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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159,
+October 13, 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, October 13, 1920
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: September 26, 2006 [EBook #19382]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephanie Maschek, Jonathan Ingram and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH,
+
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 159.
+
+
+
+OCTOBER 13, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+Mr. RIAZANOV, the successor to KAMENEFF, is now residing in Grosvenor
+Street. Several readers have written to ask us how his name is
+pronounced. Wrongly, we believe, in nine cases out of ten.
+
+ * * *
+
+We have been given to understand that that versatile pair, the TWO
+BOBS, are contemplating a tour of the music-halls in the mining
+district, where they are sure to be given a rousing reception.
+
+ * * *
+
+According to _The Evening News_ two miners recently played a quoit
+match for a hundred pounds. In all probability they are now agitating
+for the two shillings' increase to enable them to have a little side
+bet.
+
+ * * *
+
+"We cannot choose how we will be born," says a medical writer. No;
+some are born poor and others are born into a miner's family.
+
+ * * *
+
+"Where stands England to-day?" we are asked. While travelling in the
+Tube we have often thought that most of it was standing on our feet.
+
+ * * *
+
+"With the outgoing of September we face once more the month of
+October, with its falling leaves and autumn gales," states a writer in
+a daily paper. This, we understand, is according to precedent.
+
+ * * *
+
+A Glamorgan collier, summoned for income-tax, stated that he earned
+eleven pounds a week and wanted every penny of it. It is said that he
+is saving up to buy a strike of his own.
+
+ * * *
+
+A live frog is reported to have been found in a coal seam at a
+Monmouthshire colliery. It seems to have been greatly concerned at
+having missed the previous strike ballot.
+
+ * * *
+
+With reference to Mr. SPENDER'S interview with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
+we regret that no mention is made of the exact date when the PRIME
+MINISTER will declare the New World open.
+
+ * * *
+
+Since it has been so well advertised we understand that the banned
+poster, "The Unknown," is shortly to be renamed "The Very Well Known."
+
+ * * *
+
+The EX-KAISER is reported to have made his will. He has bequeathed his
+trial to his youngest grandson.
+
+ * * *
+
+It is proposed to make Poole a first-class port, at a cost of
+£3,750,000. We cannot help thinking that hidden away in some
+Government office is a man who could do it at treble the cost.
+
+ * * *
+
+A London firm of pastrycooks have purchased two obsolete tanks from
+the Disposal Boards. They are said to make excellent utensils for
+flattening pancakes.
+
+ * * *
+
+A dainty little invention has just been tried by the Bolshevists,
+which consists of a method whereby boiling water from the ship's
+boiler can be pumped on to sailors who do not obey their officers.
+It is said to be just the thing to keep their minds off the idea of
+mutiny.
+
+ * * *
+
+"I have all the qualifications for a post in some Government office,"
+writes an Unemployed Ex-Soldier in a contemporary. It is to be hoped
+that this drawback will be overlooked if his other disqualifications
+are satisfactory.
+
+ * * *
+
+Washable hats for boys is one of the new inventions at the Leather and
+Shoe Trade Exhibition. Small boys are now going about in fear that the
+next discovery will be a washable neck.
+
+ * * *
+
+Six bandits entered the Central Café, New York, the other day and took
+one thousand pounds from the diners. The ease with which they did it
+suggests that they were mistaken for waiters.
+
+ * * *
+
+A plumber in Aberdeen is giving lessons to a women's class in
+knitting. It is said that his treatise on How to Crochet a Burst
+Bath-Pipe is likely to become a standard work.
+
+ * * *
+
+In taking away a safe containing six thousand pounds from a Fenchurch
+Street office, burglars broke down a door with a thick glass panel.
+The profession is of the opinion that the blame for this lies with the
+firm. They had locked the door.
+
+ * * *
+
+_The Daily Chronicle_ informs us that a New York couple who were
+engaged in 1868 have just been married. But surely the wonder is that
+they were not married long before.
+
+ * * *
+
+A woman has told the medical officer of Burnham that rats so like the
+poison being used that they come out of their holes for it while it is
+being put down. We always make our rats stand up and beg for it.
+
+ * * *
+
+A domestic servant was recently blown out of her mistress's house
+through the too liberal use of paraffin whilst lighting fires.
+Luckily, however, it was her day out, so no complications ensued.
+
+ * * *
+
+On being asked his recipe for keeping young, a well-known physician
+refused to reply. In view of the increasing number of precocious
+authors, the question again arises, "Should a doctor tell?"
+
+ * * *
+
+_The Daily Express_ states that there is "very little demand for
+champagne to-day." We fancy this is due to the fact that a number of
+people are saving up to buy coffee at Messrs. LYONS'.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE MORNING TOILET.
+
+"OH, LOOK, MUMMY! THERE'S WILFRED DOING HIS HAIR FROM MEMORY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"THE PASSIONATE SPECTATOR."
+
+We are asked to say that the above title of a book written by Miss
+JANE BURR and published by Messrs. DUCKWORTH (it is described on the
+wrapper as "an entirely unconventional novel founded on original and
+ultra-modern views concerning life and marriage") has nothing to do
+with our respected contemporary.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "GOVERNMENT'S STRIKING ATTITUDE. WAITING TILL THE CAR JUMBS?"
+
+ _Nigerian Pioneer_.
+
+Personally we always try to get out when this seems to be imminent.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+TO OUR PLAY-MAKERS.
+
+ [_The Daisy_ and _The Crossing_, which both dealt with the
+ life after death, have come to an untimely end; and, in
+ deference to public feeling, the heroine of _Every Woman's
+ Privilege_ has been furnished with a fresh _fiancé_.]
+
+ When in my stall at eve I sit
+ (And these remarks would still apply,
+ Perhaps with greater force, were I
+ Accommodated in the Pit)--
+ Worn with the long day's dusty strife,
+ I ask a brief surcease of gloom;
+ I want a mirror held to life,
+ But not the life beyond the tomb.
+
+ The views of parties who have "crossed"
+ (Meaning to Jordan's further shore),
+ Those, as they say, who've "gone before,"
+ But not (unhappily) been "lost"--
+ They make me ill; they decompose
+ My vital essence at its fount
+ (Excepting BARRIE'S _Mary Rose_,
+ But then, of course, he doesn't count).
+
+ Give me the life that quick men lead,
+ Of which I know the hopes and fears
+ Better than those of shadier spheres;
+ And, if at first you don't succeed,
+ If you should hear the critics croak,
+ "As to your heroine's choice, you err,"
+ Just hand her to the other bloke--
+ That's what they did with MARIE LÖHR.
+
+ So shall creative art suggest
+ A world where people may revise
+ Their silly past, and realise
+ Those second thoughts which are the best;
+ Where, having seen the larger light,
+ A perfect liberty to hedge
+ And swap the wrong man for the right
+ Is "Every Woman's Privilege."
+
+ O. S.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+YET ONE MORE PLAN FOR IRELAND.
+
+Feeling rather lonely because almost everybody had entered for the
+great Irish Problem Competition in the morning and evening press
+except myself, I sat down and wrote the following solution, which
+I posted immediately to the Editors of _The Times_ and of _The
+Westminster Gazette_:--
+
+"SIR"--I began indignantly, for I noticed all the best competitors
+begin like that. In these Bolshevistic days I should have preferred of
+course to have started off with "Comrade" or "Brother," or even, since
+I was writing from the heart of the country, have opened with
+"Eh bor," as people do in dialect novels, but, fearing I might be
+disqualified, I began, as I say, "Sir," and went on, much as the other
+statesmen did:--
+
+"In all the lengthy annals of this Government, vacillation between
+weakness and tyranny has never proved so disastrous as it is proving
+in Ireland to-day, and the conduct of that unhappy country's affairs
+is now plunged in a chaos so profoundly chaotic that it has become a
+gross misuse of language to call them affairs at all. Out of all this
+welter and confusion two salient facts are seen to emerge:--
+
+"(1) No two Englishmen are agreed upon a settlement that will at the
+same time satisfy the just aspirations of Ireland and preserve the
+integrity of the British Empire.
+
+"(2) No two Irishmen are either.
+
+"At the same time the number of sane and carefully considered plans
+for the government of Ireland was never so great as it is to-day. When
+will our incompetent Cabinet perceive that the only way of warding
+off the stain of perfidy which dogs their footsteps and threatens to
+overwhelm them is to make use of all these plans? I put aside for the
+moment the most violent proposals of the extremists on either side,
+such as that of the annexation of England by the Sinn Fein Empire and
+that of the deportation of all Irishmen to the Andaman Islands and the
+re-colonisation of the country with correspondents to the daily press;
+but between these two extremes there surely lie innumerable solutions
+which both can and ought to be employed. I will only name here a few
+of them:--
+
+ ASQUITH autonomy.
+ Dominion Home Rule.
+ DUNRAVEN autonomy.
+ GREY autonomy.
+ Red autonomy.
+ Government by Dhail Eireann.
+ Government by Dhail Ymaill.
+ Administration by the L.C.C.
+ Clan warfare.
+
+"And there are infinite shades and variations of all these.
+
+"Every one of the policies I have named, and as many more as possible,
+should now be adopted at once, one after the other, I suggest, for
+quarterly periods and in alphabetical order.
+
+"But let there be no mistake. They must be strictly enforced. It must
+be impossible for Irishmen to come to England in the future and say
+to her, as they have so often said in the past, 'You made us promises
+which, when we leant on them, proved a broken reed and turned to dust
+and ashes in our mouths.'
+
+"One of the bitterest reproaches that is hurled, and hurled justly, at
+British maladministration is that through all the seeming variations
+of misgovernment there has been in fact no change. Dublin Castle
+remains where it did. This must be altered at once. _The site of
+Dublin Castle must be moved every three months._ There must be
+infinite change, and it must be infinitely thorough and infinitely
+systematic, so that, side by side with the continuous grievances of
+all dissatisfied parties, will be the certain assurance that those
+grievances will in strict rotation be remedied.
+
+"The objection will, of course, be raised that these continual changes
+of government will involve a certain amount of disorder; that one
+system will scarcely be working before it is superseded by another;
+that the rapid alterations in the _personnel_ of the judicature, civil
+service and police will be inconvenient; that everything, in fact,
+will be in a muddle. But by how much is not well-organised muddle to
+be preferred to unsystematic anarchy? And as each type of government
+recurs in due course will it not be found to work more simply and
+satisfactorily?
+
+"To those who shrug their shoulders and say that a series of
+kaleidoscopic changes in Irish administration would never be approved
+by the good sense of the British electorate I can only urge that it is
+precisely this attitude of intolerance towards and ignorance of Irish
+psychology which has rendered our behaviour to Ireland for so many
+centuries a by-word not only throughout Europe but the whole civilised
+world and the United States of America.
+
+"I am, Sir, yours, etc."
+
+Through some accident or other, either because I have not followed
+exactly the prescribed rules of the competition, such as writing on
+one side of the paper only, or addressing it from the National Liberal
+Club, or obtaining the signature of five witnesses, my solution
+has not yet appeared in _The Times_ or in _The Westminster Gazette_
+either. Feeling it a pity, however, that any helpful suggestion should
+be lost at a time when never in the annals of Irish misgovernment
+has vacillation vacillated so vacillatingly as it does to-day, I have
+repeated my strong but simple proposals here.
+
+K.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Clever forgeries of Fisher notes are in circulation in St.
+ Pancras.
+
+ Last night, during the busy period, a number of publications
+ in the Kentish Town district were victimised."--_Evening
+ Paper_.
+
+We had no idea that Kentish Town was such a literary centre.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Even Paris seems willing this season to add a few inches to
+ the length of skirts, and six to eight inches is becoming the
+ accepted length for street wear. This is an excellent length,
+ not so long as to endanger the chic of the costume, nor
+ so short as to be unbecoming in either sense of the
+ word."--_Fashion Paper_.
+
+We refrain from any speculations as to the previous length of these
+skirts before the "few inches" were added.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE POLISH HUG.
+
+BOLSHEVIST. "YOUR ATTITUDE CONVINCES ME, KAMERAD, THAT WE WERE MEANT
+TO BE FRIENDS."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Willium_ (_having at critical stage in four-handed
+game undertaken to spot the red_). "'TIS ALL OVER, GEARGE--MY HAND BE
+STUCK IN THE POCKUT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ELIZABETH OUTWITTED.
+
+"An' when I dies they give me fifteen pounds on the nail an' no
+waitin'," said Elizabeth triumphantly, as she explained her latest
+insurance scheme.
+
+"On what nail?" I asked distrustfully. I could not understand why
+Elizabeth felt justified in paying sixpence per week for a benefit
+fraught with so little ultimate joy to herself. But she is the sort of
+girl that can never resist the back-door tout. She is constantly being
+persuaded to buy something for which she pays a small weekly sum.
+This is entered in a book, and the only conditions are that she must
+continue paying that sum for the rest of her natural lifetime.
+
+On these lines Elizabeth has "put in" for many articles in the course
+of her chequered career. She has had fleeting possession of a steel
+engraving of QUEEN VICTORIA, a watch that never would go--until her
+payments ceased--a sewing-machine (treadle), a set of vases and a
+marble timepiece. The timepiece, she explained, was destined for "the
+bottom drawer," which she had begun to furnish from the moment a young
+man first inquired which was her night out.
+
+As all these things were taken from her directly her payments fell
+off, I thought I had better give her the benefit of my ripe judgment.
+"I shouldn't buy anything on the instalment plan, if I were you," I
+advised. "Some people seem to be made for the system, but you are not
+one of them."
+
+"But I 'aven't told you wot I'm buyin' now," she said excitedly,
+putting a plate on the rack as she spoke. I ought to say she meant to
+put it on the rack; that it fell two inches short wasn't Elizabeth's
+fault.
+
+"It was cracked afore," she murmured mechanically as she gathered
+up the fragments. "Yes, I pays a shillin' a week an' I gets a
+grammerfone."
+
+"A what?" I gasped.
+
+"A grammerfone--to play, you know."
+
+"Where will it play?" I asked feebly.
+
+"'Ere," she said, waving a comprehensive hand; "an' it won't 'arf
+liven the place up. My friend 'as 'ers goin' all day long."
+
+I stifled a moan of horror, for I am one of the elect few who loathe
+gramophones, even at their best and costliest.
+
+"Elizabeth," I cried, tears of anguish rising to my eyes, "let me
+implore you not to get one of those horr--I mean, not to be imposed on
+again."
+
+"I've got it," she announced. "I meantersay I've paid the first
+shillin' an' it's comin' to-morrow. I 'ave it a month on trial."
+
+The month certainly was a trial--for me. Ours is not one of those
+old-fashioned residences with thick walls that muffle sound, and where
+servants can be consigned to dwell in the bowels of the earth. Every
+noise which arises in the kitchen, from Elizabeth's badinage with
+the butcher's boy to the raucous grind of the knife-machine, echoes
+through the house _viâ_ the study where I work.
