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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159,
+December 8, 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, Volume 159, December 8, 1920
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seamus
+
+Release Date: August 26, 2006 [EBook #19127]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Lesley Halamek,
+Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 156.
+
+
+
+December 8, 1920
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+
+LORD RIDDELL, in giving his impression of President WILSON, says that
+his trousers and boots were not in keeping with the smartness of
+his appearance above the table. This is where the trained habits of
+journalistic observation come in.
+
+       * * *
+
+In answer to many inquiries we are unable to obtain confirmation of a
+rumour that Mr. CHARLIE CHAPLIN'S contemplated retirement is connected
+with an invitation from Mr. HORATIO BOTTOMLEY to enter the arena of
+British politics.
+
+       * * *
+
+According to an evening paper the lady who has just become Duchess of
+Westminster has "one son, a boy." On the other hand the DUKE himself
+has two daughters, both girls.
+
+       * * *
+
+Over two million Chinese pigtails have been imported into the United
+States, where they will be used for straining soup, declares a
+Washington correspondent. The wartime curtailment of the moustache, it
+appears, has done away with the old custom of straining the soup after
+it comes to table.
+
+       * * *
+
+A police magistrate of Louisville, Kentucky, has been called upon to
+decide whether a man may marry his divorced wife's mother. In our view
+the real question is whether, with a view to securing the sanctity of
+the marriage tie, it should not be made compulsory.
+
+       * * *
+
+"This morning," says a recent issue of a Dublin paper, "police visited
+_Young Ireland_ office and placed arretssssshrrr rr rr r h bfad mb shs
+under arrest." Suspicion was apparently aroused by his giving his name
+in the Erse tongue.
+
+       * * *
+
+Enormous damage, says a cable, has been done by a water-spout which
+struck Tangier, Morocco, on Saturday. We note with satisfaction, on
+the other hand, that the water-spout which recently struck Scotland
+had no ill effects.
+
+       * * *
+
+Every hotel in London taken over by the Government has now been given
+up. The idea of keeping one as a memento was suggested, but Sir ALFRED
+MOND decided to throw in his hand.
+
+       * * *
+
+Asked his profession last week a man is reported to have answered,
+"_Daily Mail_ Reader."
+
+       * * *
+
+While a fire was being extinguished at Boston, Mass., recently the
+hose burst into flames. A country where that sort of thing occurs can
+afford to take Prohibition lying down.
+
+       * * *
+
+A Constantinople message states that a Turk named ZORN MEHMED is one
+hundred and forty-six years of age. This is said to be due to the fact
+that for the last century or so he has kept a pet thyroid which he
+takes about on a chain.
+
+       * * *
+
+We have no wish to cast any reflection on the courage of the
+Prohibitionists, but we can draw our own conclusions from the fact
+that we haven't noticed them rushing to Ireland.
+
+       * * *
+
+A Denver newspaper points out that the "Wild West bandit" has died
+out. Our own impression was that he had got a job as a waiter in
+London.
+
+       * * *
+
+Things are settling down in America. A news report states that WILLARD
+MACK, the actor, has only been divorced three times.
+
+       * * *
+
+"We have an innate modesty about advertising ourselves," said Sir
+ROBERT HORNE at the International Advertising Exhibition. A certain
+colleague of his in the Ministry is reported to have said that Sir
+ROBERT can speak for himself in future.
+
+       * * *
+
+We understand that the idea of producing a filmed version of Mrs.
+ASQUITH'S Diary has been shelved for the present, owing to the
+difficulty of procuring actors for the more dangerously acrobatic
+incidents.
+
+       * * *
+
+An old lady writes to us with reference to wild-cat taxation that
+she has always advocated it, but that she has understood that the
+difficulty was to determine the ownership of these unfortunate
+vagrants.
+
+       * * *
+
+The new houses when ready, says a North of England Town Clerk, will
+only be let to those people who are married. We have felt all along
+that there was some catch about Dr. ADDISON'S housing scheme.
+
+       * * *
+
+To a discreditable alien source has been traced the scandalous rumour
+that the disappearance of the summit of Mont Blanc is due to certain
+admirers of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE, who wished to present their hero with
+something in the nature of a permanent peroration.
+
+       * * *
+
+As a partial remedy for the overcrowding at Oxford, it is suggested
+that the University should come into line with Battersea by making a
+rule that lost causes will not be kept longer than three days before
+being destroyed.
+
+       * * *
+
+"I was the anonymous person who walked down Harley Street and counted
+the number of open windows," confesses Sir ST. CLAIR THOMSON, M.D. So
+now we can concentrate on JUNIUS and the Man in the Iron Mask.
+
+       * * *
+Motorists are becoming much more polite, we read. They now catch
+pedestrians sideways, instead of full on.
+
+       * * *
+
+According to an official of the R.S.P.C.A., as _Punch_ informed us
+last week, dogs do not possess suicidal tendencies. Yet the other day
+we saw an over-fed poodle deliberately loitering outside a sausage
+factory.
+
+       * * *
+
+"The number of curates who seem to be able to find plenty of time
+for golf is most surprising," writes a correspondent. We suppose the
+majority of them employ vicars.
+
+       * * *
+
+Spanish toreadors are on strike for a higher wage. There is talk, we
+understand, of a six bull week.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT IS YOUR LITTLE BROTHER CRYING ABOUT?" "OH,
+'IM--'E'S A REG'LAR PESSIMIST, 'E IS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE DARK AGES.
+
+(_Being reflections on the pre-press period._)
+
+    [In _The Times_ of December 2nd Lord NORTHCLIFFE traces the
+    history of the English Press from the appearance of the first
+    newspaper uttered in English--"A Corrant out of Germany,"
+    imprinted at Amsterdam, December 2nd, 1620--and finds some
+    difficulty in understanding how civilisation got on as well as it
+    did through all those preceding centuries.]
+
+  To-day (December 2) we keep, with cheers,
+    The Tercentenary of the Press!
+  Probing the darkness of the previous years
+    I try, but try in vain, to guess
+  How anybody lived before the birth
+  Of this the Very Greatest Thing on Earth.
+
+  You'd say it must have been a savage life.
+    Men were content to eat and drink
+  And spend the intervals in carnal strife
+    With none to teach them how to think;
+  They had no Vision and their minds were dense,
+  Largely for lack of True "Intelligence."
+
+  When a volcano burst or floods occurred
+    No correspondent flashed the news;
+  It came by rumour or a little bird,
+    Devoid of editorial views;
+  No leader let them know to what extent
+  The blame should lie upon the Government.
+
+  And yet, when no one knew in those dumb days
+    Exactly what was going on,
+  Without reporters they contrived to raise
+    The Pyramids and Parthenon;
+  CONFUCIUS preached the Truth, and so did PAUL,
+  Though neither of them got in print at all.
+
+  It sounds incredible that, when in Greece
+    The poets sang to lyre or pipe,
+  When HOMER (say) threw off his little piece,
+    Nobody put the thing in type;
+  Even in days less barbarously rude
+  VIRGIL, it seems, was never interviewed.
+
+  And how did DANTE manage to indite
+    His admirable tale of Hell,
+  Or BUONARROTI sculp his sombre "Night"
+    Without the kodak's magic spell--
+  No Press-photographer, a dream of tact,
+  To snap the artist in the very act?
+
+  Poor primitives, who groped amid the gloom
+    And perished ere the dawn of day,
+  Ere yet Publicity, with piercing boom,
+    Had shown the world a better way;
+  Before the age--so good for him that climbs--
+  Now culminating in the NORTHCLIFFE times.
+
+  O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How to Brighten the Weather Forecasts.
+
+    "Mild and hazy conditions with increasing haze and cloudiness for
+    an unfavourable change in the weather of heliotrope georgette over
+    pale blue."--_New Zealand Paper._
+
+We commend this to our own Meteorological Office.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of the Bishop-designate of Manchester:--
+
+    "Head master of an important public school while yet in his teens
+    ... a permanent figure in social and religious movements ... the
+    author of 'Men's Creatrix.'"--_Provincial Paper._
+
+We knew Canon TEMPLE had had a remarkable career, but confess that
+these details had hitherto escaped us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR LUCKY DIPPERS.
+
+Further and final particulars of the drawings from the Lucky Bag at
+the Purple City are replete with illustrations of the extraordinary
+congruity between the prizes and the age, sex and station of the
+recipients.
+
+Mrs. Sarah Boakes, who received the colossal equestrian bronze statue
+of Lord THANET, weighing three hundred tons and valued at five
+thousand guineas, told our representative that the idea of getting one
+of the big prizes never entered into her head, and added, "I did not
+sleep a wink last night; the statue was in my mind the whole time."
+Mrs. Boakes, an attractive elderly lady of some seventy-five summers,
+is engaged at a laundry at East Putney. The haulage of the statue to
+her home at 129, Arabella Road, S.W. 15, is likely to be a costly
+affair; but Mrs. Boakes has made an application for a grant-in-aid to
+the Ministry of Health and has received a sympathetic reply from Dr.
+ADDISON. The cost of reconstructing her house to enable the statue to
+be set up in her parlour is estimated at about L4,500.
+
+Mr. Jolyon Forsyth, who won the African elephant, is a stoker on the
+South Western Railway and lives at Worplesdon. He applied to the
+Company for a day's leave in order to ride his prize home; but his
+request was most unwarrantably refused, and the matter is receiving
+the earnest attention of the N.U.R. Mr. Forsyth informed our
+representative that his wife keeps a small poultry run, and hopes that
+she will be able to make room for the new visitor without seriously
+incommoding her fowls. Failing that, he thinks that employment may be
+found for the elephant on the Worplesdon Links, either in rolling the
+greens or irrigating them with its trunk. The claims of the animal to
+an unemployment allowance are being considered by Dr. MACNAMARA.
