It was a good song,
+and Thisbe seemed pleased, though I fancy she rather resented the note
+of assurance which he imparted to his ballad.
+
+Then Eugène came on. Bearing well in mind all the instruction of his
+recent benefactress, he commenced at 11.45 p.m. such a masterpiece as
+has never before been heard in the bird world. His consistency of period
+was masterly, his iteration superb and his even monotony incomparable.
+Crake succeeded crake with dull regular inevitability. So far as I know
+he carried his bat. He was still playing strongly when I fell on a
+troubled sleep about 5.30....
+
+The next day, walking through the field, I put up two birds which flew
+away together. One was Thisbe. And the other? Well, not
+Strong-i'-th'-lung. I stumbled across him a little later, dead without a
+wound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Wanted Music Master for 2 girls; also Mincing
+    Machine."--_Local Paper._
+
+One way or another they seem determined that the poor girls shall be
+"put through it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SHOULD MILLIONAIRES READ HOMER?
+
+The recent discovery of a London millionaire, who not only lives in a
+small suburban villa, where his wife dispenses with servants, goes to
+bed at 7.30 p.m. and rises at 3 a.m., but reads Homer in the Greek, has
+caused a sensation.
+
+His endeavours to prove to a doubting world the truth of a favourite
+British adage is admirable; and his modest establishment only bears out
+what the millionaires keep on telling us, that, owing to high taxation
+and the abnormal cost of luxuries, they must really be reckoned as poor
+men. But his study of Homer provokes a difference of opinion.
+
+Our representative, in interviewing a venerable sociologist on the
+subject, was told that the study of Greek for millionaires is, within
+proper limits, comparatively harmless, but that Homer contains the
+elements of danger.
+
+"It is in Homer's apotheosis of heroism in human combat that the peril
+lies," he said. "Having regard to the part played in the past by
+financiers in the wars between civilised nations, the security of the
+League of Nations will be threatened if the millionaires of to-day come
+under the spell of that great poet, who, with all his excellent
+qualities, directed his genius so persistently to the praise of
+warfare."
+
+One of the millionaire class was next approached, and was asked what he
+thought of millionaires reading Homer.
+
+"Why not?" he asked. "Some millionaires are great readers. I am one
+myself. There are not half-a-dozen of Oppenheim's I haven't read; and I
+like Hall Caine--and Ethel Dell's not bad. Who is this Homer? If he's
+any good I may as well order him."
+
+"Well, Homer was a poet, you know, a--"
+
+"I've no use for poetry," said the millionaire.
+
+"A Greek poet, who lived--"
+
+"Greek. A _Greek_, did you say?" A shrewd look came into his eyes. "Some
+of the cutest devils I know are Greeks." He pulled down a shirt-cuff and
+took a diamond-studded pencil from his waistcoat pocket. "How do you
+spell it? With an H?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"POULTRY AND EGGS.
+
+    Belfast or Neighbourhood.--Locum Tenency or Sunday duty wanted
+    by well-known Rector during holiday."--_Irish Paper._
+
+It looks as if he had been mistaken for a Lay-reader.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Nothing is left of the knave of the church, but the choir still
+    remains."--_Scotch Paper._
+
+We are glad they discarded the knave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Country Cousin_ (_who suffers from his wife's elbow at
+each crossing_). "Oo! lawks, Maria! Next time we've to cross lemme be
+roon ower!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+_Double Life_ (Grant Richards) is a story that unblushingly bases its
+appeal on the love of almost everyone for a fairy-tale of good fortune.
+The matter of it is to show how a lady amateur, wife of a novelist,
+herself hardly knowing one end of a horse from the other, might make
+forty thousand pounds in a year on the Turf, without even her own
+husband so much as suspecting her activities. The thing isn't likely, is
+indeed a fantasy of the wildest improbability; but, told with the zest
+imparted to it here by Mr. Grant Richards, it provides first-rate fun.