+
+Thus, although Elizabeth kept the kitchen-door shut, I found myself
+compelled for one-half of the day to consider an insistent demand as
+to the ultimate destination of flies in the winter-time. The rest of
+the day the gramophone gave us _K-K-K-Katie_. (Elizabeth had only two
+records to begin with.)
+
+I became unnerved. My work suffered. It began to trickle back to me
+accompanied by the regrets of editors; and to writers the regrets of
+editors are the most poignant in the world.
+
+The situation was saved by the most up-to-date tout of the whole
+back-door tribe. He persuaded Elizabeth to go in for Spiritualism.
+Do not misunderstand me. You can be a Spiritualist and also keep a
+gramophone, but, if you are Elizabeth, you cannot keep the two running
+at the same time if you must pay a shilling per week for each. When
+she sought my opinion I strongly advised the séances, which I
+said were cheap at the price; indeed I thought they were when the
+gramophone departed.
+
+It was now Elizabeth's turn to become unnerved. She has a mind that
+is peculiarly open to impressions, and communion with the spirits
+unbalanced her. She justified her expenditure of a shilling weekly by
+placing the utmost faith in them.
+
+"I 'ad a message from them there spirits larst night," she informed me
+one day, "an' they tell me I must change my 'abitation."
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked, startled.
+
+"I put a message through, arskin' them when I should get a settled
+young man, an' they told me that the fates are agen me in my present
+dwellin', so if you'll please take my notice from--"
+
+I will not go through the sickening formula. Every housewife must have
+heard it several times at least in the past year or so. I accepted
+Elizabeth's resignation and began to concentrate on newspaper
+announcements. But I took an utter dislike to the spirits and listened
+with cold aloofness when Elizabeth began, "I was talkin' to the spirit
+of my young man larst night--"
+
+"I didn't know you had the spirit of any young man," I interrupted.
+
+"Yes, I 'ave. I mean Ned Akroyd, 'oo was drownded."
+
+Now I have never believed in the alleged drowning of the said Ned.
+The news--conveyed to Elizabeth by his mate--that he had fallen from
+a ferry-boat near Eel Pie Island seemed unconvincing, especially as it
+happened shortly after Elizabeth had lent him fifteen-and-six.
+
+"I 'ad quite a long talk with 'im," she went on. "Next time I'm goin'
+to arst 'im about the fifteen-and-six 'e borrowed, an' see if I can't
+get it back some'ow."
+
+How the spirit would have considered this proposition is still
+uncertain, for Elizabeth never returned to the séances. She came to me
+one day in a state of violent agitation. "I see Ned Akroyd when I was
+out larst night," she began, "an' would you believe it, 'e's no more
+dead than I am, the wretch!"
+
+"Well, aren't you glad?" I inquired.
+
+"Glad, an' 'im with another girl an' pretendin' all the time not to
+see me! Men are 'ounds, that's what they are. An' I'll go to no more
+seeonces. They're a swindle."
+
+"They were wrong about telling you to change your habitation too,
+weren't they?" I suggested insinuatingly.
+
+"Course they were." Suddenly her face brightened. "I'll be able to
+'ave the grammerfone back now," she said.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At the moment I am writing to the sounds of _K-K-K-Katie_, which, I
+fear, is giving me rather a syncopated style. But if the Editor is
+k-k-k-kind he will not banish me from _P-P-P-Punch_ for this reason,
+as anyone can see my intentions are g-g-g-good.
+
+Stay! _K-K-K-Katie_ has ceased and I can think lucidly. An inspiration
+has come to me. Has not Elizabeth in her time wrought havoc among my
+crockery? The hour is ripe for me to retaliate.
+
+To morrow at dawn I shall examine the gramophone records and--_they
+will come in two in my hands_.
+
+It will be the first time I have broken any record.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Wife_ (_to husband being bundled in as train moves
+off_). "DID YE GET RETURN TICKETS?"
+
+_Husband_. "NOA (_puff_)--DIDN'T 'AVE TIME."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "MISUSE OF RESEARCH GRANTS.
+
+ By Professor ----, F.R.S."
+
+ _Sunday Paper Poster_.
+
+We refuse to believe it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE CONSPIRATORS.
+
+III.
+
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--Essential to that millennium which our restless
+revolutionaries are after is your head on a charger and my head on a
+charger; provided both heads are present it may be the same charger
+for all they care. When you think of the importance which we of
+the detested middle classes attach to our heads and the regrettable
+violence we might exhibit towards whoever called at our houses to
+collect them, then it seems to me you must confess to a sneaking
+admiration for the bravery of the turbulent minority in attacking so
+big a problem.
+
+But when you get the inside details of their schemes you find that
+discretion is not only the better part but the whole of their valour.
+For arms you find incendiary speeches; for ammunition, viperish
+propaganda, and for epoch-making action you have nothing. In that
+"nothing" lies their main ingenuity and strong hope. If they can
+prevail on the masses to do nothing, at the right moment, and to go
+on doing nothing till there is nothing left, then, say they, they will
+have civilisation under; and if our heads don't fall off of their own
+accord then a thousand willing hands will be stretched forward to pull
+them off.
+
+You ask me how I know all this. Close the doors so that we cannot
+be overheard, and I will tell you. I buy their continental
+newspaper--"organ" they prefer to call it, being rather proud of the
+noise--and there I read all that I want to know. It costs a halfpenny
+a day, runs to six pages, is well printed and brightly composed and
+contains no advertisements. There is generally a picture in thick
+black lines in the centre of the first page. Blood being the easy
+thing for the printer to "feature," the picture generally deals with
+the cutting off of heads. If it refers to the past, you and I are
+cutting off the worker's head, severing from a fine muscular body a
+noble head with a halo to it. If it refers to the future, the worker
+is having our heads off, severing from a fat and uncontrolled corpus a
+most unpleasant excrescence in a very shiny top-hat.
+
+To run a daily newspaper of that "make-up," without advertisements and
+for subscribers of whom the larger number, like myself, omit to pay
+their half-penny, is not easy business. In fact it is not business at
+all. The question being raised as to where the money came from, the
+producers tried to allay our suspicion by making a great show of an
+appeal for help. The published results, which I give you in their
+English equivalent, were much as follows:--
+
+ +------------------------------------------------------+
+ | £ s. d. |
+ | B. de M. 6 0 |
+ | Z. X. 5 0 |
+ | Idealist 5 0 |
+ | U. W. K. 5 0 |
+ | A Frenchman who is ashamed of France 4 6 |
+ | Young Communist 4 0 |
+ | Three young Communists 3 6 |
+ | "Great Britain" (collection) 3 3 |
+ | Disgusted 2 6 |
+ | Association of Women Fighters for Justice 2 3 |
+ | O. F. 1 0 |
+ | Down with Capital 9 |
+ | One Who will stick at Nothing 3 |
+ | ------------ |
+ | 2 3 0 |
+ | Previous lists 14 6 8-3/4 |
+ | ------------ |
+ | £16 9 8-3/4 |
+ +------------------------------------------------------+
+
+The grand total of sixteen pounds, nine shillings and eight-pence
+three-farthings shows a magnificent spirit, but wouldn't keep much
+more than a couple of square inches of the front page alive for more
+than one day. Reverting, then, to the more pressing question of the
+removal of our heads, who is paying for the operation?
+
+He is a heavy-built octopus sort of man of about forty-seven; a red
+cheery complexion, rather more fat than muscle, long grey hair tending
+to curl at the extremes, and followed about by a lady who acts as his
+secretary, calls him "Master" and adores the ground he walks on. They
+are married, but not, I should hasten to add, to each other; none of
+your dull orthodox practices for them. About his profile there is
+an undeniable something which makes his head a suggestive model for
+sculpture. It is framed in a large, white, soft silk collar, which
+falls gracefully over the lapels of the coat and is, I am told, of a
+mode much worn among the _élite_ of the anarchist and atheist world.
+
+I've a friend here in the law-and-order business who thought that,
+having reported all the movements of this Master of the Black Arts,
+he might find it worth while to make his acquaintance in the flesh.
+Indirect enquiry elicited that the desire to get into touch was
+reciprocated, the attentions of the police being insufficient to
+satisfy his sense of importance. So the meeting was arranged, and I
+was allowed to come along too.
+
+We were received in great state in a special suite of the local hotel
+de luxe. The Lady Secretary was there, overflowing with "Masters" and
+"Sirs," and obsessed by the fear that her idol might not do himself
+justice in our presence. A very touching instance of human devotion:
+the fifth instance in his case, I believe.
+
+This is the gentleman who finances the propaganda of destruction; we
+asked him if that was not so, and he answered, "Why, of course." Had
+we any fault to find with his protégé, the admirable halfpenny daily?
+We had noticed that its news was punctual and exact. Then of what did
+we complain?
+
+"Of a certain exaggeration in the leading articles," said I, rubbing
+the back of my neck and wondering how long it would be there to rub
+and I to rub it.
+
+"But what newspaper leaders are not exaggerated?" he asked.
+
+"Your editors should not be paid to twist everything into an
+irritant," I protested.
+
+"Of which of your great English dailies is the editor not paid to
+twist, as you put it?" he asked.
+
+I knew that I had right on my side and he had not. But still somehow I
+seemed to be in the wrong all the way.
+
+So my friend took the matter in hand. He didn't argue. He just drew
+his chair up to the Master's and asked him to tell us all about
+himself, how he came by his great ideals, what was the future of the
+world as he foresaw it and how he meant to arrange the universe when
+at length he took over?
+
+The Master, gently smiling his appreciation of this recognition of his
+Ego, gave voice.
+
+To the lady it was all, of course, above criticism: sublime, adorable.
+To me the frankness of it and the impudence of it was, I confess,
+amusing.
+
+ The world is out of joint; how good 'twill be
+ When Heaven is sacked and leaves the job to me!
+
+An agreeable, if wrong-headed, crank, was my summary.
+
+And this or something like it was my friend's:--"b. U.S.A. of Eng.
+parents, 9.5.78; tinned meat business, Chicago; 6 months' h.l. for
+frauds in connection with packing; went to Mexico, but left to avoid
+prosecution for similar frauds on larger scale; prison in Belgium,
+France and England in connection with illegal dealings in rifles
+(? for Germany); apparently liable to more prison in U.S.A. for crime
+unknown, if returns there; won't say where he gets his money from, but
+doesn't seriously pretend it is his own."
+
+And when I came to go back over the Master's two hours' chat about
+himself, those are about the facts it all boiled down to.
+
+ Yours ever, HENRY.
+
+(_To be continued._)
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "£40.--Handsome Black Silk Golf Goat (large size)."--_Irish Paper_.
+
+The very thing for the butting-green.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: NIL DESPERANDUM.
+
+_The Amateur Championship_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, WHO FAILED TO SURVIVE THE
+FIRST ROUND.
+
+_The East of France Championship_. MR. POTT-HUNTER IN FATAL
+DIFFICULTIES IN THE SECOND ROUND.
+
+_The Championship of Central Switzerland_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, DEFEATED
+IN THE THIRD ROUND.
+
+_The Sicilian Championship_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, WHO REACHED THE FOURTH
+ROUND.
+
+_The Championship of Mozambique_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, A FIFTH ROUND
+VICTIM.
+
+_The Spitzbergen Championship_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, ONE OF THE
+SEMI-FINALISTS.
+
+_The Championship of Upper Senegal_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, BEATEN IN THE
+FINAL BY MR. HUNT-POTT.
+
+_The Tierra del Fuego Championship_. THE WINNER, MR. POTT-HUNTER.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "NEVER YOU MIND IF 'E DID SAY YOU'D GOT A NECK LIKE A
+CAMEL. 'TAIN'T NEARLY AS LONG AS ALL THAT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE KORBAN BATH.
+
+[_Korban_--"It is a gift"--Hebrew (or some such language).]
+
+With some reluctance I return to the subject of baths. I went into
+the matter of bathrooms pretty carefully a few months ago, but since
+I have been in this hotel I see that there are one or two aspects of
+hotel bathing which still require attention.
+
+To begin with, there is the question of the Korban or free bath.
+It is, of course, a scandal that a bath should be an extra, and an
+eighteen-penny one at that. After all, what is the bathroom for? We
+are not charged extra for smoking in the smoking-room or drawing in
+the drawing-room; why should we be bled for bathing in the bathroom?
+At the same time this practice does provide the visitor with the
+wholesome sport of Korban bathing. The object of the game is, of
+course, to have as many baths as possible which are not put down in
+your bill; and many are the stratagems which are employed.
+
+The true sportsman attempts the feat just before dinner, because at
+that time there are sentries posted in every corridor. Ostensibly they
+are maids waiting to assist any lady who has a crisis while dressing,
+but no real pretence is made that they are there for any other purpose
+than to charge you for as many baths as possible. On my corridor
+there is a post of no fewer than three sentries, and it is extremely
+difficult to evade them. The only thing to do is to get to know three
+nice ladies on the same floor and arrange for them to have a
+dressing crisis simultaneously and go on having it for about a
+quarter-of-an-hour.
+
+This needs a good deal of organisation. However smoothly the operation
+begins, one of the dressing crises nearly always collapses too soon,
+and the sentry catches you on your return journey.
+
+For the lady visitor the problem is comparatively simple. I should
+mention that it is a perfectly legitimate manoeuvre to get your bath
+put down to somebody else if you can do it; and the crack lady-player
+usually wraps herself in an unobtrusive bath-wrap, shrouds her head,
+modestly conceals her face, slips into a friend's room to borrow some
+Crème-Limon and, after an interval, rushes noisily out of the friend's
+room to her bath, which, with any luck, is charged to her friend's
+account.
+
+The beginner at the game contents himself with less complicated ruses.
+Sometimes he has his bath late at night, when the sentries have been
+taken off; but, as the lights go out _en masse_ at eleven, even this
+operation has to be carefully timed. There is nothing much gloomier
+than a bath by candle-light, except perhaps a bath in the dark.
+Hundreds, however, of both sorts are endured in this hotel.
+
+The more brazen or the more timid simply walk into the bathroom fully
+dressed during the day, carrying a number of dirty golf-balls in their
+hands, and towels in their pockets and sponges up their sleeves, and
+issue later fully dressed with clean white golf-balls in their
+hands. It is generally thought, however, that this device is _just_ a
+little--I mean it's not exactly--_you_ know what I mean.
+
+The Korban Bath Rules will probably remain unwritten for many a
+day, but I earnestly hope that before next summer the traditions and
+etiquette of bath-warfare as between individual hotel-visitors will
+be codified and issued in an intelligible form. At the moment the
+most extraordinary confusion prevails, and no one can tell whether
+any particular stratagem will be hailed with applause as a bold and
+legitimate operation of war or universally condemned as a barefaced
+piece of bath-hoggery. Recently, for example, an extremely courteous,
+not to say gallant, old gentleman was severely lectured by a lady for
+digging himself in on the mat and maintaining his position there till
+she emerged. She stated with, I think, considerable force that she had
+passed the age when a lady likes to be seen coming out of a bathroom
+with disordered locks; she also said that he was ruining her chance of
+a Korban bath by drawing attention to the fact that there was somebody
+inside.