+
+Gladys Gilkes, a bright-eyed child of six, living with her parents
+at 345, Beaverbrook Avenue, Harringay, who received a Sandringham
+opera-hat, is enduring her felicity with fortitude. "I have never been
+to the opera yet," she naively remarked to our representative, "but my
+brother Bert plays beautifully on the concertina."
+
+Great interest has been excited in the neighbourhood of Tulse Hill
+by the success of Mr. Enoch Pegler, the winner of the three-manual
+electric cathedral organ with sixty-four stops, the most sonorous
+instrument of its type yet constructed by Messrs. Waghorn and Fogg,
+the famous organ-builders of Penge. A special piquancy is lent to the
+episode by the fact that Mr. Pegler, who is seventy-nine years of age
+and has long been a martyr to rheumatoid arthritis in both hands,
+belongs to the sect of the Silentiary Tolstoyans, who discountenance
+all music, whether sacred or profane. Mr. Pegler, it should be
+explained, authorised his grandniece, Miss Hester Wigglesworth, to put
+in for the Lucky Bag in his name, but, on the advice of the family
+physician, Dr. Parry Gorwick, the result has not yet been broken to
+him. Meanwhile, thanks to the tactful intervention of Sir ERIC GEDDES,
+the instrument has been temporarily housed in the Zoological Gardens,
+where daily recitals are given at meal-times by Dr. CHALMERS MITCHELL
+and other powerful executants. Unfortunately the organ was not yet
+installed at the time of the recent encounter between a lion and a
+tigress, otherwise the fatality would, in the opinion of Sir FREDERICK
+BRIDGE, have almost certainly been avoided.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  When that my Judith sticks her slender nose
+    In things whereon a lass doth ill to trench,
+  An ever-widening breach my fancy shows,
+    For this is but the thin end of the wench.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LABOR OMNIA VINCIT.
+
+"TURN HIM TO ANY CAUSE OF POLICY, THE GORDIAN KNOT OF IT HE WILL
+UNLOOSE, FAMILIAR AS HIS GARTER."
+
+_HENRY V._, I. i. 46.]
+
+[Illustration: _The Girl._ "I DON'T THINK YOUR FRIEND CAN BE MUCH
+CLASS."
+
+_The Boy._ "WHY? WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HIM?"
+
+_The Girl_ "WELL, WHEN I INTRODUCED HIM TO MY FRIEND, SHE, OF COURSE,
+SAID, 'PLEASED TO MEET YOU,' AND HE SAID, 'GRANTED.'"]
+
+
+UNAUTHENTIC IMPRESSIONS.
+
+V.--THE SIZZLES.
+
+I cannot help it, but this article has got to begin with a short
+historical disquisition. Many people are puzzled to know why Lord HUGH
+CECIL wears that worried look, and why Lord ROBERT also looks so
+sad. Yet the explanation is simple enough. It is because nobody can
+pronounce their surname. "Cessil," says the man in the street (and
+being in a street is a thing that may happen to anybody) as he sees
+the gaunt careworn figures going by. And when they hear it the
+sensitive ear of the CECILS is wrung with torture at the sound. They
+wince. They would like to buttonhole the man in the street and explain
+to him, like the _Ancient Mariner_, all about David Cyssell, the
+founder of their line. David Cyssell, it seems, though he didn't quite
+catch the Norman Conquest and missed the Crusades, and was a little
+bit late for the Wars of the Roses, was nicely in time to get a place
+in the train of HENRY VIII., which was quite early enough for a young
+man who firmly intended to be an ancestor. When he died his last words
+were, "Rule England, my boys, but never never, never let the people
+call you 'Cessil,'" and his sons obeyed him dutifully by becoming
+Earls and Marquises and all that kind of thing, so that the trouble
+did not arise.
+
+But, of course, if you don't happen to be the eldest son, the danger
+is still there. And it is this danger which has led Lord HUGH CECIL
+to withdraw himself more and more into the company of ecclesiastical
+dignitaries, who are accustomed to pronounce quite hard words, like
+_chrysoprasus_ and _Abednego_ without turning a hair, if they have
+one, and Lord ROBERT CECIL to confine his attention to the League of
+Nations, where all the people are foreigners and much too ignorant to
+pronounce any English name at all.
+
+Personally I hold that, if it were not for this trouble about hearing
+their name said all wrong by people on omnibuses and even shouted
+all wrong by newspaper sellers, one of the CECILS might become Prime
+Minister some day. As it is they wear a look of sorrowful martyrdom,
+as if they were perfectly ready for the nearest stake; and this look,
+combined with their peculiar surname, has caused them to be not
+in-aptly known as _The Sizzles_. How very much better would it have
+been, my dear reader, if their great ancestor had been simply called
+"David," so that they could have had a sunny smile and not so many
+convictions.
+
+It is customary in speaking of the Sizzles to include some mention of
+their more famous relative, Mr. ARTHUR BALFOUR. Very well, then.
+
+_Mr. ARTHUR BALFOUR._
+
+Born in 1873 the future Vice-President of the Sheffield Chamber of
+Commerce, Master Cutler and Chairman of the High-Speed Alloys Company,
+Limited, Widnes----
+
+[_Editor._ What the deuce are you talking about?
+
+_Author._ I like that. It comes straight out of _What's Which?_
+
+_Editor._ Well, you must have got the wrong page.
+
+_Author._ Why, you don't mean to say there are two ARTHUR BALFOURS,
+do you?
+
+_Editor._ I do.
+
+_Author._ Aren't you thinking of the two WINSTON CHURCHILLS?
+
+_Editor._ No, I'm not.
+
+_Author._ Well, perhaps I'd better begin again.
+
+_Mr. ARTHUR BALFOUR._
+
+Born, as one might say, with a silver niblick in his mouth and
+possessed of phenomenal intellectual attainments, Mr. ARTHUR BALFOUR
+(the one on the other page) was not long in settling down to his main
+life-work, which has been the laying out of University golf curricula.
+
+[Is that better?--_Editor._ Much.]
+
+In spite of this preoccupation he has found time for a remarkable
+number of hobbies, such as politics, music and the study of
+refrigerating machines, though the effect of all these various
+activities is sometimes a little confusing for those with whom he
+works. When consulted on a burning topic of the hour he may, for
+instance, be on the point of inventing a new type of ice-bucket, so
+that the interviewer is forced to go out quickly and fetch his fur
+overcoat before he can talk in comfort. Or he may be playing, like
+_Sherlock Holmes_, on his violin, and say, "Just wait till I've
+finished this sonata." And by the time it's finished the bother about
+Persia or Free Trade is quite forgotten. Or, again, Mr. BALFOUR may be
+closeted with Professor VARDON, Doctor RAY or Vice-Chancellor MITCHELL
+at the very moment when the Nicaraguan envoy is clamouring at the
+door.
+
+It is for this reason that Mr. ARTHUR BALFOUR has sometimes been
+called Mr. Arthur Baffler. Puzzling, however, though he may be in many
+of his political manifestations, his writings are like a beacon in the
+gloom, and some day these simple chatty little booklets will surely
+gain the wide public which they deserve. "The Foundation of Bunkers,"
+"A Defence of Philosophic Divots" and "Wood-wind and Brassies" should
+be read by all who are interested in _belles lettres_. And his latest
+volume of essays deals, I believe, with subjects so widely diverse and
+yet so enthralling as "Booty and the Criticism of Booty," "Trotsky's
+View of Russian World Policy," "Quizzical Research" and "The Freedom
+of the Tees."
+
+The real pity is that with all his many and wonderful gifts Mr. ARTHUR
+BALFOUR has never felt the fiery enthusiasm of his Hatfield cousins.
+He remains, in fact, a salamander among the Sizzles.
+
+K.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Retired Dealer in Pork._ "HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT FOR
+IT?"
+
+_Artist._ "FIFTY POUNDS."
+
+_Retired Dealer._ "RIGHT-O. NOW COULD YOU DO ONE OF ME IN A RECLINING
+POSITION, TO MATCH?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRIUMPHANT VULGARITY.
+
+    [A writer in _The Athenaeum_, discussing modern songs, observes
+    that in the happy days of the eighteenth century "even the vulgar
+    could not achieve vulgarity; to-day vulgarity is in the air, and
+    only the strongest and most fastidious escape its taint." The
+    accompanying lines are submitted as a modest protest against this
+    sadly undemocratic and obscurantist doctrine.]
+
+  In days of old, when writers bold
+    Betrayed the least disparity
+  Between their genius and an age
+    When frankness was a rarity,
+  An odious word was often heard
+    From critics void of charity,
+    Simplicity or clarity,
+    Or vision or hilarity,
+  Who used to slate or deprecate
+    The vices of vulgarity.
+
+  But now disdain is wholly slain
+    By wide familiarity
+  Which links the unit with his age
+    In massive solidarity;
+  No more the word is used or heard,
+    No, no, we call it charity,
+    Simplicity or clarity,
+    Or vision or hilarity,
+  But never slate or deprecate
+    The virtues of vulgarity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=An Object Lesson.=
+
+    "Nothing is so suggestive of a faulty education than a lack of
+    grammar."--_Fiji Paper._
+
+    "The Vicar was born in Ireland, and lived there many years, and
+    the problems of the Irish are no difficulty to him."