+Some danger of monotony there was bound to be in what is really a
+variation upon a single theme. Though the author cunningly avoids this,
+I think it might justly be observed that he has made _Olivia's_ plunges
+almost too uniformly successful. But perhaps not; after all, while you
+are handling fairy-gold, why be niggardly of it? The heroine's
+introduction to horse-racing comes about through the unconscious agency
+of her husband, who takes her with him on a visit to Newmarket in search
+of local colour for a "sporting" novel. The resulting situation reaches
+its climax in what is the best scene of the book, when _Geoffrey_,
+returning from a race that he has visited alone, but upon which
+_Olivia_, unknown to him, has risked thousands, recounts its progress in
+the best manner of realistic fiction, wholly ignorant of the true cause
+of what seems such flattering agitation in the listener. Altogether a
+happy if not very subtle story which I am glad that Mr. Grant Richards
+could persuade himself to publish.
+
+To write, as Mr. R.W. Chambers has written, fifty-two novels, many of
+them excellent and all readable, while still on the right side of sixty,
+is an achievement of intelligent industry that entitles any novelist, at
+the latter end, to take matters a little easily. _The Moonlit Way_
+(Appleton) has neither the imaginative qualities of _The King in
+Yellow_, the humour of _In Search of the Unknown_, nor the adventurous
+tang of _Ashes of Empire_, but it is a good live story that will carry
+the reader's interest to the last page. Mr. Chambers is at his best when
+dealing with spies and secret service agents and scheming chancellors
+and the other subterranean apparatus of war and diplomacy; at his least
+interesting when depicting affluent young America on its native heath of
+New York bricks and mortar. _The Moonlit Way_ deals with all these
+things and more. We are whisked from the Bosphorus to the Welland Canal
+on the heels of Germany's "War in the United States," and French Secret
+Service officers, German saloon keepers and Sinn Fein revolutionaries
+jostle one another for a place in our interest. The novel-reading public
+knows that it is quite safe in buying any story by Mr. Chambers, and, if
+it does not expect too much of _The Moonlit Way_, it will not be
+disappointed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lately, volumes of individual memorial to dead youth seem to have become
+less frequent. Perhaps there was a suggestion that the making of them,
+or rather their publication for the eyes of strangers, was in danger of
+being overdone. However this may be, I think that, quite apart from the
+appeal of circumstance, there would always have been a welcome for such
+a bright-natured book as one that Father Ronald Knox has put together,
+mostly from diaries and letters, about _Patrick Shaw-Stewart_ (Collins).
+Eton and Balliol will agree that there could be no biographer better
+fitted to record the life, as happy seemingly as it was fated to be
+short, of one who combined success with popularity at both these places,
+was caught by the War on the threshold of a wider career, served his
+country with very notable distinction and was killed in the winter of
+1917. Though he met death in France, the most of Shaw-Stewart's
+war-service was on the Eastern front; in particular he saw more than
+most soldiers of the whole Gallipoli adventure, to which he went as a
+member of that amazing company--surely the very flower of this country's
+war contribution--the _Hood_ Battalion of the R.N.V.R. Here he was the
+comrade of many of those whom England has especially delighted to
+honour: Rupert Brooke, Denis-Browne, Charles Lister and others, all of
+whom figure in these vivid and most attractive letters; from which also
+one gathers an engaging picture of Shaw-Stewart himself, a generously
+admiring, humorous and entirely independent young Tory in a band of
+brilliant revolutionaries. In fine a book (despite its theme of promise
+sacrificed) full of laughter and a singularly charming character-study
+of one who, in his biographer's phrase, was assuredly "not one of the
+passengers of his generation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE SPECIALIST.