+
+He replied with equal force that, whenever he considerately withdrew
+from the mat in order to let a lady escape unseen, some less
+scrupulous combatant (usually one of his own daughters) immediately
+rushed the position, and he was not going to be had in that way again,
+though as a matter of fact, while they were arguing the matter out,
+somebody actually did this, so he was.
+
+Now what is the way out of this dilemma? The only solution I see is
+the Sponge System, by which every competitor puts down a sponge, as
+one puts down a ball at the first tee. In this way definite claims
+can be staked out in rotation without congestion of the avenues of
+approach. I hope this system will be generally adopted next summer
+and, if it is used in conjunction with my Progress Indicator (which
+shows by a moving needle what stage the person bathing has reached),
+it ought to work very smoothly. But there must be no hanky-panky, no
+sharp practice with caddies; every sponge must be put down by one
+of the players in person. And there must be none of that regrettable
+collusion between husband and wife which has brought such discredit on
+the present system.
+
+There was a very bad case of this the other day. A certain wife used
+to entrench herself in the bathroom early and remain in it till her
+husband--a heavy and persistent sleeper--arrived. When you rattled
+angrily at the door-knob she said very sharply, "Who is that?"--in
+itself a sufficiently disturbing thing. Even in the present days of
+shamelessness and crime there are few men who care to confess openly
+that they have angrily rattled at the bathroom door. If you said
+sheepishly, "It is Smith" or "Thompson" or "Lord Bumble," a heavy
+silence fell, broken only by those gentle watery sounds which it is so
+maddening to hear from without. When her husband arrived and answered
+the challenge with "It is I, Arthur," sounds of feverish activity were
+heard within, and a new bath was immediately turned on.
+
+Casting all scruples to the winds, seven desperate men rehearsed the
+password, "It is I, Arthur;" seven desperate men presented themselves
+in a single morning and murmured lovingly, "It is I, Arthur." None of
+them had a bath. Seven times the good lady opened the door and beheld
+Smith or Thompson or Lord Rumble or nobody. And seven times she bolted
+back into the burrow again. She remained undefeated. Her husband got
+his bath.
+
+I wonder what devilry she would be up to under the Sponge System.
+
+A. P. H.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A NOVELTY FROM THE PAST.
+
+ "ANTIQUE, over a hundred years old, oak sideboard, brand new
+ ... Apply after 6.30."
+
+ _Evening News_.
+
+Surely after this candour there is no help to be got out of the
+twilight hour.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Mr. Robert ----, who is now manager, entered his late
+ employer's service three or four months after he commenced,
+ and remained with him until he gave up."
+
+ _Local Paper_.
+
+"They have their exits and their entrances"--the former in this case
+being the more satisfactory.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Intending Purchaser_ (_to Artist, who is selling his
+house_.) "DID YOU PUT THOSE FIGURES ON THE WALLS?"
+
+_Artist_ (_modestly, though regarding them as a strong asset_.) "OH,
+YES--I--"
+
+_Intending Purchaser_. "WELL, THEY DON'T REALLY MATTER. A COAT OF
+WHITEWASH WOULD SOON PUT THAT RIGHT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+WHEN AND IF.
+
+(_It is rumoured that Mr. BALFOUR is shortly going to the House of
+Lords_.)
+
+ When BALFOUR goes to the Lords--
+ For the Upper Chamber's adorning--
+ The Lower House, if it has any _nous_,
+ Will have solid reason for mourning;
+ For he has no axes to grind;
+ His strategy injures no man,
+ And his keen sword play in the thick of the fray
+ Is a joy to friend and foeman.
+
+ When BALFOUR goes to the Lords,
+ To strengthen that gilded muster,
+ 'Twill be sad and strange if he has to change
+ The name he has crowned with lustre;
+ For already there's "B. of B.,"
+ A baron of old creation;
+ And Whittingehame is an uncouth name
+ For daily pronunciation.
+
+ If BALFOUR goes to the Lords,
+ Will the atmosphere, I wonder,
+ With the placid balm of its dreamful calm
+ Bring his nimble spirit under?
+ Or will he act on the Peers
+ Like an intellectual cat-fish,
+ Or startle their sleep with the flying leap
+ Of a Caribbean bat-fish?
+
+ If BALFOUR goes to the Lords--
+ But can the Commons spare him?
+ Besides I'm sure that a coronet's lure
+ Is the very last thing to ensnare him;
+ And I'd rather see him undecked
+ With the gauds that merely glister,
+ In the selfsame box with PITT and FOX
+ And GLADSTONE--a simple Mister.
+
+ Still if he goes to the Lords,
+ Whatever, his style and title,
+ For the part he has played in his country's aid
+ 'Twill be but a poor requital;
+ For he never once lost his nerve
+ When the outlook was most alarming,
+ And always remained, with shield unstained,
+ Prince ARTHUR, the good Prince Charming.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Mrs. Hawke would be glad to employ a Wren for domestic work."
+
+ _Advt. in Daily Paper_.
+
+Will she have to "live in"?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "If it be true, as SHELLEY said, that 'a thing of beauty is
+ a joy for ever,' the good people of Roydon are to be
+ congratulated on the new bridge over the River Stort."
+
+ _Local Paper_.
+
+But, supposing KEATS, for instance, said it, will that make any
+difference?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Enlightened Minister_. "I CANNA UNDERSTAND YOUR
+OBJECTION TO DANCING, MR. MCTAVISH. WE HAVE BIBLICAL AUTHORITY FOR IT.
+DAVID HIMSELF DANCED."
+
+_Elder_. "AY, BUT NO WI' A PAIRTNER."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+PRISCILLA FAILS TO QUALIFY.
+
+"So it runned out of its little grassy place and went all round the
+garden," said Priscilla, emerging suddenly in pink from under the
+table.
+
+"What are you playing at now, Priscilla?" I inquired.
+
+"I'm a little pussy-cat."
+
+"And what is this?" I asked, pointing to the waste-paper basket which
+she had planted beside my chair.
+
+"It's the pussy-cat's basket of milk. It's to drink when she's
+firsty," she explained.
+
+I sighed. It did not appear to me that the child's education was
+proceeding upon proper lines. I had been reading portions of the diary
+of Miss OPAL WHITELEY, written when she was seven years old, a work
+which has just lifted for America the Child-authoress Cup. I had hoped
+to find in Priscilla some faint signs that the laurels lost by Miss
+DAISY ASHFORD might be wrested back. The latest feature in nursery
+autobiography, so far as I could gather, was to have a profound
+objective sympathy with vegetables and a faculty for naming domestic
+animals after the principal figures in classical mythology. If you
+have these gifts you get published by _The Atlantic Monthly_, with a
+preface by Viscount GREY. But I doubted whether Priscilla had them. I
+thought I would try.
+
+"Priscilla," I said, "be a little girl again and tell me what flower
+you like best."
+
+"Woses."
+
+"What do the roses say to each other when you aren't there?"
+
+"Oh, they don't _say_ anyfing," she said with great contempt.
+
+This was bad.
+
+"Priscilla," I continued, "what do you call the dog next-door?"
+
+"Bill," she said; "but it's runned away."
+
+"There you are!" I exclaimed, turning to the child's mamma. "Bill,
+indeed! If she were being properly educated she would be calling it
+Jupiter Agamemnon Wilcox by now. Does she ever speak to you at all of
+the star-gleams amongst the cabbage-leaves?"
+
+"I don't think there are any star-gleams amongst the cabbages in this
+garden," she replied. "Only slugs."
+
+"I don't care," I said; "the fact remains that Priscilla ought to be
+constantly wondering what the cabbages do say to each other when they
+have lonesome feels at night."
+
+"Priscilla," I began again, "in about three years you will be seven
+years old and quite a big girl. What will you play at then?"
+
+"Oh, I san't play at all," she said. "I sall go visiting and sopping."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I sall have a knife."
+
+"A pocket-knife?"
+
+"No, not a pocket-knife, a knife to cut meat wiv, of course."
+
+I had forgotten this goal of maidenly desires.
+
+"And won't you go long walks in the big woods with me and tell me the
+names of all the flowers and what they are thinking about?"
+
+"Yes," she replied rather doubtfully. "Are there beasts in the woods?"
+
+"Only rabbits, I think."
+
+"We must be very careful, then, 'cos they're _very_ wild creatures,
+aren't they?"
+
+"Oh, not _very_ wild."
+
+"Will you buy a gun at the gun-sop and soot them and we take them home
+and eat them?"
+
+Bless the child, I thought, there seems to be no getting her away from
+this eating business.
+
+"Priscilla," I began again, "in the woods there is a great big
+lake, with trees and rushes all round it, and there are water-lilies
+floating about and forget-me-nots at the edge."
+
+Now, I thought, we shall perhaps have something about the lullaby
+songs of the trees and the willow that does sing by the creek.
+
+"Are there fiss in the lake?" inquired Priscilla.
+
+"Yes," I said, "beautiful shining fish."
+
+"And sall we catch the fiss and put them on the fire?"
+
+"I suppose we might," I admitted.
+
+"And will they sizzle?"
+
+"Araminta," I said, "the child is hopeless. She has no soul. She
+will never be a great authoress. The Cup must remain in Oregon, and
+Priscilla will never tell the world how the wind did go walking in
+the field, talking to the earth voices, with a preface by Sir AUCKLAND
+GEDDES or Lord READING. She thinks about nothing but her food."
+
+"Perhaps you had better try again after she's said her prayers,"
+suggested Araminta. "She may be feeling a little more soulful then."
+
+I attended the ceremony, which was performed with the utmost decorum
+and gravity. When it was ended Priscilla looked up.
+
+"I said them very somnly and in rarver a low voice, didn't I?" she
+announced, and then went off into gurgles of laughter.
+
+I determined to make one last despairing effort.
+
+"Priscilla," I asked, "which of your books do you like the best?"
+
+"_The Gobbly Goblin_," she said.
+
+"Araminta," I cried, "I give it up. She has no bent for literature.
+There can never have been any great authoress, young or old, who
+started with such a materialistic mind."
+
+"You forget Mrs. Beeton," she replied.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE EXPERTS.
+
+ASQUITH. "GIVE HIM HIS HEAD!"
+
+GREY. "TELL HIM YOU'LL CUT THE STRING IN A COUPLE OF YEARS!"
+
+MORLEY. "WHAT YOU WANT IS A MORE POWERFUL SANITY!"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+COLD COMFORT.
+
+(_It is stated that M. KAMENEFF, on his return to Russia, having
+fallen out of favour with the Soviet Government, has been appointed
+Commissar at Taganrog_.)
+
+ Upon the mighty wheels of life
+ I'm but a very little cog,
+ And, when engaged in active strife,
+ Always the under-dog.
+
+ No honours yet have come to me
+ (My name is Ebenezer Blogg);
+ I haven't got an O.B.E.
+ Nor yet the Dannebrog.
+
+ A taxi-man the other night
+ Called me a measly little frog;
+ It's true that in respect of height
+ I can't compare with OG.
+
+ At school I was the whipping-boy
+ Whom every master used to flog,
+ Although I took no stealthy joy
+ In pipes or cards or grog.
+
+ The only time that I bestrode
+ A horse, like _Gilpin_ all agog,
+ The creature bolted from the road
+ And plunged me in a bog.
+
+ I never learned to sing or dance,
+ To bowl or bat, to stick or slog;
+ The only time I crossed to France
+ I struck a Channel fog.
+
+ I'm old and poor and rather deaf;
+ I'm often very short of prog;
+ Yet still I grudge not KAMENEFF
+ His post at Taganrog.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _First Bookie_. "I MUST 'AVE TAKEN TWO 'UNDRED QUID
+TO-DAY. MARVELLOUS! I CAN'T THINK WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM."
+
+_Second Bookie_. "FROM ME MOSTLY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+OUR MODEST ADVERTISERS.
+
+"To be Sold, small unexceptionally attractive gentleman's Residential
+Estate."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ There was an American "DAISY"
+ Whose Diary set people crazy;
+ Some called it a fake--
+ A most venial mistake,
+ For Opals are apt to be hazy.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Humble Guest_ (_at Profiteer's castle_). "WHAT THE
+DEUCE IS THIS?"
+
+_Magnificent Flunkey_. "THE TEMPERATURE OF YOUR BATH-WATER, SIR."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE MINISTRY FOR HEROES.
+
+ _January 1st, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+When demobilised on 5th November last I applied for a disability
+pension. Having received no official communication on the subject, may
+I inquire, please, how the matter stands?
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _February 1st, 1920._
+ To Lieut. C. M. Broke.
+
+I am to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 1/1/20, and to say that
+you will receive a further communication from this Department in due
+course.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _March 1st, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+_Re_ your letter of February 1st, may I inquire how the matter now
+stands, please? (My rank, by the way, is captain, and my initials are
+"M. C." not "C. M." I hope you won't mind me mentioning it.)
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _April 1st, 1920._
+ To Mr. M. Brake.
+
+I am to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 1/3/20 and to request
+that you will be good enough to state the date upon which you last
+received a payment on account of your pension.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _April 2nd, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+Replying to your inquiry of yesterday, I have not received any
+payment--not a bond, not a rouble, not a bean. That, between
+ourselves, was my idea in initiating this interesting correspondence.
+
+May I direct your attention to my signature?
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _May 10th, 1920._
+ To Second-Lieut. J. Brooke.
+
+Your letter dated 2/4/20 has been duly received. I am to ask whether
+you are (a) demobilised; (b) disembodied; or (c) still serving?
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _May 11th, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+I was so glad to hear yesterday that my letter of the 2nd of last
+month had been duly received. I was beginning to get quite anxious
+about it. In reply to your inquiry I have the honour to state (again)
+that I was (a) demobilised. I mentioned this, you know, last January.
+But perhaps you have forgotten? It is rather a long while ago.
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+P.S.--I don't mind a bit how you spell my name and all that. But our
+postman is getting wild. And you know what workers are.
+
+
+ _June 30th, 1920._
+ To Mr. C. Bink.
+
+I am directed to acknowledge your letter of 11/5/20. In order to
+facilitate this Department's investigations into your claim, please
+say if you are in possession of Army Form Z.3.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _July 1st, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+Yes, I am in possession of Army Form Z.3. I do hope this will
+facilitate your Department's investigations. Not for my sake. But I
+enclose last quarter's accounts from my landlord, butcher, baker, etc.
+Perhaps you will be good enough to guarantee my credit? You know how
+impatient these vulgar fellows are.
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+P.S.--I think I like "Bink" the least of my new names. But perhaps you
+will think of a better one for my next letter.
+
+
+ _August 1st, 1920._
+ To Mr. M. Brooks.
+
+Your letter of 1/7/20 has been duly received, and I am to inquire
+whether you submitted a claim for disability pension at the time of
+your demobilisation. If so, please state date.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _August 2nd, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+With reference to your letter of yesterday, the answer is in the
+affirmative. By the way I think we went into that little matter too
+last January. But, of course, you can't think of everything. Excuse
+me mentioning it. Do you think you could get my pension through by the
+30th inst? It is my birthday, and I would like to have my boots soled
+and heeled.