+
+    _New Zealand Paper._
+
+That's the man we want over here.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=PRISCILLA PLAYS FAIRIES.=
+
+Unrehearsed dramatic dialogue comes quite easily to some people, and
+so does a knowledge of the ways of the fairy world, but I am not one
+of those people. Also I was supposed to have a headache that afternoon
+and to be recovering from a severe cold. Also I was reading a very
+exciting book. I cannot help thinking therefore that the fairy
+Bluebell was taking a mean advantage of my numerous disabilities in
+appearing at all. She rattled the handle of the door a long time, and
+when I had opened it came in by a series of little skips on her toes,
+accompanied by wagglings of the arms rather in the fashion of a
+penguin. Every now and then she gave a slightly higher jump and
+descended flatly and rather noisily on her feet. She wore a new frock,
+with frills.
+
+_I._ What are you doing, Priscilla?
+
+_She._ I'm the Fairy Bluebell dancing. Don't you like my dancing?
+
+_I._ It's beautiful.
+
+_She_ (_rapidly_). And you were a very poor old man who had a lot of
+nasty work to do and you were asleep.
+
+_I_ (_feeling it might have been much worse and composing myself to
+slumber in my chair_). Honk!
+
+_She_ (_pinching my ear and pulling it very hard_). And you woke up
+and said, "I do believe there's a dear little fairy dancing."
+
+_I_ (_emerging from repose_). Why, I do believe I heard a fairy
+dancing, or (_vindictively_) can it have been another ton of coal
+coming in?
+
+_She_ (_disregarding my malice_). And you said, "Alack, alack! I do
+want somefing to eat."
+
+_I._ Alack, alack! I _am_ so hungry.
+
+_She_ (_fetching a large cushion from the sofa and putting it on the
+top of me_). Lumpetty, lumpetty, lumpetty.
+
+_I._ What's that, Priscilla?
+
+_She._ Bitatoes pouring out of a sack. (_Fetches another cushion and
+puts it on the top of the first._) Lumpetty, lumpetty, lumpetty.
+
+_I._ And this?
+
+_She_ (_opening her eyes very wide_). Red plums. (_Fetches another
+cushion._) Limpetty, limpetty, limpetty.
+
+_I._ What's that?
+
+_She._ Lovely honey.
+
+_I_ (_affecting to simulate the natural gratification of a poor old
+man suddenly smothered in vegetables, fruit and liquid preserve_). How
+perfectly delicious!
+
+_She._ And you want to go to sleep again. [_I go._
+
+_She_ (_pulling my ear again_). And you sawed a dragon coming up the
+drive, and the sofa was the dragon.
+
+_I._ Alack, alack! I see a dragon coming up the drive. What shall I
+do? I must telephone to the police.
+
+_She_ (_quickly_). Did the police have a tuncheon?
+
+_I._ Yes, he did.
+
+_She._ Shall I be the police?
+
+_I_ (_cautiously, because a "tuncheon" necessitates making a long
+paper roll out of "The Times"_). I am afraid the telephone had broken
+down, so the police didn't hear. How I wish the Fairy Bluebell was
+about!
+
+_She._ And so the Fairy Bluebell came and cut off the dragon's head
+and gave it to you.
+
+  [_Fetches a fourth large cushion and adds it to the pile._
+
+_I._ But why should I have the dragon's head?
+
+_She_ (_enigmatically_). You had to have it.
+
+  [_The poor old man resigns himself to his increasingly glutinous
+    fate._
+
+_She_ (_fetching a waste-paper basket and returning to the sofa_).
+Limpetty, limpetty, limpetty.
+
+_I_ (_faint but inquisitive_). Whatever are you doing now, Priscilla?
+
+_She._ Poisoning the dragon's body.
+
+_I._ Poisoning it?
+
+_She._ Yes, wiv a can.
+
+_I._ How?
+
+_She._ Down its neck.
+
+_I_ (_feeling that the immediate peril from the dragon's assault is
+now practically over and wishing to return the fairy's kindness_).
+Shall we pretend that the sofa is where the Fairy Bluebell lived, and
+I built her a little home with flowers, and these cushions were the
+flowers, and (_rather basely_) she went to sleep in it?
+
+_She_ (_with sparkling eyes_). Yes, yes.
+
+  [_I remove the potatoes, the plums, the honey and the head of the
+    dragon and manufacture a grotto in which the Fairy Bluebell reclines
+    with closed eyes. It appears to be a suitable moment for returning to
+    my book._
+
+_She._ And suddenly the Fairy Bluebell woke up, and what do you think
+she wanted?
+
+_I_ (_disillusioned_). I can't think.
+
+_She._ She wanted to be readen to.
+
+_I_ (_resignedly_). And what did I do?
+
+_She._ You said, "I'll read about Tom and the otter."
+
+_I_ (_hopefully_). I don't know where it is.
+
+_She._ I think it's in the dining-room, and the Fairy Bluebell
+couldn't get it herself because she was only a _little_ girl really.
+
+As I say, there are a lot of people, and many of them, doubtless,
+readers of this paper, who understand all about fairies. I want to ask
+them, as one poor old hard-worked man to another, whether this is
+the proper way for a fairy to behave. There seems to be a lack of
+delicacy--and shall I say shyness?--about it.
+
+EVOE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mrs. McNicol._ "FOUND A POUN' NOTE IN THE STREET,
+DONAL'? THAT'S GUID!"
+
+_Her Husband (sadly.)_ "AY, BUT MCTAVISH SAW ME PICK IT UP, AN' I OWE
+HIM TWENTY-TWO AN' SAXPENCE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=Our Tactful Orators.=
+
+    "At the close they asked President ----, who was in the chair, to
+    present a very handsome umbrella to Mr. ----.
+
+    In a few well-chosen words the Chairman said he trusted that
+    Mr. ----, while journeying through life, would be successful in
+    warding off many a shower with his umbrella, but they all hoped
+    they would be showers of goodwill."--_Trade Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "This is great fun and mystifies your friends. Buy a few and you
+    will be the cleverest fellow in your district.
+
+    Our leaders are 'Stink Bomb' (make bad smell when broken). Re. 1 a
+    box.
+
+    'Sneeze Powder' (makes everybody sneeze when blown in the air) Re.
+    1 a bottle."
+
+_Advt. in Indian Paper._
+
+Who says the East has no sense of humour?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THROUGH THE GOAL-POSTS; OR, THE END OF A PERFECT
+SCRUM.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=THE WHITE SPAT.=
+
+When it is remembered how large a part has been played in history by
+revolutionary and political songs it is both lamentable and strange
+that at the present time only one of the numerous political faiths has
+a hymn of its own--"The Red Flag." The author of the words owes a good
+deal, I should say, to the author of "Rule Britannia," though I am
+inclined to think he has gone one better. The tune is that gentle old
+tune which we used to know as "Maryland," and by itself it rather
+suggests a number of tired sheep waiting to go through a gate than a
+lot of people thinking very redly. I fancy the author realised this,
+and he has got over it by putting in some good powerful words like
+"scarlet," "traitors," "flinch" and "dungeon," whenever the tune is
+particularly sheepish. The effect is effective. Just imagine if the
+Middle Classes Union could march down the middle of the Strand singing
+that fine chorus:--
+
+  "Then raise the scarlet standard high,
+  Beneath its shade we'll live and die;
+  Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
+  We'll keep the Red Flag flying here."
+
+Well, I have set myself to supply some of the other parties with
+songs, and I have begun with "The White Spat," which is to be the
+party-hymn of the High Tories (if any). I have written it to the same
+tune as "The Red Flag," because, when the lion finally does lie down
+with the lamb, it will be much more convenient if they can bleat and
+roar in the same metre, and I shall hope to hear Mr. ROBERT WILLIAMS
+and Lord ROBERT CECIL singing these two songs at once one day. I am
+not wholly satisfied with "The White Spat," but I think I have caught
+the true spirit, or, at any rate, the proper inconsequence of these
+things:--
+
+THE WHITE SPAT
+
+Air--_Maryland._
+
+  The spats we wear are pure as snow--
+  We are so careful where we go;
+  We don't go near the vulgar bus
+  Because it always splashes us.
+
+  _Chorus._
+  We take the road with trustful hearts,
+  Avoiding all the messy parts;
+  However dirty you may get
+  We'll keep the White Spat spotless yet.
+
+  At night there shines a special star
+  To show us where the puddles are;
+  The crossing-sweeper sweeps the floor--
+  That's what the crossing-sweeper's for.
+
+  _Chorus._
+  Then take the road, etc., etc.
+
+I know it doesn't look much, just written down on paper; but you try
+singing it and you'll find you're carried away.
+
+Of course there ought to be an international verse, but I'm afraid I
+can't compete with the one in my model:--
+
+  "Look round: the Frenchman loves its blaze,
+  The sturdy German chants its praise;
+  In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung;
+  Chicago swells the surging throng."
+
+This is the best I can do:--
+
+  From Russia's snows to Afric's sun
+  The race of spatriots is one;
+  One faith unites their alien blood--
+  "There's nothing to be said for mud."
+
+Now we have the song of the Wee Frees. I wanted this to be rather
+pathetic, but I'm not sure that I haven't overdone it. The symbolism,
+though, is well-nigh perfect, and, after all, the symbolism is the
+chief thing. This goes to the tune of "Annie Laurie":--
+
+THE OLD BLACK BROLLY.