+
+_Eminent Botanist on scientific expedition_. "Dear me! Why didn't I
+take up Zoology instead of Botany? This seems such an interesting
+specimen."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Ella Sykes, after going with her brother and a camera on his
+special mission to Kashgar during the earlier days of the War, has
+detailed in charming fashion, under the title _Through Deserts and Oases
+of Central Asia_ (Macmillan), their travels in lands still almost
+unknown. Sir Percy Sykes himself has added some chapters on the history
+and customs of the district in order to allow himself the pleasure of
+referring affectionately to his hunting of the giant sheep--the _Ovis
+poli_--of the Pamirs. Between them they have given me a good deal of
+information, with a lot of really capital photographs, about a
+country--Chinese Turkestan--that one may have just heard of before,
+though it is impossible to be sure. Resisting a burning desire to pass
+on newly-acquired learning to the first listener, I will be content to
+say that a more readable volume of its kind has not come my way for a
+long time, and incidentally the country itself seems surprisingly
+desirable. For one thing it is free from the mosquitoes that spoil so
+many books of travel, while the people are peaceful, reasonably
+contented and not liable to jar on the reader's nerves, in the
+time-honoured fashion, with spears and poisoned arrows. Even the yaks,
+that one had supposed to be fearsome beasts, are mild benevolent
+pacifists. The authors do not suggest that it is all Paradise, of
+course, though for the Moslem there may be something of that sort in it.
+"Praise be to Allah! I have four obedient wives, who spend all their
+days in trying to please me," said a Kirghiz farmer to Sir Percy. But
+even Paradise may be a matter of taste.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If _War in the Garden of Eden_ (Murray) cannot be numbered among the
+books which must be read by a serious war-student it is in its
+unassuming way very attractive. Captain Kermit Roosevelt made many
+friends while serving as a Captain with the Motor Machine-Gun Corps in
+Mesopotamia, and here he reveals himself as a keen soldier and a
+pleasant companion. In style he is perhaps a shade too jerky; his
+frequent failure to make his connections gives one a sense of being in
+the hands of a rather rambling guide. But the important points are that
+he is an engaging rambler, and that he can describe his experiences both
+of war and peace with so clear a simplicity that they can be easily
+visualized. When the American Army arrived in France Captain Roosevelt
+naturally wished to join it, and his last chapter is called "With the
+First Division in France and Germany." But for us the main interest of
+his book lies in the work he did with the British in Mesopotamia, and to
+thank him for this would seem to be an impertinence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Arnold Bennett's _From the Log of the Velsa_ (Chatto) deals with
+some vague period before the War (dates are most carefully concealed),
+when the versatile author undertook certain cruises up and down Dutch
+canals, the Baltic, French, Flemish and Danish coasts and East Anglian
+estuaries with companions about whom he preserves an equally mysterious
+silence. (Was it secret service, I wonder?) A delightful book, produced
+with something like pre-war attention to æsthetic appearance--a pleasant
+quarto with roomy pages faithfully printed in a fair type. You ought to
+enjoy the owner's evident enjoyment (he was never bored and therefore
+never boring), his charmingly ingenuous pride of possession, his shrewd,
+humorous and excessively didactic utterances about painters, pictures,
+architecture and female beauty, his zeal for water-colour sketching and
+his apparently profound contempt of other exponents of the craft.
+Nothing could be less like (I thank Heaven) the ordinary yachtsman's
+recollections of his travels, and I get an impression that Mr. Bennett
+was not ill-pleased to leave most of the work and the technical
+knowledge to his skipper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Crêpe de Chine in oyster white will show the top of the dress
+    embroidered to the knees in some unconventional design of black
+    and a deeper shade of white."--_Daily Paper_.
+
+    "The bridesmaid's dress was of heavy white crêpe-de-chine, of
+    pale apricot shade."--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+Canning must have had a premonition of the modern fashions when
+he wrote in _The New Morality_, "Black's not so black, nor white so
+_very_ white."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a bookseller's advertisement:--
+
+    "Mr. ---- has the way of when you finish one of his most
+    interesting books that you really cannot help yourself by
+    reading all." _Newfoundland Paper._
+
+Not being quite sure whether this is a compliment or not we have
+suppressed the distinguished author's name.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+159, July 21, 1920, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+***** This file should be named 17596-8.txt or 17596-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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