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _August 30th, 1920._
+ To Mr. N. Brock.
+
+With reference to your application for disability pension I am to
+request that you will furnish this Department with a full statement of
+the circumstances under which you were wounded, giving the following
+particulars:--Christian and surname (in block letters); regiment;
+whether (a) demobilised; (b) disembodied; or (c) still serving;
+whether (a) shot; (b) bayoneted; (c) gassed; (d) shell-shocked; or
+(e) drowned; Christian and surname (in block letters) of batman,
+stretcher-bearers and O.i/c hospital ship.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _September 8th, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+Under medical advice I am to cease corresponding with your admirable
+Department. It seems a pity, since we have got to know each other so
+well. I have decided therefore to place the matter in the hands of the
+Miners' Federation. I do not think I have mentioned the fact before,
+but I was employed as a miner when I joined up in '14.
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _September 9th, 1920._
+ To Captain M. C. Broke.
+
+I am directed to inform you that you have been awarded a disability
+pension at the rate of five hundred pounds per annum. A draft for the
+amount due, including arrears from 5/11/19--date of disembodiment or
+demobilisation--was despatched to your address this morning per King's
+Messenger.
+
+ I have the honour to be, Sir,
+ Your humble and obedient Servant,
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "ONE CROWDED HOUR OF GLORIOUS LIFE."
+
+A BIT OF TOBACCO-ASH IN YOUR EYE, YOUR REEL JAMMED, ONE OF YOUR LEGS
+THROUGH A LOOP OF YOUR LINE AND THE BIGGEST SALMON YOU EVER SAW ON THE
+OTHER END OF IT.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.
+
+THE GLOW-WORM.
+
+ The little glow-worm sits and glows
+ As brilliant as the stars,
+ But you are wrong if you suppose
+ That he will light cigars.
+
+ In fact, he seems to be exempt
+ From Nature's general plan;
+ He never makes the least attempt
+ To be of use to Man.
+
+ And if you think that it requires
+ A scientific brain
+ To understand his tiny fires
+ Then you are wrong again.
+
+ The meaning of his shininess
+ Is fairly clear to me;
+ It is intended to impress
+ The future Mrs. G.
+
+ No doubt you think it is his nose
+ Which gleams across the glen;
+ Well, it is not; the part that glows
+ Is on the abdomen.
+
+ And very likely that explains
+ Why all these millionaires
+ Buy such expensive shiny chains
+ To hang about on theirs.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ The Editor who read these lines
+ Has quite a different tale;
+ He says it is the _she_ that shines
+ To captivate the male.
+
+ He has a perfect right to doubt
+ The statements in this song,
+ But if he thinks I'll scratch them out
+ He's absolutely wrong.
+
+A. P. H.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "WHATEVER WILL YOU DO, GRANDPA, WHEN YOU'RE TOO OLD FOR
+GARDENING?"
+
+"I EXPECT I'LL START GOLF. BUT I HOPE I SHAN'T LIVE AS LONG AS THAT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+FOR OURSELVES ALONE.
+
+Our hostess had taken us over to "Sheltered End," the pleasant country
+home of Mrs. Willoughby Brock, to play tennis. As however there was
+only one court and quite a number of young and middle-aged people were
+standing near it with racquets in their hands and an expression
+on their faces in which frustration and anticipation fought for
+supremacy, it followed that other beguilements had to be found. My own
+fate was to fall into the hands of Mrs. Brock, whose greatest delight
+on earth seems to be to have a stranger to whom she can display the
+beauties of her abode and enlarge upon the unusual qualities of her
+personality. She showed and told me all. We explored the estate from
+the dog-kennel to the loggia for sleeping out "under the stars;" from
+the pergola to the library; from the sundial to the telephone, "the
+only one for miles;" and as we walked between the purple and mauve
+Michaelmas daisies in her long herbaceous borders, with Red Admiral
+butterflies among the myriad little clean blossoms, she said how odd
+it was that some people have the gift of attracting friends and others
+not; and what a strange thing it is that where one person has to
+toil to make a circle others are automatically surrounded by nice
+creatures; and asked me if I had any views as to the reason, but did
+not pause for the reply.
+
+It was a warm mellow day--almost the first of summer, according to
+one's senses, although nearly the last, according to the calendar--and
+Mrs. Brock was so happy to be in a monologue that I could enjoy
+the garden almost without interruption. For a two and a half years'
+existence it certainly was a triumph. Here and there a reddening apple
+shone. The hollyhocks must have been ten feet high.
+
+"Ah! here comes the dear Vicar," said Mrs. Brock suddenly, and, rising
+up from a rose which I was inhaling (and I wish that people would grow
+roses, as they used to do years ago, nose-high), I saw a black figure
+approaching.
+
+"He is such a charming man," Mrs. Brock continued, "and devoted to me."
+
+"Good afternoon," said the Vicar. "How exquisite those delphiniums
+are!" he added after introductions were complete; "such a delicate
+blue! I should not have intruded had I known you had a party"--he
+waved his hand towards the single tennis-court, around which the
+wistful racquet-bearers were now (as it seemed) some thousands strong,
+"but it is always a pleasure"--he turned to me--"to be able to walk
+in this paradise on a fine day and appreciate its colour and its
+fragrance. I find Mrs. Brock so valuable a parochial counsellor too."
+
+"I think," I said, not in the least unwilling to be tactful, "I will
+see what the rest of our party are doing."
+
+"Oh, no," said the Vicar; "please don't let me drive you away. As a
+matter of fact, since there are so many here I won't stay myself. But
+I wonder," he addressed Mrs. Brock, "as I am here, if I might use your
+telephone for a moment?"
+
+"Of course," said she.
+
+"Thank you so much," he replied; "yes, I know where it is," and with
+a genial and courtly salutation he moved off in the direction of the
+house.
+
+"Such a true neighbour!" said Mrs. Brock. "Ah! and here is another,"
+she went on. And along the same path, where the Michaelmas daisies
+were thickest, I saw a massive woman in white, like a ship in full
+sail, bearing down upon us, defending her head from the gentle
+September sun with a red parasol. "This," Mrs. Brock hurriedly
+informed me, "is Lady Cranstone, who lives in the house with the green
+shutters at the end of the village. Such a dear person! She's always
+in and out. The widow of the famous scientist, you know."
+
+I didn't know; but what does it matter?
+
+By this time the dear person was within hailing distance, but she
+flew no signals of cordiality; her demeanour rather was austere
+and arrogant. Mrs. Brock hurried towards her to assist her to her
+moorings, and I was duly presented.
+
+"I didn't intend to come in again to-day," said Lady Cranstone,
+whose features still successfully failed to give to the stranger any
+indication of the benignity that, it was suggested, irradiated her
+being.
+
+"But you are always so welcome," said Mrs. Brock. "Lady Cranstone,"
+she continued to me, "is kindness itself. She makes all the difference
+between loneliness and--and content."
+
+Lady Cranstone picked a rose and pinned it in her monumental bosom. "I
+don't know that I had anything in particular to say," she remarked.
+"I chanced to be passing and I merely looked in; but since I am here
+perhaps you would allow me to use your telephone--"
+
+Mrs. Brock beamed her delighted acquiescence and the frigate sailed
+on. "You've no idea," said Mrs. Brock, "what a friendly crowd there is
+in these parts. I don't know how it is, but this little place of
+mine, modest though it is, and unassuming and unclever as I am, is
+positively the very centre of the district. It's like a club-house.
+How strange life is! What curious byways there are in human sympathy!"
+
+This being the kind of remark that is best replied to with an
+inarticulate murmur, I provided an inarticulate murmur; and I was
+about to make a further and more determined effort to get away when a
+maid-servant approached with a card.
+
+Mrs. Brock took it and read the name with a little cry of
+satisfaction. "Lord Risborough," she said to me. "At last! How nice
+of him to call. They live at Risborough Park, you know. I always said
+they would never condescend to dignify 'Sheltered End' with their
+presence; but I somehow knew they would." She purred a little. And
+then, "Where is his lordship?" she asked; but the girl's reply was
+rendered unnecessary by the nobleman himself, who advanced briskly
+upon Mrs. Brock, hat in hand.
+
+"I trust," he said, "that you will pardon the informality of this
+visit. Lady Risborough is so sorry not to have been able to call yet,
+but--but--Yes, I was wondering if you'd be so very kind as to do me
+a little favour? The fact is, our telephone is out of order--most
+annoying--and I wondered if you would let me use yours. I hear that
+you have one."
+
+"I will take you to it," said Mrs. Brock.
+
+"Most kind, most kind!" his lordship was muttering.
+
+There was no difficulty in making my escape now.
+
+E. V. L.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "I DO HOPE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO COME TO THE MOTHERS'
+WELFARE MEETING ON WEDNESDAY. WE'VE PERSUADED A FAMOUS CHEF TO COME
+AND GIVE US A LECTURE ON 'THE DECAY OF COOKERY.' IT SHOULD BE MOST
+HELPFUL."
+
+"NOT TO ME, MUM. I ALLUS GIVES MINE TO THE PIGS WHEN IT GETS THAT
+FAR."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Mr. Punch desires to express his sincere regret for an injustice done,
+though without malice, to the Publishers (Messrs. SWEET AND MAXWELL)
+and the Editor of _Williams' Real Property_, in an article that
+appeared in the issue of August 18th, under the title, "Blewitt on
+Real Property." The new edition of _Williams' Real Property_ contains
+a large amount of fresh material and represents considerable labour
+spent over the careful revision of the previous edition.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "At 1 a.m., uninterrupted rifle fire and bomb explosions
+ were audible. It is reported that a French officer was then
+ addressing the crowd." _Times of Malaya_.
+
+Our old sergeant-major must look to his laurels.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE PEERLESS PROVINCIAL.
+
+ [A London paper learns from a West End tailor that many people
+ in the North and Midlands now achieve a higher standard of
+ dress than the "man about town."]
+
+ If perchance you would gaze upon those whose array's
+ Of impeccable texture and cut,
+ It is futile to go to Pall Mall or the Row,
+ Now the haunt of the second-rate nut;
+ Take a train (G.N.R.), for example, as far
+ As Cleckheaton or Cleethorpes-on-Sea,
+ Where each male that you meet, from his head to his feet,
+ Follows Fashion's most recent decree.
+
+ A legitimate claim to sartorial fame
+ Can be made by the locals at Leek,
+ Whose apparel is apt to be ruthlessly scrapped
+ After having been worn for a week;
+ Trousers bag at the knees in no town on the Tees,
+ And the Londoner has to admit
+ That he cannot compete against Bootle's _élite_,
+ And that Percy of Pudsey is IT.
+
+ Wigan's well in the van, for her sons to a man
+ Are the ultimate word in cravats
+ And are said to outdo even Cheadle and Crewe
+ In the matter of collars and spats;
+ But the pick of the lot is the privileged spot
+ Where the smart set, the quite _comme il faut_,
+ Have a mentor and guide who is famed far and wide
+ As Bertie the Bridlington Beau.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE PASSING OF ALFRED.
+
+Alfred is dead and with him has gone John's last efforts at making and
+training pets. It has simply been one disappointment after another.
+There was Charles the monkey. Charles could write his own name with
+a pen and digest the creamiest shaving-stick without making a lather.
+There was Joey, the billy-goat, such an entertaining fellow, who
+could pick up and set down anything with his horns from a basket to a
+dustman. And then there was Livo--immortal Livo. There never was such
+a down-at-heel and unscrupulous young ruffian of a mongrel terrier
+as Livo, nor one that more completely convinced people that he was a
+gentleman of blood and a pure-souled spiritualist.
+
+Of course there were heaps of other pets as well, but just as they
+seemed about to reach that stage of human intelligence so earnestly
+desired by their young master they all suddenly died, even as Alfred,
+the last of a long list, gave up the ghost yesterday.
+
+Alfred was a trout. Not your ordinary fly-jumping kind of trout,
+because there is never anything ordinary about John's pets. Alfred,
+for instance, had not lived in water for three months. He simply had
+no use for the stuff, and, as for jumping at a fly, his nerves were
+far too good for that sort of thing.
+
+His attachment to John was complete. He would take food from no one
+else and the presence of his eight-year-old master in the long grass
+was sufficient to bring him erect on his tail, where he would wag his
+fins and make strange noises in cordial welcome. In many respects he
+was the most superior pet John has ever had. He could affect boredom
+and his exhibition of the glad eye was considered by John's eldest
+sister to be positively deadly. It is, in fact, true to say that his
+keen desire to adopt as many human habits as possible often led us to
+mistake him for one of ourselves.
+
+John, however, was not quite satisfied with his pupil until one bright
+morning last week when Alfred displayed the first signs of having
+acquired the Directional Wriggle. Strange as it may sound, this very
+human trout actually wriggled after John for a distance of five yards.
+Three days later he pursued his master to the village post-office and
+beat him by a short gill.
+
+Yesterday, however, Alfred excelled himself. John had left early for
+the stream, and being in a hurry took advantage of the thin plank
+crossing. Now the plank is very slippery and had been placed over the
+spot where the stream is deepest. John crossed it carefully enough,
+but looking back for a second he suddenly noticed that Alfred was
+following him. Before he could raise his voice in protest the trout
+had mounted the plank and was wriggling across it. Then, horror
+of horrors! in the middle of the plank the wretched fish suddenly
+lurched, lost its footing, plunged into the water and was drowned.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+FLOWERS' NAMES.
+
+WHAT THE FAIRIES WEAR.
+
+ If only you walk with an open ear
+ And watch with an open eye,
+ There's wonderful magic to see and hear
+ By silently passing by;
+ In meadows and ditches, here and there,
+ You'll find the clothes that the fairies wear.
+
+ You can see each golden and silvery frock
+ In Lady's Mantle and Ladysmock;
+ There's Lady's Garter (which, I suppose,
+ They wear with the cowslips called Hose-in-hose);
+ The solemn fairies who ride on owls
+ Shroud their faces with Monkswood cowls;
+ And there's other things besides fairy dresses--
+ There's Lady's Mirror and Lady's Tresses.
+
+ Bachelors' Buttons must be for elves
+ Who have to do up their clothes themselves;
+ And the tailor fairies use Fairy Shears,
+ Long cutting-grasses that grow by meres;
+ And they mend their things with the Spider-stitches,
+ Faint white flowers that you find in ditches,
+ And Shepherd's Needle, which you'll see plain
+ In every meadow and field and lane;
+ And when they've used them they grow again.
+
+ If only you walk with an open ear
+ And watch with an open eye,
+ There's wonderful secrets to see and hear
+ By silently passing by;
+ In meadows and ditches, here and there,
+ You'll find the clothes that the fairies wear;
+ And if you look when they think you've gone
+ Perhaps you'll see them trying them on.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "The whole of the United States is intensely interested in a
+ baseball scandal revealed a few days ago.
+
+ The Grand Judy, which is now investigating the charge, has
+ already indicted eight of the leading players."--_Evening
+ Paper_.
+
+Mr. Punch wishes his old consort more power to her elbow.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ROBBERY IN COURT.