+
+Air--_Annie Laurie._
+
+  Under the Old Umbrella,
+    Beneath the leaking gamp,
+  Wrapped up in woolly phrases
+    We battle with the damp.
+    Come, gather round the gamp!
+  Observe, it is pre-war;
+    And beneath the old Black Brolly
+  There's room for several more.
+
+  Shameless calumniators
+    Calumniate like mad;
+  Detractors keep detracting;
+    It really is too bad;
+    It really is too bad.
+  To show we're not quite dead,
+    We wave the old Black Brolly
+  And hit them on the head.
+
+Then we have the National Party. I am rather vague about the National
+Party, but I know they are frightfully military, and they keep on
+having Mass Rallies in Kensington--complete with drums, I expect.
+Where all the masses come from I don't quite know, as a prolonged
+search has failed to reveal anyone who knows anyone who is actually
+a member of the party. Everybody tells me, though, that there is at
+least one Brigadier-General (Tempy.) mixed up with it, if not two, and
+at least one Lord, though possibly one of the Brigadiers is the same
+as the Lord; but after all they represent the Nation, so they ought to
+have a song. They have nothing but "Rule Britannia" now, I suppose.
+
+Their song goes to the tune of "The British Grenadiers." I have
+written it as a duet, but no doubt other parts could be added if the
+occasion should ever arise.
+
+THE NATIONAL.
+
+Air--_The British Grenadiers._
+
+  Some talk of Coalitions,
+    Of Tories and all that;
+  They are but cheap editions
+    Of the one and only Nat.;
+  Our Party has no equals,
+    Though of course it has its peers,
+  With a tow, row, row, row, row, row,
+    For the British Brigadiers.
+
+You have no idea how difficult it is to write down the right number of
+_rows_ first time; however I daresay the General wouldn't mind a few
+extra ones.
+
+  We represent the Nation
+    As no one else can do;
+  Without exaggeration
+    Our membership is two.
+  We rally in our masses
+    And give three hearty cheers,
+  With a tow, row, row, row, row, row
+    For the National Brigadiers.
+
+There could be a great deal more of that, but perhaps you have had
+enough.
+
+Of course, if you don't think the poetry of my songs is good enough, I
+shall just have to quote some of "The International" words to show you
+that it's the _tune_ that matters.
+
+Here you are:--
+
+  "Arise! ye starvelings from your slumbers,
+    Arise! ye criminals of want,
+  For reason in revolt now thunders,
+    And at last ends the age of cant."
+
+If people can get excited singing that, my songs would send them
+crazy.
+
+Then there is the Coalition. I have had a good deal of difficulty
+about this, but I think that at last I have hit the right note; all my
+first efforts were too dignified. This goes to a darkie tune:--
+
+THE PIEBALD MARE.
+
+Air--_Camptown Ladies._
+
+  Down-town darkies all declare,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah,
+  There never was a hoss like the piebald mare,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah day!
+  One half dark and the other half pale,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah,
+  Two fat heads and a great big tail,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah day!
+
+  _Chorus._
+  Gwine to run all night,
+    Gwine to run all day!
+  I put my money on the piebald mare
+    Because she run both way.
+
+  Little old DAVE he ride dat hoss,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah,
+  Where'll she be if he takes a toss?
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah day!
+  De people try to push him off,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah,
+  De more dey push de more he scoff,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah day!
+
+  _Chorus._
+  Gwine to run, &c.
+
+  Over the largest fence they bound,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah,
+  Things exploding all around,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah day!
+  One fine day dat hoss will burst,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah,
+  But little old DAVE he'll _walk_ in first,
+        Doo-dah, doo-dah day!
+
+  _Chorus._
+  Gwine to run, &c.
+
+Once again, merely written down, the words do _not_ thrill, but I hope
+none of the parties will definitely reject these hymns till they have
+heard them actually sung; if necessary I will give a trial rendering
+myself.
+
+The other day, when we were playing charades and had to act L, we did
+_Lloyd George and the Coalition_; and the people who were acting the
+Coalition sang the above song with really wonderful effect. It is true
+that the other side thought we were acting _Legion and the Gadarene
+Swine_, but that must have been because of something faulty in our
+make-up. The sound of this great anthem was sufficiently impressive to
+make one long to hear the real Coalition shouting it all along Downing
+Street. It is a solo with chorus, you understand, and the Coalition
+come in with a great roar of excitement and fervour on _Doo-dah!
+Doo-dah!_
+
+Yes, I like that.
+
+A. P. H.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Profiteer Host._ "WOT D'YER THINK OF MY OAKS?"
+_Profiteer Guest._ "BIT OF ALL RIGHT. WHERE D'YER GET 'EM?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "MORE THAN MILLION SALE.
+  Waste! Waste! Waste!"
+
+  _Newspaper Poster._
+
+In mercy we suppress the title of our contemporary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The man in custody has been identified as the result of the
+    efforts of the Birkenhead detective stag."--_Liverpool Paper._
+
+A variation on the old-fashioned sleuth-hound.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the report of a speech by Admiral Sir PERCY SCOTT:--
+
+    "He might say that when the Germans were demolarised at the Battle
+    of Jutland ..."
+
+    _Scottish Paper._
+
+This confirms our impression that, whatever happened at Jutland, we
+certainly drew the German Navy's teeth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+QUESTIONS.
+
+How did mankind get to all corners of the earth? and what is the cause
+of exploding suns? These are among the questions put by Professor A.
+W. BICKERTON, of the London Astronomical Society, and they would
+be solved, it seems, if our learned men would only band themselves
+together. I have no wish to hamper the good work, but a moment's
+reflection suggests a number of other questions simply asking to be
+answered.
+
+For instance, what happens when an irresistible force meets Sir ERIC
+GEDDES?
+
+And why is it that while we hear of thousands of people losing their
+umbrellas we have never yet heard of a single case where a man openly
+admitted that he had found one?
+
+And is there any reason why the modern novel should not end happily,
+instead of the hero and heroine always marrying at the last moment.
+
+And how does it happen that Thanet is the best holiday-place in this
+country and enjoys more sunshine than any other resort?
+
+And could not _The Daily Mail_ extend the same sunshine privilege to
+other parts?
+
+And what makes a music-hall audience laugh when a comedian changes his
+hat and mutters the mystic word, "Winston"?
+
+And who is the gentleman referred to?
+
+And why is it that nine-tenths of the coon-singers on the halls
+are always wanting to get back to their dear old homes? And who is
+stopping them in their noble desire? And is there any explanation why
+all these singers seem to have their homes in distant Alabam, where
+the roses keep on climbing round the door, just close to where the
+cotton and the corn are growing all the year round, only later in life
+to leave the dear old place to take up music-hall work here, and then
+spend the remainder of their lives telling us of their passionate
+determination to get away back to the old folks?
+
+And would I be right in my surmise that very few homes in Wigan have
+roses round the door or stand in fields of growing cotton and corn or
+reek of new-mown hay?
+
+And why is it that, when you tell a man there are so many million
+stars in the skies, he will believe you, but the moment he sees a
+notice on a gate bearing the words "Wet Paint" he puts his finger upon
+it just to find out for himself?
+
+And why did Mrs. ASQUITH----But perhaps that will be enough for the
+Professor to be going on with.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+=Commercial Candour.=
+
+    "My Studio is the most up-to-date and my methods of photography
+    just a little bit different."--_Canadian Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+[Illustration: _Hostess._ "WHAT--GOING ALREADY? WHY, IT'S ONLY THREE
+O'CLOCK."
+
+_Guest._ "I KNOW. BUT I'M DEAD TIRED, AND I'VE GOT TO BE UP EARLY FOR
+A '_DEJEUNER DANSANT_.'"]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+A NOTE ON THE DRAMA.
+
+["_Hamlet_ was not a business man."--Mr. A. B. WALKLEY.]
+
+  Had he but learned the useful knowledge
+    And that essential grasp of things
+  Which training at a business college
+    (If diligently followed) brings,
+      We should have had, no doubt,
+  A _Hamlet_ with the "moody" Dane left out.
+
+  He'd not have stalked in gloomy fashion
+    Nor wanted to soliloquise,
+  But rather, undisturbed by passion,
+    He would have sat Napoleon-wise,
+      Chewing an unlit weed
+  And talking down the telephone (full speed).
+
+  Planning a "book" to suit his players,
+    He would have sought a theme less grim,
+  For tragedies are doubtful payers;
+    Revue would be the stuff for him,
+      Scanty in dress and plot,
+  With dancers featuring the Hammy Trot.
+
+  He missed one glorious proposition--
+    The money would have come in stacks
+  If he had shown the Apparition
+    For half-a-crown (including tax),
+      And, though 'twas after eight,
+  Added a side-line trade in chocolate.
+
+  At other stunts we find him lacking;
+    Thus, when he met _Laertes_, he
+  Did not secure a proper backing
+    Nor nominate the referee;
+      And, what was even worse,
+  Did no finessing for a bigger purse.
+
+  Had _Hamlet_ made it his endeavour
+    To seize each chance of lawful gain,
+  Certain it is that there would never
+    Have been a doubt that he was sane;
+      And then perhaps Act Five
+  Had left some people--one or two--alive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=Christmas and the Children.=
+
+With the approach of a Festival that is dedicated to the joy of
+children, Mr. Punch makes bold to plead the cause of the less
+fortunate among them. The Queen's Hospital for Children, once known as
+the North-Eastern Hospital for Children, is the only one of its kind
+in this part of London and serves a poor district with a population
+of half-a-million. Its claim upon the generosity of more favoured
+Londoners is as strong as its lack of funds at the present moment is
+serious. It has one hundred-and-seventy beds, and during the last
+year has cared for eighteen hundred in-patients and sixty thousand
+out-patients. Mr. Punch is certain that, if the children of the
+West-end understood the suffering and needs of these other children of
+Bethnal Green, they would want to help them by forgoing some of
+their Christmas toys. Gifts should be addressed to the Secretary,
+T. GLENTON-KERR, Esq., Queen's Hospital for Children, Hackney Road,
+Bethnal Green, E.2.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE ROAD TO ECONOMY.
+
+THE SHEPHERD. "I WONDER IF ANY OF YOU SHEEP COULD SHOW ME THE WAY."
+
+("Let the Nation set the example [in economy] to the
+Government."--_Mr. LLOYD GEORGE._)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.=
+
+_Monday, November 29th._--Some time ago Lord NEWTON was appointed
+Chairman of a Committee on Smoke Abatement. It took enough evidence to
+fill a Blue-book a couple of inches thick, and, at the request of the
+Government, furnished an interim report. Supposing, not unnaturally,
+that its valuable recommendations would be adopted in the Government's
+housing schemes the Committee was disgusted to find that, save for an
+emasculated summary in "a dismal journal called _Housing_," no notice
+was taken of its report. Lord NEWTON is not a man who can safely be
+invited to consume his own smoke, and he made indignant protest this
+afternoon. A soft answer from Lord SANDHURST, who assured him that the
+Government, far from being unmindful of the Committee's labours,
+had already equipped some thousands of houses with central heating,
+temporarily diverted his wrath.
+
+Thanks to the Sinn Feiners, the Public Galleries of the House of
+Commons were closed. Thus deprived of all audience save themselves and
+the reporters the most loquacious Members were depressed. _Bombinantes
+in gurgite vasto_, their arguments sounded hollow even to themselves.
+With an obvious effort they tried to carry on what the SPEAKER
+described--and deprecated--as "the usual Monday fiscal debate." This
+time it turned upon the large imports from Russia in 1913. One side
+seemed to think that similar imports would be forthcoming to-day but
+for the obstructiveness of the British Government, while the other
+was confident that Russia had nothing to export save propaganda. The
+controversy was beginning to pall when by a happy inspiration Mr.
+RONALD MCNEILL, with mock solemnity, inquired if the last egg in
+Russia had not been eaten by a relation of the SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
+WAR.
+
+[Illustration: "His conscience now quite clear."
+
+SIR J. T. AGG-GARDNER.]
+
+A long-standing Parliamentary tradition enjoins that the reply to any
+Question addressed to the CHAIRMAN OF THE KITCHEN COMMITTEE should be
+greeted with laughter. By virtue of his office he holds, as it were,
+the "pass-the-mustard" prerogative. Members laughed accordingly when
+he replied to a question relating to the number of ex-Service men
+employed by his Committee; but they laughed much more loudly when the
+hon. Member who put the original Question proceeded to inquire "if his
+conscience is now quite clear," and Sir J. T. AGG-GARDNER, looking as
+respectable as if he were _Mrs. Grundy's_ second husband, declared,
+hand on heart, that it was.
+
+[Illustration: THE DEFENDER OF KUT--WITH ESCORT.
+
+SIR CHARLES TOWNSHEND.]
+
+The House gave a rather less stentorian welcome than might have been
+expected to Sir CHARLES TOWNSHEND, who was escorted up to the Table
+by Mr. BOTTOMLEY and Colonel CROFT. Perhaps it was afraid that cheers
+intended for the defender of Kut might be appropriated by the Editor
+of _John Bull_.
+
+Encouraged, I suppose, by the emptiness of the Ladies' Gallery, it
+then proceeded with great freedom to discuss a proposal for the
+employment of women and young persons "in shifts."
+
+[Illustration: THE FAT BOY OF DULWICH.
+
+SIR FREDERICK HALL.]
+
+_Tuesday, November 30th._--The EX-CROWN PRINCE OF PRUSSIA will be
+tremendously bucked when he reads the report of to-day's proceedings,
+and discovers that there is one person in the world who takes him
+seriously. Sir FREDERICK HALL has been much disturbed by the reports
+of Hohenzollern intrigues for a restoration, and begged the Government
+to send a protest to the Dutch Government. But the Fat Boy of Dulwich
+quite failed to make Mr. BONAR LAW'S flesh creep.
+
+Mr. BALDWIN is the least perturbable of Ministers. Even when Major
+EDWARDS invited him to elucidate the phrase "a working knowledge of
+the Welsh language"--"Does it mean having an intimate acquaintance
+with the literary works of DAFYDD AP GWILYM or the forgeries of 'Iolo
+Morganwg'?"--he never turned a hair.
+
+Modesty not having hitherto been regarded as one of Mr. CHURCHILL'S
+most salient characteristics I feel it my duty to record that, on
+being asked when he would introduce the Supplementary Army Estimates,
+he replied, "I am entirely in the hands of my superiors."
+
+_Wednesday, December 1st._--That Hebrew should be one of the official
+languages of Palestine seems, on the face of it, not unreasonable.
+But, according to Lord TREOWEN, to compel the average Palestinian Jew,
+who speaks either Spanish or Yiddish, to use classical Hebrew, will
+be like obliging a user of pidgin English to adopt the language
+of ADDISON. He failed, however, to make any impression upon Lord
+CRAWFORD, who expressed the hope that the Government's action would
+help to purify the language. Sir HERBERT SAMUEL is determined, I
+gather, to make Palestine a country fit for rabbis to live in.
+
+The Government of Ireland Bill had a very rough time in Committee. The
+LORD CHANCELLOR managed to ward off Lord MIDLETON's proposal to have
+one Parliament instead of two--"a blow at the heart of the Bill"--but
+was less successful when Lord ORANMORE AND BROWNE moved that the
+Southern Parliament should be furnished with a Senate. The Peers'
+natural sentiment in favour of Second Chambers triumphed, and the
+Government were defeated by a big majority.
+
+The Office of Works has been lending a hand to local authorities in
+difficulties with their housing schemes. But when Sir ALFRED MOND
+brought up a Supplementary Estimate in respect of these transactions
+he met with a storm of indignation that surprised him. "The road to
+bankruptcy," "Nationalisation in the building trade," "Socialistic
+proposals"--these were some of the phrases that assailed his ears.
+Fortified, however, by the support of the Labour Party--Mr. MYERS
+declared that his action had been "the one bright spot in the whole of
+the housing policy"--Sir ALFRED challenged his critics to go and tell
+their constituents that they had voted to prevent houses being built,
+and got his Estimate through by 190 to 64.
+
+_Thursday, December 2nd._--Thanks to the free-and-easy procedure of
+the House of Lords the Government began the day with a victory. Lord
+SHANDON had moved an amendment, to which the LORD CHANCELLOR objected.
+But he did not challenge a division when the question was put. Lord
+DONOUGHMORE, most expeditious of Chairmen, announced "the Contents
+have it," and the matter seemed over. But then the LORD CHANCELLOR
+woke up, and said he had meant to ask for a division. "All right,"
+said the CHAIRMAN; "clear the Bar," and when the white-wanded tellers
+had counted their flocks it appeared that the Government had a
+majority of three.
+
+I do not suppose anyone will say of Lord BIRKENHEAD, as a celebrated
+judge is reported to have said of one of his predecessors, "'Ere comes
+that 'oly 'umbug 'umming 'is 'orrid 'ymns;" but he is evidently a
+student of hymnology, for he referred to the Government victory as
+this "scanty triumph" and for a long time did not challenge any more
+divisions.
+
+In the House of Commons an attack upon the new liquor
+regulations--"pieces of gross impertinence" according to Mr.
+MACQUISTEN--found no favour with the PRIME MINISTER. Mr. MCCURDY
+announced that he had reduced the price of wheat to the millers and
+hoped that "in a few weeks" the consumer might begin to receive
+the benefit. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER excused the delay in
+publishing the Economy Committee's reports on the ground that the
+MINISTER OF MUNITIONS was "at sea," and elicited the inevitable gibe
+that he was not the only one. Sir ERIC GEDDES, with a judicious
+compliment to the motorists for setting "an extraordinary example of
+voluntary taxation," got a Second Reading for his Roads Bill; and Sir
+GORDON HEWART with some difficulty induced the House to accept
+his assurance that the Official Secrets Bill was meant for the
+discomfiture of spies and not the harassing of honest journalists.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Golfer._ "HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A WORSE PLAYER?" [No
+answer.] "I SAID, 'HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A WORSE PLAYER?'" _Aged Caddie._
+"I HEERD YE VERRA WEEL THE FURRST TIME. I WAS JEST THENKIN' ABOOT
+IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Margaret_ (_not satisfied with the parental
+explanation of the recent disappearance of a pet rabbit_). "MUMMY,
+IS--IS _THIS_ GLADYS?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO A CLERICAL GOLFING FRIEND.
+
+  Fine is your temper as your hand-forged iron!
+    Even should you hack the ball from out the spherical,
+  Or find it near the pin with lumps of mire on,
+    Your language is not otherwise than clerical.
+  Once only, when your toe received the niblick,
+  The word I saw your lips frame was not biblic.
+
+  Upon the links as perfect in address
+    As in the pulpit, just as you are seen
+  In life to play according to the Book,
+    So too, mid all the hazards of the green,
+  You teach us by example not to press
+  And how to shun the faults of slice and hook.