+
+There would seem to be some need for watchfulness in our Courts of
+Justice lest the customs and privileges which to so great an extent
+have made them what they are should be allowed to lapse.
+
+A great sensation was caused throughout the legal profession the
+other day when it was reported in the Press that a witness, in giving
+evidence, made the following remark:--"It goes in one ear and out of
+the other. Perhaps that is because there is nothing to stop it." The
+report stated that laughter followed, and, if that was indeed the
+case, then we have no hesitation whatever in characterising it as a
+most unseemly outburst.
+
+If witnesses are to be permitted with impunity to snatch out of the
+Judge's mouth the jokes which naturally arise out of their evidence,
+our whole judicial system will be imperilled. In offering an
+explanation as to why "it goes in one ear and out of the other," the
+witness committed a grave breach of etiquette. That explanation, if
+made at all, should have been made by the Judge in the first place.
+Or if, after due opportunity had been given, his Lordship showed no
+desire to avail himself of the opening, then the privilege should have
+fallen to the examining counsel. If he in turn waived it, it should
+have been open to counsel on the other side to snap up the chance.
+
+We fail to understand how such a remark, coming from a witness, could
+have been allowed to pass without rebuke from the Judge or protest
+from the counsel, or some attempt at least to maintain order on the
+part of the usher.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE CHANTRY.
+
+ Grey dust lies on his battered face;
+ The glories of his shield are dim;
+ Half vanished are the words of grace
+ Beseeching pity and peace for him
+ Along the Purbeck rim.
+
+ His hands are folded palm to palm
+ (Some fingers lacking on the right),
+ And at his peakéd feet the calm
+ Old lion shows he fell in fight,
+ As best became a knight.
+
+ The ivy shakes its tattered leaves
+ Where once he saw the painted pane;
+ The brooding, scurrying spider weaves
+ Where cloth of damask dyed in grain
+ Will never hang again.
+
+ With missal propped upon his helm
+ For him no drowsy chantor pleads;
+ But blackbirds in the darkening elm
+ Sing plain-song, and the Abbey meads
+ Retell their daisy-beads.
+
+D. M. S.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Lady_. "AND WHY DID YOU LEAVE YOUR LAST SITUATION?"
+
+_Prospective Maid_. "WELL, THAT'S A BIT INQUISITIVE, AIN'T IT, MUM? I
+DIDN'T ASK YOU WHY YOUR LAST GIRL LEFT YOU."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
+
+I am as a rule very strongly against the form of pedantry that hastens
+to cry "imitation" whenever a new writer finds himself impelled to
+a theme of the same character as that already associated with an
+old-established practitioner. But in the case of _The Lost Horizon_
+(METHUEN) I find myself overwhelmed. Consciously or unconsciously Mr.
+G. COLBY BORLEY has produced a story that in matter and treatment is
+so palpably a reflection of JOSEPH CONRAD that the likeness simply
+refuses to be ignored. It is in its way a good story enough--an affair
+of adventure in South America and on the high seas, with a generous
+sufficiency of oaths and blood-letting; a tale moreover that gives
+evidence (in spite of that distressing echo) of being written by
+one who takes his craft with a becoming dignity of purpose. One
+peculiarity of the Master has not only been borrowed by Mr. BORLEY,
+but exaggerated to his own undoing: I mean the trick of introducing
+a character or group of characters so clogged and obscured by the
+adhesions of the uncommunicated past that not till this has been
+gradually flaked from them do they emerge as figures in whom it is
+possible to take an intelligent interest. In the present instance this
+process is delayed for more than half the book. As for the intrigue,
+that concerns a group of cut-throat Europeans, who, having been
+ruinously involved in a South American revolution, are now further
+plunged into the plots of a scoundrelly African magnate and his
+conspiratorial gang. For myself, I parted from them all with a feeling
+of regret that they had not explained themselves earlier as the
+entertaining villains that they turned out to be.
+
+_Manhood End_ (HURST AND BLACKETT) is the title, not very cheery, that
+Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY has given to her latest novel, a simple and quite
+human story of country vicarage life, told sympathetically, but in
+too many words for so slight a theme. The publishers are at the
+wholly superfluous pains of urging you as a preliminary to read the
+"turn-over of cover." Don't! All you will find there is a synopsis
+of the plot, just sufficient to destroy the slender thread of your
+interest in its development. And I must record a protest against the
+entirely unneeded Prologue, in which total strangers sit round at
+a churchyard picnic on the graves of the real protagonists, and
+speculate as to their history. The tale itself is placed in Sussex
+(why this invidious partiality of our novelists?), the actors being
+for the most part clerical. The main interest is centred in the
+matrimonial trials of the _Rev. Frederick Rainbird_, whose bride,
+having married him in haste, repented at leisure, eloped with the
+promising brother of a neighbouring parson, repented more, returned
+to domesticity, ran away again, and so on, _da capo_. Perhaps really
+these simple but not short annals have a flavour that I have failed
+to convey. Mrs. DUDENEY writes easily, but should avoid the snares
+of originality. To say of her heroine's morning appearance at the
+breakfast table, that she "stood in the tangle of a delicious coffee
+smell," may convey an impression, but at a ruinous expense of style.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_Michael Winter_, hero of _The Black Knight_ (HUTCHINSON), by Mrs.
+ALFRED SIDGWICK and CROSBIE GARSTIN, had led a nice easy life till
+his father's nefarious schemes crashed, bringing down in a common ruin
+half the small investors in the country. Left penniless, he changes
+his disgraced name and goes out to Canada to make good. There, on the
+prairies, he puts in some hard honest work. But, in his haste to be
+rich, the _Black Knight_, as they do in chess, after moving straight,
+moved obliquely. In order to make a coup out of a Wall Street cinch he
+helped himself to the money of the bank of which he was cashier. Other
+people who shall be nameless have done this sort of thing before,
+and, after returning the "borrowed" cash, have enjoyed a stainless
+prosperity. But _Michael_, through a motor-car accident, just failed
+to put it back in time, and had to do two years. But he had made a
+fortune, and on emerging from prison returned to Europe to enjoy
+it. There he rescues an innocent English girl from a shady Parisian
+environment and marries her. By chance she learns the secret of the
+source of his wealth and leaves him. In order to appease her scruples
+and recover her he signs away his goods for the benefit of his
+father's creditors. What might have been a too sugary conclusion is
+saved by a pleasant touch of corrective irony in the very last line,
+where his wife expresses a very human satisfaction on finding that her
+best necklace was not included in the noble sacrifice. I hope I shall
+not be suspected of flattering Mr. Punch's "PATLANDER" if I admire
+the excellence of the Canadian section, obviously contributed by Mr.
+CROSBIE GARSTIN, who has knocked about most of the world marked red on
+the maps. Here his humour and vitality are at their keenest. The rest
+of a well-told tale I attribute to Mrs. ALFRED SIDGWICK, with the
+exception of a pugilistic episode, for which I imagine that the male
+fist was called in to supplement her proper inexperience.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "MY DEAR, I _FELT_ I OUGHT NEVER TO HAVE TAKEN THE
+HOLIDAY. SCARCELY HAD I SET FOOT IN MY APARTMENTS WHEN I WAS HANDED A
+TELEGRAM FROM SARAH:--'PARROT LAID AN EGG. WIRE INSTRUCTIONS.'"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I do believe that I have caught a detective napping; a real private
+detective, one of the great infallibles of fiction. Mr. J. S.
+FLETCHER'S _Exterior to the Evidence_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is one of
+those thrills in which any of the characters might have committed the
+murder and there is every reason, at times, to suspect that they have
+all had a hand in it. Over the moorland there ran a path, and at
+a spot known as Black Scar it came perilously near the edge of a
+forty-foot drop, with rocks at the bottom. Over this precipice
+went _Sir Cheville Stanbury_ at midnight, a very odd circumstance
+considering his life-long familiarity with the path. _Weathershaw_,
+the great detective called in to investigate the matter on behalf of
+one of the suspects, took a line of his own and eventually hit upon
+someone you and I would never have thought of. We have this excuse,
+that we had no idea of his existence until he was hit upon; but no
+more had _Weathershaw_. Now I am not going to give away the secret
+of this enticing affair, but I must dispute the detective's
+identification, on the last page but one, of the man responsible for
+_Sir Cheville's_ death. If you compare the statement of fact on page
+301, seven lines from the bottom, which corroborates that on page
+279, also seven lines from the bottom, with _Weathershaw's_ dramatic
+accusation, you will understand what I mean and you will be left
+in considerable doubt (as I was) of what the author means. Does he
+suggest that _Sir Cheville_ was never murdered at all? After so much
+excitement that would be a sad pity.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The publishers of _The Amorous Cheat_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) generously
+label it "an enthralling story of domestic and stage life." To which
+my comment must be, that the domesticity supplied by the hero's family
+and their quite uninteresting hesitations between town and suburban
+residence are entirely nebulous and illusive, that the stage as
+background has no significance one way or other, but that the
+impropriety upon which (I must say frankly) the appeal of the book
+seems to depend is given without stint, in a measure that certainly
+may, for some readers, justify the publishers' epithet. You will
+understand therefore that I experience a little natural hesitation
+about suggesting the intrigue. It is certainly of the simplest--a mere
+question as to whether _Edward_ and _Vivian_, casual acquaintances
+of a restaurant, shall or shall not spend a sequence of week-ends
+together. The lady is described as on the stage, but she might as well
+belong to a guild of art-needlework. _Edward_ is the only question of
+importance, and the week-ends; if you ponder the significance of the
+title you can probably guess the rest. To be honest I ought to add
+that Mr. BASIL CREIGHTON wields an easy-flowing pen, and that at least
+one chapter certainly is wickedly entertaining, in the style of what
+we used to call "Continental" humour. To sum up, not a novel
+for family reading or for the fastidious. The others may even be
+enthralled.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_The Diary of a Sportsman Naturalist in India_ (LANE) contains an
+excellent collection of sporting anecdotes, and dip where you may you
+will find none of them trivial or tiresome. Mr. E. P. STEBBING states
+that his purpose in selecting material from his note-books was "to
+emphasize the necessity which exists of affording protection to
+the game and other animals of India," and, shy as some of us are of
+purposeful books, there is no reason to be scared by this one. In
+the first place Mr. STEBBING's purpose is one which will generally
+be commended, and in the second he achieves it in an absolutely
+unobtrusive manner. To sportsmen, and especially to those who have
+enjoyed the good fortune of shooting in India, this volume will be
+extremely welcome. The only cumbrous thing about it is its title. Add
+that Mr. STEBBING is as profuse in his illustrations as he is happy in
+his choice of subjects.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume
+159, October 13, 1920, by Various
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159,
+October 13, 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, October 13, 1920
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: September 26, 2006 [EBook #19382]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephanie Maschek, Jonathan Ingram and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+ <h1>PUNCH,<br />
+ OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+ <h2>Vol. 159.</h2>
+ <hr class="full" />
+
+ <h2>October 13, 1920.</h2>
+ <hr class="full" />
+
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>[pg 269]</span>
+<h2><b>CHARIVARIA.</b></h2>
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Riazanov</span>, the successor to <span class="sc">Kameneff</span>,
+is now residing in Grosvenor
+Street. Several readers have written
+to ask us how his name is pronounced.
+Wrongly, we believe, in nine cases out
+of ten.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>We have been given to understand
+that that versatile pair, the <span class="sc">Two Bobs</span>,
+are contemplating a tour of the music-halls
+in the mining district, where they
+are sure to be given a rousing reception.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>According to <i>The Evening News</i> two
+miners recently played a quoit match for
+a hundred pounds. In all probability
+they are now agitating for the two shillings'
+increase to enable
+them to have a little side
+bet.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"We cannot choose
+how we will be born,"
+says a medical writer.
+No; some are born poor
+and others are born into
+a miner's family.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"Where stands England
+to-day?" we are
+asked. While travelling
+in the Tube we have
+often thought that most
+of it was standing on
+our feet.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"With the outgoing
+of September we face
+once more the month of
+October, with its falling
+leaves and autumn gales,"
+states a writer in a daily
+paper. This, we understand, is according
+to precedent.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A Glamorgan collier, summoned for
+income-tax, stated that he earned eleven
+pounds a week and wanted every penny
+of it. It is said that he is saving up to
+buy a strike of his own.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A live frog is reported to have been
+found in a coal seam at a Monmouthshire
+colliery. It seems to have been
+greatly concerned at having missed the
+previous strike ballot.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>With reference to Mr. <span class="sc">Spender's</span> interview
+with Mr. <span class="sc">Lloyd George</span> we regret
+that no mention is made of the exact
+date when the <span class="sc">Prime Minister</span> will
+declare the New World open.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Since it has been so well advertised
+we understand that the banned poster,
+"The Unknown," is shortly to be renamed
+"The Very Well Known."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>The <span class="sc">ex-Kaiser</span> is reported to have
+made his will. He has bequeathed his
+trial to his youngest grandson.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>It is proposed to make Poole a first-class
+port, at a cost of £3,750,000. We
+cannot help thinking that hidden away
+in some Government office is a man
+who could do it at treble the cost.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A London firm of pastrycooks have
+purchased two obsolete tanks from the
+Disposal Boards. They are said to
+make excellent utensils for flattening
+pancakes.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A dainty little invention has just been
+tried by the Bolshevists, which consists
+of a method whereby boiling water from
+the ship's boiler can be pumped on to
+sailors who do not obey their officers.
+It is said to be just the thing to keep
+their minds off the idea of mutiny.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"I have all the qualifications for a
+post in some Government office," writes
+an Unemployed Ex-Soldier in a contemporary.
+It is to be hoped that this
+drawback will be overlooked if his other
+disqualifications are satisfactory.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Washable hats for boys is one of the
+new inventions at the Leather and Shoe
+Trade Exhibition. Small boys are now
+going about in fear that the next discovery
+will be a washable neck.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Six bandits entered the Central Café,
+New York, the other day and took one
+thousand pounds from the diners. The
+ease with which they did it suggests
+that they were mistaken for waiters.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A plumber in Aberdeen is giving lessons
+to a women's class in knitting. It
+is said that his treatise on How to
+Crochet a Burst Bath-Pipe is likely to
+become a standard work.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>In taking away a safe containing six
+thousand pounds from a Fenchurch
+Street office, burglars broke down a door
+with a thick glass panel. The profession
+is of the opinion that the blame
+for this lies with the firm. They had
+locked the door.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><i>The Daily Chronicle</i> informs us that
+a New York couple who were engaged
+in 1868 have just been married. But
+surely the wonder is that they were
+not married long before.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A woman has told the
+medical officer of Burnham
+that rats so like the
+poison being used that
+they come out of their
+holes for it while it is
+being put down. We
+always make our rats
+stand up and beg for it.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A domestic servant
+was recently blown out
+of her mistress's house
+through the too liberal
+use of paraffin whilst
+lighting fires. Luckily,
+however, it was her day
+out, so no complications
+ensued.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>On being asked his recipe
+for keeping young, a
+well-known physician refused
+to reply. In view
+of the increasing number
+of precocious authors, the question
+again arises, "Should a doctor tell?"</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p><i>The Daily Express</i> states that there
+is "very little demand for champagne
+to-day." We fancy this is due to the
+fact that a number of people are saving
+up to buy coffee at Messrs. <span class="sc">Lyons'</span>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+ <a href="images/269.png"><img width="100%" src="images/269.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<h3>THE MORNING TOILET.</h3>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">Oh, look, Mummy! There's Wilfred doing his hair from memory.</span>"</p>
+ </div>
+<hr />
+
+<h3><b>"The Passionate Spectator."</b></h3>
+
+<p>We are asked to say that the above
+title of a book written by Miss <span class="sc">Jane
+Burr</span> and published by Messrs. <span class="sc">Duckworth</span>
+(it is described on the wrapper
+as "an entirely unconventional novel
+founded on original and ultra-modern
+views concerning life and marriage")
+has nothing to do with our respected
+contemporary.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="sc">Government's Striking Attitude.