+
+    Treating the ball as if it had a soul,
+  Imparting safe direction, you determine
+    How best it may keep up its given _role_;
+  Indeed your daily round's a model sermon.
+
+  So, till life's course is traversed, I'll await
+    Your well-timed counsel. If I have you by me
+  I'll laugh at all the baffling strokes of Fate
+    And lay the bogie of Despair a stymie.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGONE.
+
+DEAR MR. PUNCH,--You are fond, in "Charivaria," of poking some of
+your gentle fun at the leisurely bricklayer, and indeed at all the
+"ca-canny" brigade; but the bricklayer has come in for the thickest of
+your fire. I hope, however, that you don't think you have discovered
+his and his fellow-workers' deliberate processes yourself. If so,
+permit me to draw your attention to NED WARD'S _London Spy_, which was
+published as long ago as 1699. In that work is the description of a
+visit to St. Paul's Cathedral when it was building. A passage in this
+description runs thus:
+
+    "We went a little further, where we observed ten men in a corner
+    very busie about two men's work, taking so much care that everyone
+    should have his due proportion of the labours as so many thieves
+    in making an exact division of their booty. The wonderful piece
+    of difficulty the whole number had to perform was to drag along a
+    stone of about three hundredweight in a carriage, in order to be
+    hoisted upon the moldings of the cupola, but they were so fearful
+    of despatching this facile undertaking with too much expedition
+    that they were longer in hauling about half the length of the
+    church than a couple of lusty porters, I am certain, would have
+    been carrying it to Paddington without resting of their burthen."
+
+Shall I refrain from remarking that there is nothing new under the
+sun? I will.
+
+Yours, etc., L. V. E.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.
+
+THE BARNACLE.
+
+(_A Sort of Sea Shanty._)
+
+  Old Bill Barnacle sticks to his ship,
+  He never is ill on the stormiest trip;
+  Upside down he crosses the ocean--
+  If you do that you _enjoy_ the motion.
+
+  Barnacle's family grows and grows;
+  Little relations arrive in rows;
+  And the quicker the barnacles grow, you know,
+  The slower the ship doth go--yo ho!
+
+  Thousands of barnacles, small and great,
+  Stick to the jolly old ship of State;
+  So we mustn't be cross if she seems to crawl--
+  It's rather a marvel she goes at all.
+
+  A. P. H.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Priests preach the want of brotherhood in the Anglican Church,
+    but many, I am sorry to say, do not practise what they preach."
+
+    _Letter to Daily Paper._
+
+Is not this carrying the reactionary spirit a little too far?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"THE DRAGON."
+
+Some day, no doubt, plays like _Mr. Wu_ and _The Dragon_ (by R. E.
+JEFFREY) will be forbidden by the League of Nations. Meanwhile let us
+allow ourselves to be diverted by the motiveless villainies of crooked
+cruel "Chinks" like _Wang Fu Chang_, who sold opium at a terrific
+profit in Mayfair, hung his servants up by their thumbs and belonged
+to a Society of Elder Brethren, as to whose activities we were given
+no clue, unless indeed their job was the kidnapping of Younger Sisters
+for Wicked Mandarins.
+
+For _Jack Stacey_, who opened the Prologue in Loolong with head in
+hands and moaned invocations of the Deity (a version doubtless of
+the well-known gambit, "'Hell!' said the Duchess"), had his little
+daughter kidnapped at birth or thereabouts (by _Wang Fu_, as it
+happened), and never saw her again till, after eighteen years of
+opium-doping--between the Prologue and the First Act--he called upon
+the same _Wang Fu_ (just before dinner) with a peremptory message from
+a very bad and powerful mandarin that if little Miss _Che Fu_ were not
+packed off to China by eleven that same evening the Elder Brethren
+would be one short by midnight. _Che Fu_, I ought to say, passed as
+_Wang's_ daughter, but was so English, you know, to look at that
+nobody could really believe it.
+
+Of course _Jack_ didn't recognise her as his own daughter, but equally
+of course we did, and knew that she would be rescued by her impetuous
+boy-lover and restored to her real father; but not before great
+business with opium pipes, pivoting statues of goddesses, inoperative
+revolvers, gongs, strangulations (with gurgles), detectives, rows of
+Chinese servants each more rascally (and less Chinese, if possible)
+than the last, and over all the polished villainy of the inscrutable
+_Wang Fu Chang_.
+
+Mr. JEFFREY'S technique was quite adequate for this ingenuous kind of
+thing. He achieved what I take to be the supreme compliment of noisy
+hushings sibilated from the pit and gallery when the later curtains
+rose. Perhaps action halted a little to allow of rather too much
+display of pidgin-English and (I suppose) authentic elementary Chinese
+and comic reliefs which filled the spaces between the salient episodes
+of the slender and naive plot. I couldn't help wondering how _Jack
+Stacey_, whom we left at 10.45 in a horrible stupor, shut away in a
+gilded alcove of _Wang Fu's_ opium den, could appear at 11.30 at _Lady
+Handley's_ in immaculate evening dress and with entirely unruffled
+hair, having in the meantime cut down and restored to consciousness
+two tortured Chinese and heard the true story of his daughter's
+adventures. This seems to be overdoing the unities. And I wondered
+whether the puzzled look on young _Handley's_ face was due to this
+same wonder or to the reflection that if he had shed one undesirable
+father-in-law he had let himself in for another. For, needless to say,
+they had all met in the famous opium scene when _Stacey_ was naturally
+not at his best.
+
+Mr. D. LEWIN MANNERING was suitably sinister as _Wang Fu_; Mr. TARVER
+PENNA'S _Ah Fong_, the heroine's champion, made some very pleasant
+faces and gestures and was less incurably Western than some of his
+colleagues; Mr. CRONIN WILSON'S _Jack Stacey_ seemed a meritorious
+performance. The part of _Che Fu_ made no particular demand on Miss
+CHRISTINE SILVER'S talent, and Miss EVADNE PRICE faithfully earned
+the laughter she was expected to make as _Sua Se_, the opium-den
+attendant. Leave your critical faculty at home and you will be able to
+derive considerable entertainment from this unambitious show.
+
+T.
+
+  [Illustration: THE MODEL FLAPPER (CHINESE STYLE).
+   _Wang Fu Chang_      MR. D.L. MANNERING.
+   _Che Fu_             MISS CHRISTINE SILVER.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fashions in Hand-wear.
+
+    "Amusing contrast is seen in the Riviera and winter sports outfits
+    now on view, with filmy lace, shimmering silks, and glowing
+    velvets on the one hand and thick wool and the stoutest of boots
+    on the other."
+
+    _Weekly Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a _feuilleton_:--
+
+    "... She was startled by a low sibilant whisper, 'I've caught you,
+    my girl!'"
+
+    _Daily Paper._
+
+Try and hiss this for yourself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BARREL OF BEEF.
+
+We were dawdling home from the westward on the flood. Astern of us,
+knee-deep in foam, stood the slim column of the Bishop lighthouse, a
+dark pencil mark on the cloudless sky. To the south the full Atlantic
+piled the black reefs with hills of snow. Ahead the main islands
+humped out of the blue sea like a school of basking whales. I had the
+tiller and Uncle Billy John Polsue was forward picking up the marks
+and carrying on a running commentary, punctuated by expectorations
+of dark fluid. Suddenly something away on the port bow attracted his
+attention. He rolled to his feet, stared for some seconds and shouted,
+"Hold 'er on the corner o' Great Minalte!" a tremor of excitement in
+his voice.
+
+I did as I was bid and sheeted home.
+
+Billy John fished the conger gaff from under the blue and silver heap
+of mackerel in the well and climbed laboriously on to the little
+half-deck. So we were after some sort of flotsam, I could not see
+what, because Billy John's expansive back-view obscured the prospect
+ahead, but from his tense attitude I judged that it appeared
+interesting. He signed to me to come up another couple of points, took
+a firm grasp of the gaff and leaned over the bows. Then with a creak
+of straining tackle and a hiss of riven water a gig was on us. She
+swooped out of the blue, swept by not two fathoms to windward and with
+a boat-hook snapped up the treasure trove (it looked suspiciously like
+a small keg) right under our very noses as adroitly as a lurcher snaps
+a hare. She ran on a cable's length, spun on her heel and slipped away
+down the sound, a long lean craft, leaping like a live thing under her
+press of canvas. She seemed full of redheaded men of all ages and was
+steered by a brindled patriarch who wagged his vermilion beard at us
+and cackled loudly. I roared with laughter; I had seldom seen anything
+so consummately slick in my life.
+
+Billy John roared too, but from other influences. He bellowed, he
+spat, he danced with rage. He cursed the gig's company collectively
+and singly, said they were nothing better than common pirates and that
+they lured ships to destruction and devoured the crews--raw.
+
+The gig's company were delighted; they jeered and waved their caps.
+Billy John trembled with passion.
+
+"Who stole the bar'l o' beef?" he trumpeted through his palms.
+"Who--stole--the--bar'l--o'--beef? Hoo hoo!"
+
+This last sally had a subduing effect on the gig's company; they
+turned their faces away and became absorbed in the view ahead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CHILDREN'S PRESENTS. CHRISTMAS, 1920.
+
+_Mother._ "ISN'T IT A PERFECT GEM, DARLING?"
+
+_Son._ "WOULDN'T BE SEEN DEAD WITH IT. I ASK YOU, WHERE'S THE H.P.
+CYLINDER THAT DRIVES THE CRANK-PINS ON THE TRAILING WHEELS?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Billy John sat down with a grunt of satisfaction. "That settled 'em,"
+he grinned. "They dunno who did steal the bar'l to this day, and each
+wan do suspect t'other."