+Waiting till the Car Jumbs</span>?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Nigerian Pioneer.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Personally we always try to get out
+when this seems to be imminent.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>[pg 270]</span>
+
+<h2><b>TO OUR PLAY-MAKERS.</b></h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+[<i>The Daisy</i> and <i>The Crossing</i>, which both
+dealt with the life after death, have come to
+an untimely end; and, in deference to public
+feeling, the heroine of <i>Every Woman's Privilege</i>
+has been furnished with a fresh <i>fiancé</i>.]
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>When in my stall at eve I sit</p>
+<p class="i2">(And these remarks would still apply,</p>
+<p class="i2">Perhaps with greater force, were I</p>
+<p>Accommodated in the Pit)&mdash;</p>
+<p>Worn with the long day's dusty strife,</p>
+<p class="i2">I ask a brief surcease of gloom;</p>
+<p>I want a mirror held to life,</p>
+<p class="i2">But not the life beyond the tomb.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The views of parties who have "crossed"</p>
+<p class="i2">(Meaning to Jordan's further shore),</p>
+<p class="i2">Those, as they say, who've "gone before,"</p>
+<p>But not (unhappily) been "lost"&mdash;</p>
+<p>They make me ill; they decompose</p>
+<p class="i2">My vital essence at its fount</p>
+<p>(Excepting <span class="sc">Barrie's</span> <i>Mary Rose</i>,</p>
+<p class="i2">But then, of course, he doesn't count).</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Give me the life that quick men lead,</p>
+<p class="i2">Of which I know the hopes and fears</p>
+<p class="i2">Better than those of shadier spheres;</p>
+<p>And, if at first you don't succeed,</p>
+<p>If you should hear the critics croak,</p>
+<p class="i2">"As to your heroine's choice, you err,"</p>
+<p>Just hand her to the other bloke&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">That's what they did with <span class="sc">Marie Löhr</span>.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>So shall creative art suggest</p>
+<p class="i2">A world where people may revise</p>
+<p class="i2">Their silly past, and realise</p>
+<p>Those second thoughts which are the best;</p>
+<p>Where, having seen the larger light,</p>
+<p class="i2">A perfect liberty to hedge</p>
+<p>And swap the wrong man for the right</p>
+<p class="i2">Is "Every Woman's Privilege."</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>O. S.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><b>YET ONE MORE PLAN FOR IRELAND.</b></h2>
+
+<p>Feeling rather lonely because almost
+everybody had entered for the great
+Irish Problem Competition in the morning
+and evening press except myself, I
+sat down and wrote the following solution,
+which I posted immediately to the
+Editors of <i>The Times</i> and of <i>The Westminster
+Gazette</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">Sir</span>"&mdash;I began indignantly, for I
+noticed all the best competitors begin
+like that. In these Bolshevistic days I
+should have preferred of course to have
+started off with "Comrade" or "Brother,"
+or even, since I was writing from the
+heart of the country, have opened with
+"Eh bor," as people do in dialect novels,
+but, fearing I might be disqualified, I
+began, as I say, "Sir," and went on,
+much as the other statesmen did:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In all the lengthy annals of this
+Government, vacillation between weakness
+and tyranny has never proved so
+disastrous as it is proving in Ireland to-day,
+and the conduct of that unhappy
+country's affairs is now plunged in a
+chaos so profoundly chaotic that it has
+become a gross misuse of language to
+call them affairs at all. Out of all this
+welter and confusion two salient facts
+are seen to emerge:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"(1) No two Englishmen are agreed
+upon a settlement that will at the same
+time satisfy the just aspirations of Ireland
+and preserve the integrity of the
+British Empire.</p>
+
+<p>"(2) No two Irishmen are either.</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time the number of sane
+and carefully considered plans for the
+government of Ireland was never so
+great as it is to-day. When will our
+incompetent Cabinet perceive that the
+only way of warding off the stain of
+perfidy which dogs their footsteps and
+threatens to overwhelm them is to make
+use of all these plans? I put aside for
+the moment the most violent proposals
+of the extremists on either side, such as
+that of the annexation of England by the
+Sinn Fein Empire and that of the deportation
+of all Irishmen to the Andaman
+Islands and the re-colonisation of the
+country with correspondents to the daily
+press; but between these two extremes
+there surely lie innumerable solutions
+which both can and ought to be employed.
+I will only name here a few
+of them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">Asquith</span> autonomy.</p>
+<p>Dominion Home Rule.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Dunraven</span> autonomy.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Grey</span> autonomy.</p>
+<p>Red autonomy.</p>
+<p>Government by Dhail Eireann.</p>
+<p>Government by Dhail Ymaill.</p>
+<p>Administration by the L. C. C.</p>
+<p>Clan warfare.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>"And there are infinite shades and
+variations of all these.</p>
+
+<p>"Every one of the policies I have
+named, and as many more as possible,
+should now be adopted at once, one
+after the other, I suggest, for quarterly
+periods and in alphabetical order.</p>
+
+<p>"But let there be no mistake. They
+must be strictly enforced. It must be
+impossible for Irishmen to come to
+England in the future and say to her,
+as they have so often said in the past,
+'You made us promises which, when
+we leant on them, proved a broken
+reed and turned to dust and ashes in
+our mouths.'</p>
+
+<p>"One of the bitterest reproaches that
+is hurled, and hurled justly, at British
+maladministration is that through all
+the seeming variations of misgovernment
+there has been in fact no change.
+Dublin Castle remains where it did.
+This must be altered at once. <i>The site of
+Dublin Castle must be moved every three
+months.</i> There must be infinite change,
+and it must be infinitely thorough and
+infinitely systematic, so that, side by
+side with the continuous grievances of
+all dissatisfied parties, will be the certain
+assurance that those grievances
+will in strict rotation be remedied.</p>
+
+<p>"The objection will, of course, be
+raised that these continual changes
+of government will involve a certain
+amount of disorder; that one system
+will scarcely be working before it is
+superseded by another; that the rapid
+alterations in the <i>personnel</i> of the judicature,
+civil service and police will be
+inconvenient; that everything, in fact,
+will be in a muddle. But by how much
+is not well-organised muddle to be preferred
+to unsystematic anarchy? And
+as each type of government recurs in
+due course will it not be found to work
+more simply and satisfactorily?</p>
+
+<p>"To those who shrug their shoulders
+and say that a series of kaleidoscopic
+changes in Irish administration would
+never be approved by the good sense
+of the British electorate I can only
+urge that it is precisely this attitude
+of intolerance towards and ignorance
+of Irish psychology which has rendered
+our behaviour to Ireland for so many
+centuries a by-word not only throughout
+Europe but the whole civilised world
+and the United States of America.</p>
+
+<p>"I am, Sir, yours, etc."</p>
+
+<p>Through some accident or other,
+either because I have not followed
+exactly the prescribed rules of the competition,
+such as writing on one side of
+the paper only, or addressing it from
+the National Liberal Club, or obtaining
+the signature of five witnesses, my solution
+has not yet appeared in <i>The Times</i>
+or in <i>The Westminster Gazette</i> either.
+Feeling it a pity, however, that any
+helpful suggestion should be lost at a
+time when never in the annals of Irish
+misgovernment has vacillation vacillated
+so vacillatingly as it does to-day,
+I have repeated my strong but simple
+proposals here.</p>
+
+<p>K.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Clever forgeries of Fisher notes are in
+circulation in St. Pancras.</p>
+
+<p>Last night, during the busy period, a number
+of publications in the Kentish Town district
+were victimised."&mdash;<i>Evening Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We had no idea that Kentish Town
+was such a literary centre.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Even Paris seems willing this season to
+add a few inches to the length of skirts, and
+six to eight inches is becoming the accepted
+length for street wear. This is an excellent
+length, not so long as to endanger the chic of
+the costume, nor so short as to be unbecoming
+in either sense of the word."&mdash;<i>Fashion Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We refrain from any speculations as to
+the previous length of these skirts before
+the "few inches" were added.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>[pg 271]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;">
+ <a href="images/271.png"><img width="100%" src="images/271.png" alt="" /></a>
+<h3>THE POLISH HUG.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Bolshevist.</span> "YOUR ATTITUDE CONVINCES ME, KAMERAD, THAT WE WERE MEANT
+TO BE FRIENDS."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>[pg 272]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+ <a href="images/272.png"><img width="100%" src="images/272.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p><i>Willium</i> (<i>having at critical stage in four-handed
+game undertaken to spot the red</i>). "<span class="sc">'Tis
+all over, Gearge&mdash;my hand be stuck
+in the pockut.</span>"</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><b>ELIZABETH OUTWITTED.</b></h2>
+
+<p>"An' when I dies they give me
+fifteen pounds on the nail an' no
+waitin'," said Elizabeth triumphantly,
+as she explained her latest insurance
+scheme.</p>
+
+<p>"On what nail?" I asked distrustfully.
+I could not understand why
+Elizabeth felt justified in paying sixpence
+per week for a benefit fraught
+with so little ultimate joy to herself.
+But she is the sort of girl that can
+never resist the back-door tout. She
+is constantly being persuaded to buy
+something for which she pays a small
+weekly sum. This is entered in a book,
+and the only conditions are that she
+must continue paying that sum for the
+rest of her natural lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>On these lines Elizabeth has "put
+in" for many articles in the course of
+her chequered career. She has had
+fleeting possession of a steel engraving
+of <span class="sc">Queen Victoria</span>, a watch that never
+would go&mdash;until her payments ceased&mdash;a
+sewing-machine (treadle), a set of
+vases and a marble timepiece. The
+timepiece, she explained, was destined
+for "the bottom drawer," which she
+had begun to furnish from the moment
+a young man first inquired which was
+her night out.</p>
+
+<p>As all these things were taken from
+her directly her payments fell off, I
+thought I had better give her the
+benefit of my ripe judgment. "I
+shouldn't buy anything on the instalment
+plan, if I were you," I advised.
+"Some people seem to be made for the
+system, but you are not one of them."</p>
+
+<p>"But I 'aven't told you wot I'm
+buyin' now," she said excitedly, putting
+a plate on the rack as she spoke. I
+ought to say she meant to put it on
+the rack; that it fell two inches short
+wasn't Elizabeth's fault.</p>
+
+<p>"It was cracked afore," she murmured
+mechanically as she gathered up
+the fragments. "Yes, I pays a shillin'
+a week an' I gets a grammerfone."</p>
+
+<p>"A what?" I gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"A grammerfone&mdash;to play, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Where will it play?" I asked
+feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ere," she said, waving a comprehensive
+hand; "an' it won't 'arf liven
+the place up. My friend 'as 'ers goin'
+all day long."</p>
+
+<p>I stifled a moan of horror, for I am
+one of the elect few who loathe gramophones,
+even at their best and costliest.</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth," I cried, tears of anguish
+rising to my eyes, "let me implore you
+not to get one of those horr&mdash;I mean,
+not to be imposed on again."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got it," she announced. "I
+meantersay I've paid the first shillin'
+an' it's comin' to-morrow. I 'ave it a
+month on trial."</p>
+
+<p>The month certainly was a trial&mdash;for
+me. Ours is not one of those old-fashioned
+residences with thick walls
+that muffle sound, and where servants
+can be consigned to dwell in the bowels
+of the earth. Every noise which arises
+in the kitchen, from Elizabeth's badinage
+with the butcher's boy to the
+raucous grind of the knife-machine,
+echoes through the house <i>viâ</i> the study
+where I work.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, although Elizabeth kept the
+kitchen-door shut, I found myself compelled
+for one-half of the day to consider
+an insistent demand as to the ultimate
+destination of flies in the winter-time.
+The rest of the day the gramophone
+gave us <i>K-K-K-Katie</i>. (Elizabeth had
+only two records to begin with.)</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>[pg 273]</span>
+<p>I became unnerved. My work suffered.
+It began to trickle back to me
+accompanied by the regrets of editors;
+and to writers the regrets of editors
+are the most poignant in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was saved by the most
+up-to-date tout of the whole back-door
+tribe. He persuaded Elizabeth to go
+in for Spiritualism. Do not misunderstand
+me. You can be a Spiritualist
+and also keep a gramophone, but, if
+you are Elizabeth, you cannot keep
+the two running at the same time if
+you must pay a shilling per week for
+each. When she sought my opinion I
+strongly advised the séances, which I
+said were cheap at the price; indeed
+I thought they were when the gramophone
+departed.</p>
+
+<p>It was now Elizabeth's turn to become
+unnerved. She has a mind that
+is peculiarly open to impressions, and
+communion with the spirits unbalanced
+her. She justified her expenditure of
+a shilling weekly by placing the utmost
+faith in them.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'ad a message from them there
+spirits larst night," she informed me
+one day, "an' they tell me I must
+change my 'abitation."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" I asked,
+startled.</p>
+
+<p>"I put a message through, arskin'
+them when I should get a settled young
+man, an' they told me that the fates
+are agen me in my present dwellin',
+so if you'll please take my notice
+from&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I will not go through the sickening
+formula. Every housewife must have
+heard it several times at least in the
+past year or so. I accepted Elizabeth's
+resignation and began to concentrate
+on newspaper announcements. But I
+took an utter dislike to the spirits and
+listened with cold aloofness when Elizabeth
+began, "I was talkin' to the spirit
+of my young man larst night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know you had the spirit of
+any young man," I interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I 'ave. I mean Ned Akroyd,
+'oo was drownded."</p>
+
+<p>Now I have never believed in the
+alleged drowning of the said Ned. The
+news&mdash;conveyed to Elizabeth by his
+mate&mdash;that he had fallen from a ferry-boat
+near Eel Pie Island seemed unconvincing,
+especially as it happened shortly
+after Elizabeth had lent him fifteen-and-six.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'ad quite a long talk with 'im,"
+she went on. "Next time I'm goin' to
+arst 'im about the fifteen-and-six 'e
+borrowed, an' see if I can't get it back
+some'ow."</p>
+
+<p>How the spirit would have considered
+this proposition is still uncertain, for
+Elizabeth never returned to the séances.
+She came to me one day in a state of
+violent agitation. "I see Ned Akroyd
+when I was out larst night," she began,
+"an' would you believe it, 'e's no more
+dead than I am, the wretch!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, aren't you glad?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad, an' 'im with another girl an'
+pretendin' all the time not to see me!
+Men are 'ounds, that's what they are.
+An' I'll go to no more seeonces. They're
+a swindle."</p>
+
+<p>"They were wrong about telling you
+to change your habitation too, weren't
+they?" I suggested insinuatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Course they were." Suddenly her
+face brightened. "I'll be able to 'ave
+the grammerfone back now," she said.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>At the moment I am writing to the
+sounds of <i>K-K-K-Katie</i>, which, I fear, is
+giving me rather a syncopated style.
+But if the Editor is k-k-k-kind he will
+not banish me from <i>P-P-P-Punch</i> for
+this reason, as anyone can see my intentions
+are g-g-g-good.</p>
+
+<p>Stay! <i>K-K-K-Katie</i> has ceased and
+I can think lucidly. An inspiration has
+come to me. Has not Elizabeth in her
+time wrought havoc among my crockery?
+The hour is ripe for me to
+retaliate.</p>
+
+<p>To morrow at dawn I shall examine
+the gramophone records and&mdash;<i>they will
+come in two in my hands</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It will be the first time I have broken
+any record.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+<a href="images/273.png"><img width="100%" src="images/273.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p><i>Wife</i> (<i>to husband being bundled in as train moves off</i>). "<span class="sc">Did ye get return tickets?</span>"</p>
+<p><i>Husband.</i> "<span class="sc">Noa</span> (<i>puff</i>)&mdash;<span class="sc">didn't 'ave time.</span>"</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote>
+<h3>"MISUSE OF RESEARCH GRANTS.</h3>
+
+<p>By Professor &mdash;&mdash;, F.R.S."</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday Paper Poster.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We refuse to believe it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg 274]</span>
+
+<h2><b>THE CONSPIRATORS.</b></h2>
+
+<h3>III.</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="sc">My dear Charles</span>,&mdash;Essential to that
+millennium which our restless revolutionaries
+are after is your head on a
+charger and my head on a charger; provided
+both heads are present it may
+be the same charger for all they care.
+When you think of the importance
+which we of the detested middle classes
+attach to our heads and the regrettable
+violence we might exhibit towards whoever
+called at our houses to collect them,
+then it seems to me you must confess
+to a sneaking admiration for the bravery
+of the turbulent minority in attacking
+so big a problem.</p>
+
+<p>But when you get the inside details
+of their schemes you find that discretion
+is not only the better part but
+the whole of their valour. For arms
+you find incendiary speeches; for ammunition,
+viperish propaganda, and
+for epoch-making action you have
+nothing. In that "nothing" lies their
+main ingenuity and strong hope. If
+they can prevail on the masses to do
+nothing, at the right moment, and to
+go on doing nothing till there is nothing
+left, then, say they, they will have
+civilisation under; and if our heads
+don't fall off of their own accord
+then a thousand willing hands will be
+stretched forward to pull them off.</p>
+
+<p>You ask me how I know all this.
+Close the doors so that we cannot be
+overheard, and I will tell you. I buy
+their continental newspaper&mdash;"organ"
+they prefer to call it, being rather
+proud of the noise&mdash;and there I read
+all that I want to know. It costs a
+halfpenny a day, runs to six pages, is
+well printed and brightly composed and
+contains no advertisements. There is
+generally a picture in thick black lines
+in the centre of the first page. Blood
+being the easy thing for the printer to
+"feature," the picture generally deals
+with the cutting off of heads. If it
+refers to the past, you and I are cutting
+off the worker's head, severing from a
+fine muscular body a noble head with
+a halo to it. If it refers to the future,
+the worker is having our heads off,
+severing from a fat and uncontrolled
+corpus a most unpleasant excrescence
+in a very shiny top-hat.</p>
+
+<p>To run a daily newspaper of that
+"make-up," without advertisements
+and for subscribers of whom the larger
+number, like myself, omit to pay their
+half-penny, is not easy business. In
+fact it is not business at all. The
+question being raised as to where the
+money came from, the producers tried
+to allay our suspicion by making a great
+show of an appeal for help. The published
+results, which I give you in
+their English equivalent, were much
+as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table summary="" align="center" width="50%">
+<tr><td> </td><td valign="top">£ </td><td valign="top">s. </td><td valign="top"> d. </td></tr>
+<tr><td>B. de M. </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">6 </td><td valign="top"> 0 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>Z. X. </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">5 </td><td valign="top"> 0 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>Idealist </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">5 </td><td valign="top"> 0 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>U. W. K. </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">5 </td><td valign="top"> 0 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>A Frenchman who is ashamed of France </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">4 </td><td valign="top"> 6 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>Young Communist </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">4 </td><td valign="top"> 0 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>Three young Communists </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">3 </td><td valign="top"> 6 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>"Great Britain" (collection) </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">3 </td><td valign="top"> 3 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>Disgusted </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">2 </td><td valign="top"> 6 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>Association of Women Fighters for Justice</td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">2 </td><td valign="top"> 3 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>O. F. </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top">1 </td><td valign="top"> 0 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>Down with Capital </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top"> 9 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>One Who will stick at Nothing </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top"> </td><td valign="top"> 3 </td></tr>
+<tr><td> </td><td valign="top">&mdash;&mdash;</td><td valign="top">&mdash;&mdash;</td><td valign="top">&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td> </td><td valign="top"> 2 </td><td valign="top"> 3</td><td valign="top"> 0 </td></tr>
+<tr><td>Previous lists </td><td valign="top">14 </td><td valign="top"> 6</td><td valign="top"> 8-3/4</td></tr>
+<tr><td> </td><td valign="top">&mdash;&mdash;</td><td valign="top">&mdash;&mdash;</td><td valign="top">&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td> </td><td valign="top">£16 </td><td valign="top"> 9</td><td valign="top"> 8-3/4</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The grand total of sixteen pounds,
+nine shillings and eight-pence three-farthings
+shows a magnificent spirit,
+but wouldn't keep much more than a
+couple of square inches of the front
+page alive for more than one day.
+Reverting, then, to the more pressing
+question of the removal of our heads,
+who is paying for the operation?</p>
+
+<p>He is a heavy-built octopus sort of
+man of about forty-seven; a red cheery
+complexion, rather more fat than muscle,
+long grey hair tending to curl at
+the extremes, and followed about by a
+lady who acts as his secretary, calls
+him "Master" and adores the ground
+he walks on. They are married, but
+not, I should hasten to add, to each
+other; none of your dull orthodox practices
+for them. About his profile there
+is an undeniable something which
+makes his head a suggestive model for
+sculpture. It is framed in a large,
+white, soft silk collar, which falls gracefully
+over the lapels of the coat and is,
+I am told, of a mode much worn among
+the <i>élite</i> of the anarchist and atheist
+world.</p>
+
+<p>I've a friend here in the law-and-order
+business who thought that, having reported
+all the movements of this Master
+of the Black Arts, he might find it
+worth while to make his acquaintance
+in the flesh. Indirect enquiry elicited
+that the desire to get into touch was
+reciprocated, the attentions of the police
+being insufficient to satisfy his sense
+of importance. So the meeting was
+arranged, and I was allowed to come
+along too.</p>
+
+<p>We were received in great state in a
+special suite of the local hotel de luxe.
+The Lady Secretary was there, overflowing
+with "Masters" and "Sirs,"
+and obsessed by the fear that her idol
+might not do himself justice in our
+presence. A very touching instance of
+human devotion: the fifth instance in
+his case, I believe.</p>
+
+<p>This is the gentleman who finances
+the propaganda of destruction; we
+asked him if that was not so, and he
+answered, "Why, of course." Had we
+any fault to find with his protégé, the
+admirable halfpenny daily? We had
+noticed that its news was punctual and
+exact. Then of what did we complain?</p>
+
+<p>"Of a certain exaggeration in the
+leading articles," said I, rubbing the
+back of my neck and wondering how
+long it would be there to rub and I to
+rub it.</p>
+
+<p>"But what newspaper leaders are
+not exaggerated?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Your editors should not be paid to
+twist everything into an irritant," I
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Of which of your great English
+dailies is the editor not paid to twist,
+as you put it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>I knew that I had right on my side
+and he had not. But still somehow I
+seemed to be in the wrong all the way.</p>
+
+<p>So my friend took the matter in hand.
+He didn't argue. He just drew his chair
+up to the Master's and asked him to
+tell us all about himself, how he came
+by his great ideals, what was the future
+of the world as he foresaw it and how
+he meant to arrange the universe when
+at length he took over?</p>
+
+<p>The Master, gently smiling his appreciation
+of this recognition of his
+Ego, gave voice.</p>
+
+<p>To the lady it was all, of course,
+above criticism: sublime, adorable. To
+me the frankness of it and the impudence
+of it was, I confess, amusing.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>The world is out of joint; how good 'twill be</p>
+<p>When Heaven is sacked and leaves the job to me!</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>An agreeable, if wrong-headed, crank,
+was my summary.</p>
+
+<p>And this or something like it was my
+friend's:&mdash;"b. U.S.A. of Eng. parents,
+9.5.78; tinned meat business, Chicago;
+6 months' h.l. for frauds in connection
+with packing; went to Mexico, but left
+to avoid prosecution for similar frauds
+on larger scale; prison in Belgium,
+France and England in connection
+with illegal dealings in rifles (? for
+Germany); apparently liable to more
+prison in U.S.A. for crime unknown, if
+returns there; won't say where he gets
+his money from, but doesn't seriously
+pretend it is his own."</p>
+
+<p>And when I came to go back over
+the Master's two hours' chat about
+himself, those are about the facts it all
+boiled down to.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>Yours ever, <span class="sc">Henry</span>.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p style="text-align:center;text-indent:0;">(<i>To be continued.</i>)</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"£40.&mdash;Handsome Black Silk Golf Goat
+(large size)."&mdash;<i>Irish Paper</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The very thing for the butting-green.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>[pg 275]</span>
+
+<h2><b>NIL DESPERANDUM</b>.</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+<a href="images/287-1.png"><img width="100%" src="images/287-1.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>The Amateur Championship</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Mr. Pott-Hunter, who failed to survive the first round</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+<a href="images/287-2.png"><img width="100%" src="images/287-2.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>The East of France Championship</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Mr. Pott-Hunter in fatal difficulties in the second round</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+<a href="images/287-3.png"><img width="100%" src="images/287-3.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>The Championship of Central Switzerland</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Mr. Pott-Hunter, defeated in the third round</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+<a href="images/287-4.png"><img width="100%" src="images/287-4.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>The Sicilian Championship</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Mr. Pott-Hunter, who reached the fourth round</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+<a href="images/287-5.png"><img width="100%" src="images/287-5.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>The Championship of Mozambique</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Mr. Pott-Hunter, a fifth round victim</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+<a href="images/287-6.png"><img width="100%" src="images/287-6.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>The Spitzbergen Championship</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Mr. Pott-Hunter, one of the semi-finalists</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+<a href="images/287-7.png"><img width="100%" src="images/287-7.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>The Championship of Upper Senegal</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Mr. Pott-Hunter, beaten in the final by Mr. Hunt-Pott</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+<a href="images/287-8.png"><img width="100%" src="images/287-8.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>The Tierra del Fuego Championship</i>.</p>
+<p><span class="sc">The winner, Mr. Pott-Hunter</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>[pg 276]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+<a href="images/276.png"><img width="100%" src="images/276.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p>"<span class="sc">Never you mind if 'e did say you'd got a neck
+like a camel. 'Tain't nearly as long as all that</span>."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<h2><b>THE KORBAN BATH</b>.</h2>
+
+<p>[<i>Korban</i>&mdash;"It is a gift"&mdash;Hebrew (or some
+such language).]</p>
+
+<p>With some reluctance I return to
+the subject of baths. I went into the
+matter of bathrooms pretty carefully a
+few months ago, but since I have been
+in this hotel I see that there are one
+or two aspects of hotel bathing which
+still require attention.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, there is the question
+of the Korban or free bath. It is, of
+course, a scandal that a bath should be
+an extra, and an eighteen-penny one at
+that. After all, what is the bathroom
+for? We are not charged extra for
+smoking in the smoking-room or
+drawing in the drawing-room; why
+should we be bled for bathing in
+the bathroom? At the same time
+this practice does provide the
+visitor with the wholesome sport
+of Korban bathing. The object of
+the game is, of course, to have as
+many baths as possible which are
+not put down in your bill; and
+many are the stratagems which
+are employed.</p>
+
+<p>The true sportsman attempts
+the feat just before dinner, because
+at that time there are sentries
+posted in every corridor. Ostensibly
+they are maids waiting to
+assist any lady who has a crisis
+while dressing, but no real pretence
+is made that they are there
+for any other purpose than to
+charge you for as many baths as
+possible. On my corridor there
+is a post of no fewer than three
+sentries, and it is extremely difficult
+to evade them. The only
+thing to do is to get to know three
+nice ladies on the same floor and
+arrange for them to have a dressing
+crisis simultaneously and go
+on having it for about a quarter-of-an-hour.</p>
+
+<p>This needs a good deal of organisation.
+However smoothly the operation
+begins, one of the dressing crises
+nearly always collapses too soon, and
+the sentry catches you on your return
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>For the lady visitor the problem is
+comparatively simple. I should mention
+that it is a perfectly legitimate
+man&oelig;uvre to get your bath put down
+to somebody else if you can do it; and
+the crack lady-player usually wraps
+herself in an unobtrusive bath-wrap,
+shrouds her head, modestly conceals
+her face, slips into a friend's room to
+borrow some Crème-Limon and, after
+an interval, rushes noisily out of the
+friend's room to her bath, which, with
+any luck, is charged to her friend's
+account.</p>
+
+<p>The beginner at the game contents
+himself with less complicated ruses.
+Sometimes he has his bath late at
+night, when the sentries have been
+taken off; but, as the lights go out <i>en masse</i> at
+eleven, even this operation has
+to be carefully timed. There is nothing
+much gloomier than a bath by candle-light,
+except perhaps a bath in the dark.
+Hundreds, however, of both sorts are
+endured in this hotel.</p>
+
+<p>The more brazen or the more timid
+simply walk into the bathroom fully
+dressed during the day, carrying a number
+of dirty golf-balls in their hands,
+and towels in their pockets and sponges
+up their sleeves, and issue later fully
+dressed with clean white golf-balls in
+their hands. It is generally thought,
+however, that this device is <i>just</i> a
+little&mdash;I mean it's not exactly&mdash;<i>you</i>
+know what I mean.</p>
+
+<p>The Korban Bath Rules will probably
+remain unwritten for many a day, but I
+earnestly hope that before next summer
+the traditions and etiquette of bath-warfare
+as between individual hotel-visitors
+will be codified and issued in
+an intelligible form. At the moment
+the most extraordinary confusion prevails,
+and no one can tell whether any
+particular stratagem will be hailed with
+applause as a bold and legitimate
+operation of war or universally condemned
+as a barefaced piece of bath-hoggery.