+
+"St. Martin's islanders?" I queried.
+
+Billy John shook his head. "Naw, from St. Helen's, o' course; deddn'
+you see their red 'eads? They 're all red-'eaded over on Helen's--take
+after their great-grandfather the Devil."
+
+"They're pretty smart, anyhow," said I.
+
+Billy John threw up both hands. "Smart! By dang you've said it!
+Anythin' in the way o' honest work they do leave to us poor mainland
+grabbers; they don't unnerstand it; but come a bit o' easy money in
+the way of wreckage and we might as well stop bed as try to compete
+with they; we eddn but children to 'em."
+
+"What about this barrel of beef?" I asked.
+
+Billy John chuckled. "Comed to pass years ago, Sir. There was a party
+of us over 'ere crabbin'. My brother Zackariah 'ad married a Helen's
+wumman, and a brear great piece she were too. They was livin' on
+Helen's upon Lower Town beach, and we lodged with 'em.
+
+"Wan mornin' before dawn along comes great Susan in her stockined
+feet. 'Whist!' says she, 'rouse thee out an' don't make no noise; I
+think I heerd a gun from Carnebiggal Ledges.'
+
+"We sneaked out like shadows, got the boat afloat and pulled away,
+mufflin' the oars with our caps. We got a fair start; nobody heerd us
+go. It weren't yet light and the fog were like a bag, but we got there
+somehow, and sure enough there were a big steamer fast on the rocks.
+Great Susan were right. Oh, I tell you t'eddn guesswork with they St.
+Helen's folk; male or female they got a nose for a wreck, same as cats
+for mice. There was a couple o' ship's boats standing by on her port
+side full o' men.
+
+"'Where in 'ell are we?' shouts 'er skipper as we comed nosing through
+the fog. 'I ain't seen the sun for two days.'
+
+"We told en and lay by chattin' and wonderin' 'ow we was to plunder
+she, with them in the road. Time went by and there we was still
+chattin' about the weather an' suchlike damfoolery. Every minute I was
+expectin' to see the Helen's gigs swarmin' out, and then it wouldn't
+be pickin's we'd get but leavin's.
+
+"''Ere,' whispers I to Zakky, 'scare 'im off for God's sake.'
+
+"'I'll 'ave a try,' says 'e. 'Say, Mr. Captain, the tide's makin'. She
+do come through 'ere like a river and you'll be swamped for certain.
+Pull for the shore, sailor.'
+
+"'Will you pilot me in?' says the captain.
+
+"'Naw,' says Zakky. 'I got to be after my crab-pots; but I'll send my
+nephew wid 'e.'
+
+"'Keep 'em lost out in the Sound for a couple of hours, son,' he
+whispers to the boy, and the lad takes 'em off into the fog. 'Now for
+the plunder, my dears,' says Zakky; and we makes for the ship.
+
+"But Lor' bless you, Sir, she were already plundered. While we was
+chattin' away on her port side four Helen's gigs' crews had boarded
+her quietly from starboard and was eatin' through her like a pest
+o' ants. They'd come staggering on deck--fathers, sons and
+grandfathers--with bundles twice as big nor themselves, toss 'em into
+the gigs and go back for more. As for us, we stood like men mazed. I
+tell you, Sir, a God-fearing man can't make a livin' 'mong that lot;
+they'll turn a vessel inside out while he's thinkin' how to begin.
+
+"By-'m-by they comed on the prize o' the lot--a bar'l o' beef. My
+word, what an outcry! 'I seed 'en first!' 'Naw, you deddn': hands
+off!' 'Leggo; 's mine!' Quarrellin' 'mong themselves now, mark you,
+beef bein' as scarce as diamonds in them hard times. Old Hosea--the
+old toad that you seed steerin' that gig just now--he puts a stop to
+et.
+
+"'Avast ragin', thou fools,' says 'e; "coastguards will be along in a
+minute and then there'll be nothin' for nobody. Set en in my boat an'
+I'll divide it up equal on the beach.'
+
+"They done as they were told, and away goes old Hosea for the shore,
+followed by the other gigs loaded that deep they could hardly swim.
+Seein' they hadn't left us nothin' but the bare bones we pulled in
+ourselves shortly after, and my dear life what a sight we did behold!
+Fellows runnin' about in the fog on the beach, for all the world like
+shadows on a blind, cursin', shoutin', fightin', tumblin' over each
+other, huntin' high and low, and in the middle of 'em all old Hosea
+crying out for his bar'l o' beef like a wumman after her first-born.
+Somebody'd stole it! Mercy me! we mainlanders lay on our oars and
+laughed till the tears rolled out of us in streams."
+
+"Who did steal it? Do you know?" I asked.
+
+Billy John nodded. "I do, Sir. Why, great Susan, o' course. They'd
+forgotten she, livin' right upon the beach--wan o' their own breed.
+Susan stalked en through the fog an' had en locked in her own house
+before they could turn round. And many a full meal we poor honest
+mainlanders had off it, Sir, take it from me."
+
+PATLANDER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=Our Cynical Municipalities.=
+
+    "Schemes for the relief of the unemployed at ---- include the
+    extension of the cemetery."
+
+    _Daily Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The constable went to the warehouse doorway and found two men,
+    who, when asked to account for their movements, suddenly bolted in
+    different directions, pursued by the constable."--_Welsh Paper._
+
+A worthy colleague of the Irish policeman who in a somewhat similar
+dilemma "surrounded the crowd."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VIGNETTES OF SCOTTISH SPORT.
+
+(_By a Peckham Highlander._)
+
+  O brawly sklents the break o' day
+  On far Lochaber's bank and brae,
+  And briskly bra's the Hielan' burn
+  Where day by day the Southron kern
+  Comes busking through the bonnie brake
+  Wi' rod and creel o' finest make,
+  And gars the artfu' trouties rise
+  Wi' a' the newest kinds o' flies,
+  Nor doots that ere the sun's at rest
+  He'll catch a basket o' the best.
+  For what's so sweet to nose o' man
+  As trouties skirrlin' in the pan
+  Wi' whiles a nip o' mountain dew
+  Tae warm the chilly Saxon through,
+  And hold the balance fair and right
+  Twixt intellect and appetite?
+  But a' in vain the Southron throws
+  Abune each trout's suspectfu' nose
+  His gnats and coachmen, greys and brouns,
+  And siclike gear that's sold in touns,
+  And a' in vain the burn he whups
+  Frae earliest sunrise till the tups
+  Wi' mony a wean-compelling "meeeh!"
+  Announce the punctual close of day.
+  Then hameward by the well-worn track
+  Gangs the disgruntled Sassenach,
+  And, having dined off mountain sheep,
+  Betakes him moodily to sleep.
+  And "Ah!" he cries, "would I micht be
+  A clansman kilted to the knee,
+  Wi' sporran, plaid and buckled shoe,
+  And Caledonian whuskers too!
+  Would I could wake the pibroch's throes
+  And live on parritch and peas brose
+  And spurn the ling wi' knotty knees,
+  The dourest Scot fra Esk tae Tees!
+  For only such, I'll answer for 't,
+  Are rightly built for Hielan' sport,
+  Can stalk Ben Ledi's antlered stag
+  Frae scaur to scaur and crag tae crag,
+  Cra'ing like serrpents through the grass
+  On waumies bound wi' triple brass;
+  Can find themselves at set o' sun,
+  Wi' sandwiches and whusky gone,
+  And twenty miles o' scaur and fell
+  Fra Miss McOstrich's hotel,
+  Yet utter no revilin' word
+  Against the undiminished herd
+  Of antlered monarchs of the glen
+  That never crossed their eagle ken:
+  But a' unfrettit turn and say,
+  'Hoots, but the sport's been grand the day!'
+  For none but Scotsmen born and bred,
+  When ither folk lie snug in bed,
+  Would face yon cauld and watery pass,
+  The eerie peat-hag's dark morass,
+  Where wails the whaup wi' mournful screams,
+  Tae wade a' day in icy streams
+  An' flog the burn wi' feckless flies
+  Though ilka trout declines tae rise,
+  Then hameward crunch wi' empty creel
+  Tae sit and hark wi' unquenched zeal
+  Tae dafties' tales o' lonesome tarns
+  Cramfu' o' trout as big as barns."
+
+  E'en thus the envious Southron girds
+  Complainin' fate wi' bitter words
+  For a' the virtues she allots
+  Unto the hardy race o' Scots.
+  And when the sun the brae's abune
+  He taks the train to London toun,
+  Vowing he ne'er again will turn
+  Tae Scottish crag or Hielan' burn,
+  But hire a punt and fish for dace
+  At Goring or some ither place.
+
+  ALGOL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EFFECT AND CAUSE.
+
+The bell was knelling: dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong.
+
+Inside the Hall there was nothing but gloom.
+
+Suddenly the echoes were startled by a loud knocking on the door: rat,
+tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, ratta, tatta, tatta, tatta, tat, tat.
+
+Who could it be?
+
+The old servitor shambled to undo the bolts. As he opened the door the
+wind rushed in, carrying great flakes of snow with it and an icy blast
+penetrated to every corner of the house.
+
+There followed a man muffled up to the eyes in a vast red scarf--or
+not so much red as pink, salmon colour--which he proceeded gradually
+to unwind, revealing at length the features of Mr. James Tod Brown,
+the senior partner of the firm of Brown, Brown & Brown, of Little
+Britain. Save for a curious nervousness of speech which caused him to
+repeat every remark several times, Mr. James Tod Brown was a typical
+lawyer, in the matter of ability far in advance of either of his
+partners, Brown or Brown.
+
+"Dear me," he said, "dear me, dear me! This is very sad, very
+sad--very sudden too, very sudden. And what--tut, tut, dear, dear, let
+me see--what was the cause of--ah! What was the cause--what was it
+that occasioned the--how did your master come to die? Yes, how did
+your master come to die?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What is it all about?" asks the reader.
+
+Well, it is not quite so meaningless as it may appear; there is method
+in the madness; for this is a passage from a story by one of the most
+popular English authors in America, to whom an American editor has
+offered twenty cents a word. At the present rate of exchange such
+commissions are not to be trifled with.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Wanted, experienced Parlourmaid for a good home, where the
+    household does not change."--_Local Paper._
+
+Apparently "no washing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+[Illustration _Cheerful Sportsman._ "HULLO, PADRE! I SEE YOUR LATE
+COLLEAGUE HAS GONE ON AHEAD."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+MR. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER, for whose work as a novelist I have more
+than once expressed high admiration, has now brought together seven
+long-short stories under the collective title of _The Happy End_
+(HEINEMANN). Lest however this name and the little preface, in which
+the writer asserts that his wares "have but one purpose--to give
+pleasure," should lead you to expect that species of happy ending in
+which Jack shall have Jill and naught shall go ill, I think a word of
+warning may not be wasted. In only three of the tales is the finish
+a matter of conventional happiness. Elsewhere you have a deserted
+husband, who has tracked his betrayer to a nigger saloon in Atlantic
+City, wrested from his purpose of murder by a revivalist hymn; a young
+lad, having avenged the destruction of his home, returning to his
+widowed mother to await, one supposes, the process of the law; or an
+over-fed war profiteer stricken with apoplexy at sight of a boat full
+of the starved victims of a submarine outrage. You observe perhaps
+that the epithet "happy" is one to which the artist and the casual
+reader may attach a different significance. But let not anything I
+have said be considered as reflecting upon the tales themselves, which
+indeed seem to me to be masterpieces of their kind. Personally my
+choice would rest on the last, "The Thrush in the Hedge," a simple
+history of how the voice of a young tramp was revealed by his chance
+meeting with a blind and drug-sodden fiddler who had once played in
+opera--a thing of such unforced art that its concluding pages, when
+the discovery is put to a final test, shake the mind with apprehension
+and hope. A writer who can make a short story do that comes near to
+genius.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If you wish to play the now fashionable game of
+newspaper-proprietor-baiting you can, with Miss ROSE MACAULAY, create
+a possible but not actual figure like _Potter_ and, using it for
+stalking-horse, duly point your moral; or, with Mr. W. L. GEORGE in
+_Caliban_ (METHUEN), you can begin by mentioning all the well-known
+figures in the journalistic world by way of easy camouflage, so as to
+evade the law of libel, call your hero-villain _Bulmer_, attach to
+him all the legends about actual newspaper kings, add some malicious
+distortion to make them more exciting and impossible, and thoroughly
+let yourself go. Good taste alone will decide which is the cleaner
+sport, and good taste does not happen to be the fashion in certain
+literary circles at the moment. Of course Mr. GEORGE, being a novelist
+of some skill, has provided a background out of his imagination. The
+most interesting episode, excellently conceived and worked out, is
+the only unsuccessful passage in _Lord Bulmer's_ life, the wooing of
+_Janet Willoughby_. The awkward thing for Mr. GEORGE is that he has so
+splashed the yellow over _Bulmer_ in the office that there is no
+use in his pretending that the _Bulmer_ in _Mrs. Willoughby's_
+drawing-room is the same man in another mood. He just isn't.
+Incidentally the author gives us the best defence of the saffron
+school of journalism I've read--a defence that's a little too good
+to believe; and some shrewd blows above (and, as I have hinted,
+occasionally below) the belt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I want to give the epithet "lush" to _The Breathless Moment_ (LANE),
+and, although the dictionary asks me as far as in me lies to reserve
+that adjective for grass, I really don't see why, just for once, I
+shouldn't do what I like with it. Lush grass is generally long and
+brightly coloured--"luxuriant and succulent," the dictionary says--and
+that is exactly what MISS MURIEL HINE'S book is. She tells the story
+of _Sabine Fane_, who, loving _Mark Vallance_, persuaded him to pass
+a honeymoon month with her before he went to the Front, though his
+undesirable wife was still alive. In allowing her heroine to suffer
+the penalty of this action Miss HINE would appear, as far as plot is
+concerned, to discourage such adventures. But _Sabine_ is so charming,
+her troubles end so happily and the setting of West Country scenery is
+so beautiful that, taken as a whole, I should expect the book to have
+the opposite effect. The picture of a tall green wave propelling
+a very solid rainbow, which adorns the paper wrapper and as an
+advertisement has cheered travellers on the Tube for some weeks past,
+has no real connection with the story, but perhaps is meant to be
+symbolical of the book, which, clever and well written as it is, is
+almost as little like what happens in real life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Uses of Diversity_ (METHUEN) is the title of a little volume in
+which Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON has reprinted a selection of his shorter
+essays, fugitive pieces of journalism, over which indeed the casual
+reader may experience some natural bewilderment at finding, what is
+inevitable in such work, the trivialities of the day before yesterday
+treated with the respect of contemporary regard. Many of the papers
+are inspired by the appearance of a particular book or play. I can
+best illustrate what I have said above by a quotation from one of
+them, in which the author wrote (_a propos_ of the silver goblets in
+_Henry VIII._ at His Majesty's) that he supposed such realism might
+be extended to include "a real Jew to act _Shylock_." For those who
+recall a recent triumph, this flight of imagination will now have an
+oddly archaic effect. It is by no means the only passage to remind us
+sharply that much canvas has gone over the stage rollers since these
+appreciations were written. Unquestionably Mr. CHESTERTON, with the
+unstaled entertainment of his verbal acrobatics, stands the ordeal of
+such revival better than most. Even when he is upon a theme so outworn
+as the "Pageants that have adorned England of late," he can always
+astonish with some grave paradox. But for all that I still doubt
+whether journalism so much of the moment as this had not more fitly
+been left for the pleasure of casual rediscovery in its original home
+than served up with the slightly overweighting dignity of even so
+small a volume.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _A Tale That Is Told_ (COLLINS), Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN throws himself
+into the personality of _Harold Grey_, who is the youngest son of an
+"eminent Scottish divine," and constitutes himself the annalist of
+the family, its private affairs and its professional business in the
+commerce of literature and art. The right of the family to its annals,
+notwithstanding that its members are little involved in furious
+adventures or thrilling romance, is established at once by the very
+remarkable character of the _Reverend Thomas Grey_. The duty upon you
+to read them depends, as the prologue hints, upon whether you are
+greatly interested in life and not exclusively intent on fiction. When
+I realised that I must expect no more than an account, without climax,
+of years spent as a tale that is told, I accepted the conditions
+subject to certain terms of my own. The family must be an interesting
+one and not too ordinary; the sons, _Thomas_ (whose creed was "Give
+yourself," and whose application of it was such that it usually
+wrecked the person to whom the gift was made), _Dick_ the artist, and
+_John_ the novelist, must be very much alive; if the big adventures
+were missing the little problems must be faced; the question of sex
+must not be overlooked; and of humour none of the characters must be
+devoid, and the historian himself must be full. Mr. NIVEN failed me in
+no particular.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss F. E. MILLS YOUNG, in _Imprudence_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), is not
+at the top of her form, but a neat and effective finish makes some
+amends for a performance which is, like the wind in a weather report,
+mainly moderate or light. The heroine, _Prudence Graynor_, was the
+child of her father's second marriage, and she was afflicted with
+a battalion of elderly half-sisters and one quite detestable
+half-brother. This battalion was commanded by one _Agatha_, and it
+submitted to her orders and caprices in a way incomprehensible to
+_Prudence_--and incidentally to me. The _Graynors_ and also the
+_Morgans_ were of "influential commercial stock," and both families
+were so essentially Victorian in their outlook and manner of living
+that I was surprised when 1914 was announced. The trouble with this
+story is that too many of the characters are drawn from the stock-pot.
+But I admit that, before we have done with them, they acquire a
+certain distinction from the adroitness with which the author
+extricates them from apparently hopeless situations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MORE WORRIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
+
+_The Goat._ "WHO ARE YOU?"
+
+_The Man_ (_greatly disturbed_). "WHO? ME? I--I'M THE NEW GAMEKEEPER."
+
+_The Goat._ "WELL, I'M THE LATE GAMEKEEPER. YOU SEE, OLD BILKS THE
+SORCERER TOOK TO POACHING LATELY, AND I WAS FOOL ENOUGH TO CATCH HIM
+AT IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=Praise from "The Times."=
+
+    "The Chancellor of the Exchequer, with that absence of commercial
+    training which is essential to one occupying such a position..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=Another Sex-Problem=.
+
+    "WANTED.--Six White Leghorn Cockerels; 6 Black Minorca Cockerels.
+    Must lay eggs."--_Times of Ceylon._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A dreamy professor in a dim romantic laboratory may light upon
+    a placid formula and, like Aladdin, roll back the portals of the
+    enchanted fastness with a tranquil open sesame."--_Magazine._
+
+But why should his laboratory be dim when he has _Ali Baba's_
+wonderful lamp to light it?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume
+159, December 8, 1920, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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