+Recently, for example, an
+extremely courteous, not to say gallant,
+old gentleman was severely lectured
+by a lady for digging himself in on the
+mat and maintaining his position there
+till she emerged. She stated with, I
+think, considerable force that she had
+passed the age when a lady likes to be
+seen coming out of a bathroom with
+disordered locks; she also said that he
+was ruining her chance of a Korban
+bath by drawing attention to the fact
+that there was somebody inside.</p>
+
+<p>He replied with equal force that,
+whenever he considerately withdrew
+from the mat in order to let a lady
+escape unseen, some less scrupulous
+combatant (usually one of his
+own daughters) immediately
+rushed the position, and he was
+not going to be had in that way
+again, though as a matter of fact,
+while they were arguing the matter
+out, somebody actually did
+this, so he was.</p>
+
+<p>Now what is the way out of
+this dilemma? The only solution
+I see is the Sponge System, by
+which every competitor puts
+down a sponge, as one puts down
+a ball at the first tee. In this
+way definite claims can be staked
+out in rotation without congestion
+of the avenues of approach.
+I hope this system will be generally
+adopted next summer and, if
+it is used in conjunction with my
+Progress Indicator (which shows
+by a moving needle what stage
+the person bathing has reached),
+it ought to work very smoothly.
+But there must be no hanky-panky,
+no sharp practice with
+caddies; every sponge must be
+put down by one of the players
+in person. And there must be
+none of that regrettable collusion
+between husband and wife which
+has brought such discredit on the
+present system.</p>
+
+<p>There was a very bad case of this
+the other day. A certain wife used to
+entrench herself in the bathroom early
+and remain in it till her husband&mdash;a
+heavy and persistent sleeper&mdash;arrived.
+When you rattled angrily at the door-knob
+she said very sharply, "Who is
+that?"&mdash;in itself a sufficiently disturbing
+thing. Even in the present days of
+shamelessness and crime there are few
+men who care to confess openly that
+they have angrily rattled at the bathroom
+door. If you said sheepishly, "It
+is Smith" or "Thompson" or "Lord
+Bumble," a heavy silence fell, broken
+only by those gentle watery sounds
+which it is so maddening to hear from
+without. When her husband arrived
+and answered the challenge with "It
+is I, Arthur," sounds of feverish activity
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>[pg 277]</span>
+were heard within, and a new bath
+was immediately turned on.</p>
+
+<p>Casting all scruples to the winds,
+seven desperate men rehearsed the password,
+"It is I, Arthur;" seven desperate
+men presented themselves in a single
+morning and murmured lovingly, "It
+is I, Arthur." None of them had a
+bath. Seven times the good lady opened
+the door and beheld Smith or Thompson
+or Lord Rumble or nobody. And seven
+times she bolted back into the burrow
+again. She remained undefeated. Her
+husband got his bath.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder what devilry she would be
+up to under the Sponge System.</p>
+
+<p>A. P. H.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3><b>A Novelty from the Past.</b></h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="sc">Antique</span>, over a hundred years old, oak
+sideboard, brand new ... Apply after 6.30."</p>
+
+<p><i>Evening News</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Surely after this candour there is no
+help to be got out of the twilight hour.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Mr. Robert &mdash;&mdash;, who is now manager,
+entered his late employer's service three or
+four months after he commenced, and remained
+with him until he gave up."</p>
+
+<p><i>Local Paper</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"They have their exits and their entrances"&mdash;the
+former in this case being
+the more satisfactory.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+<a href="images/277.png"><img width="100%" src="images/277.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p><i>Intending Purchaser</i> (<i>to Artist, who is selling his house</i>.)"<span class="sc">Did you put those figures on the walls</span>?"</p>
+<p><i>Artist</i> (<i>modestly, though regarding them as a strong asset</i>.) "<span class="sc">Oh, yes&mdash;I&mdash;</span>"</p>
+<p><i>Intending Purchaser</i>. "<span class="sc">Well, they don't really matter. A coat of whitewash would soon put that right</span>."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<h3>WHEN AND IF.</h3>
+
+<p>(<i>It is rumoured that Mr. <span class="sc">Balfour</span> is
+shortly going to the House of Lords</i>.)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>When <span class="sc">Balfour</span> goes to the Lords&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">For the Upper Chamber's adorning&mdash;</p>
+<p>The Lower House, if it has any <i>nous</i>,</p>
+<p class="i2">Will have solid reason for mourning;</p>
+<p>For he has no axes to grind;</p>
+<p class="i2">His strategy injures no man,</p>
+<p>And his keen sword play in the thick of the fray</p>
+<p class="i2">Is a joy to friend and foeman.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>When <span class="sc">Balfour</span> goes to the Lords,</p>
+<p class="i2">To strengthen that gilded muster,</p>
+<p>'Twill be sad and strange if he has to change</p>
+<p class="i2">The name he has crowned with lustre;</p>
+<p>For already there's "B. of B.,"</p>
+<p class="i2">A baron of old creation;</p>
+<p>And Whittingehame is an uncouth name</p>
+<p class="i2">For daily pronunciation.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>If <span class="sc">Balfour</span> goes to the Lords,</p>
+<p class="i2">Will the atmosphere, I wonder,</p>
+<p>With the placid balm of its dreamful calm</p>
+<p class="i2">Bring his nimble spirit under?</p>
+<p>Or will he act on the Peers</p>
+<p class="i2">Like an intellectual cat-fish,</p>
+<p>Or startle their sleep with the flying leap</p>
+<p class="i2">Of a Caribbean bat-fish?</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>If <span class="sc">Balfour</span> goes to the Lords&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">But can the Commons spare him?</p>
+<p>Besides I'm sure that a coronet's lure</p>
+<p class="i2">Is the very last thing to ensnare him;</p>
+<p>And I'd rather see him undecked</p>
+<p class="i2">With the gauds that merely glister,</p>
+<p>In the selfsame box with <span class="sc">Pitt</span> and <span class="sc">Fox</span></p>
+<p class="i2">And <span class="sc">Gladstone</span>&mdash;a simple Mister.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Still if he goes to the Lords,</p>
+<p class="i2">Whatever, his style and title,</p>
+<p>For the part he has played in his country's aid</p>
+<p class="i2">'Twill be but a poor requital;</p>
+<p>For he never once lost his nerve</p>
+<p class="i2">When the outlook was most alarming,</p>
+<p>And always remained, with shield unstained,</p>
+<p class="i2">Prince <span class="sc">Arthur</span>, the good Prince Charming.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Mrs. Hawke would be glad to employ a
+Wren for domestic work."</p>
+
+<p><i>Advt. in Daily Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Will she have to "live in"?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"If it be true, as <span class="sc">Shelley</span> said, that 'a
+thing of beauty is a joy for ever,' the good
+people of Roydon are to be congratulated on
+the new bridge over the River Stort."</p>
+
+<p><i>Local Paper</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But, supposing <span class="sc">Keats</span>, for instance, said
+it, will that make any difference?</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>[pg 278]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+<a href="images/278.png"><img width="100%" src="images/278.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p><i>Enlightened Minister</i>. "<span class="sc">I canna understand your objection to dancing, Mr. McTavish. We have biblical authority
+for it. David himself danced</span>."</p>
+
+<p><i>Elder</i>. "<span class="sc">Ay, but no wi' a pairtner</span>."</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><b>PRISCILLA FAILS TO QUALIFY</b>.</h2>
+
+<p>"So it runned out of its little grassy
+place and went all round the garden,"
+said Priscilla, emerging suddenly in
+pink from under the table.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you playing at now,
+Priscilla?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a little pussy-cat."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is this?" I asked, pointing
+to the waste-paper basket which
+she had planted beside my chair.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the pussy-cat's basket of milk.
+It's to drink when she's firsty," she
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>I sighed. It did not appear to me
+that the child's education was proceeding
+upon proper lines. I had been
+reading portions of the diary of Miss
+<span class="sc">Opal Whiteley</span>, written when she was
+seven years old, a work which has just
+lifted for America the Child-authoress
+Cup. I had hoped to find in Priscilla
+some faint signs that the laurels lost
+by Miss <span class="sc">Daisy Ashford</span> might be
+wrested back. The latest feature in
+nursery autobiography, so far as I
+could gather, was to have a profound
+objective sympathy with vegetables
+and a faculty for naming domestic animals
+after the principal figures in classical
+mythology. If you have these
+gifts you get published by <i>The Atlantic
+Monthly</i>, with a preface by Viscount
+<span class="sc">Grey</span>. But I doubted whether Priscilla
+had them. I thought I would try.</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla," I said, "be a little girl
+again and tell me what flower you like
+best."</p>
+
+<p>"Woses."</p>
+
+<p>"What do the roses say to each
+other when you aren't there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they don't <i>say</i> anyfing," she
+said with great contempt.</p>
+
+<p>This was bad.</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla," I continued, "what do
+you call the dog next-door?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bill," she said; "but it's runned
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"There you are!" I exclaimed, turning
+to the child's mamma. "Bill, indeed!
+If she were being properly educated
+she would be calling it Jupiter
+Agamemnon Wilcox by now. Does she
+ever speak to you at all of the star-gleams
+amongst the cabbage-leaves?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there are any star-gleams
+amongst the cabbages in this
+garden," she replied. "Only slugs."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," I said; "the fact
+remains that Priscilla ought to be constantly
+wondering what the cabbages
+do say to each other when they have
+lonesome feels at night."</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla," I began again, "in about
+three years you will be seven years old
+and quite a big girl. What will you
+play at then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I san't play at all," she said. "I sall go visiting and sopping."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I sall have a knife."</p>
+
+<p>"A pocket-knife?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not a pocket-knife, a knife to cut meat wiv, of course."</p>
+
+<p>I had forgotten this goal of maidenly
+desires.</p>
+
+<p>"And won't you go long walks in the
+big woods with me and tell me the
+names of all the flowers and what they
+are thinking about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she replied rather doubtfully.
+"Are there beasts in the woods?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only rabbits, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"We must be very careful, then, 'cos
+they're <i>very</i> wild creatures, aren't
+they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not <i>very</i> wild."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you buy a gun at the gun-sop
+and soot them and we take them home
+and eat them?"</p>
+
+<p>Bless the child, I thought, there
+seems to be no getting her away from
+this eating business.</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla," I began again, "in the
+woods there is a great big lake, with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280"></a>[pg 280]</span>
+trees and rushes all round it, and there
+are water-lilies floating about and
+forget-me-nots at the edge."</p>
+
+<p>Now, I thought, we shall perhaps
+have something about the lullaby songs
+of the trees and the willow that does
+sing by the creek.</p>
+
+<p>"Are there fiss in the lake?" inquired
+Priscilla.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "beautiful shining fish."</p>
+
+<p>"And sall we catch the fiss and put
+them on the fire?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose we might," I admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"And will they sizzle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Araminta," I said, "the child is
+hopeless. She has no soul. She will
+never be a great authoress. The Cup
+must remain in Oregon, and Priscilla
+will never tell the world how the wind
+did go walking in the field, talking to
+the earth voices, with a preface by Sir
+<span class="sc">Auckland Geddes</span> or Lord <span class="sc">Reading</span>.
+She thinks about nothing but her food."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you had better try again
+after she's said her prayers," suggested
+Araminta. "She may be feeling a little
+more soulful then."</p>
+
+<p>I attended the ceremony, which was
+performed with the utmost decorum and
+gravity. When it was ended Priscilla
+looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"I said them very somnly and in
+rarver a low voice, didn't I?" she
+announced, and then went off into
+gurgles of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>I determined to make one last despairing
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Priscilla," I asked, "which of your
+books do you like the best?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Gobbly Goblin</i>," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Araminta," I cried, "I give it up.
+She has no bent for literature. There
+can never have been any great authoress,
+young or old, who started with such a
+materialistic mind."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget Mrs. Beeton," she replied.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Evoe</span>.</p>
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279"></a>[pg 279]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+ <a href="images/279.png"><img width="100%" src="images/279.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<h3>THE EXPERTS.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Asquith</span>. "GIVE HIM HIS HEAD!"</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Grey</span>. "TELL HIM YOU'LL CUT THE STRING IN A COUPLE OF YEARS!"</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Morley</span>. "WHAT YOU WANT IS A MORE POWERFUL SANITY!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>COLD COMFORT.</h3>
+
+<p>(<i>It is stated that <span class="sc">M. Kameneff</span>, on his
+return to Russia, having fallen out of
+favour with the Soviet Government,
+has been appointed Commissar at
+Taganrog</i>.)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>Upon the mighty wheels of life</p>
+<p class="i2">I'm but a very little cog,</p>
+<p>And, when engaged in active strife,</p>
+<p class="i2">Always the under-dog.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>No honours yet have come to me</p>
+<p class="i2">(My name is Ebenezer Blogg);</p>
+<p>I haven't got an O.B.E.</p>
+<p class="i2">Nor yet the Dannebrog.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>A taxi-man the other night</p>
+<p class="i2">Called me a measly little frog;</p>
+<p>It's true that in respect of height</p>
+<p class="i2">I can't compare with <span class="sc">Og</span>.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>At school I was the whipping-boy</p>
+<p class="i2">Whom every master used to flog,</p>
+<p>Although I took no stealthy joy</p>
+<p class="i2">In pipes or cards or grog.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The only time that I bestrode</p>
+<p class="i2">A horse, like <i>Gilpin</i> all agog,</p>
+<p>The creature bolted from the road</p>
+<p class="i2">And plunged me in a bog.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I never learned to sing or dance,</p>
+<p class="i2">To bowl or bat, to stick or slog;</p>
+<p>The only time I crossed to France</p>
+<p class="i2">I struck a Channel fog.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I'm old and poor and rather deaf;</p>
+<p class="i2">I'm often very short of prog;</p>
+<p>Yet still I grudge not <span class="sc">Kameneff</span></p>
+<p class="i2">His post at Taganrog.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+ <a href="images/280.png"><img width="100%" src="images/280.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p><i>First Bookie</i>. "<span class="sc">I must 'ave taken two 'undred quid to-day. Marvellous! I can't think where the money comes from</span>."</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Bookie</i>. "<span class="sc">From me mostly</span>."</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3><b>Our Modest Advertisers.</b></h3>
+
+<p>"To be Sold, small unexceptionally attractive
+gentleman's Residential Estate."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>There was an American "<span class="sc">Daisy</span>"</p>
+<p>Whose Diary set people crazy;</p>
+<p class="i2">Some called it a fake&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">A most venial mistake,</p>
+<p>For Opals are apt to be hazy.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281" id="page281"></a>[pg 281]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+<a href="images/281.png"><img width="100%" src="images/281.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>Humble Guest</i> (<i>at Profiteer's castle</i>). "<span class="sc">What the deuce is this?</span>"</p>
+<p><i>Magnificent Flunkey.</i> "<span class="sc">The temperature of your bath-water, Sir.</span>"</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><b>THE MINISTRY FOR HEROES.</b></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><i>January 1st, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To the Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>When demobilised on 5th November
+last I applied for a disability pension.
+Having received no official communication
+on the subject, may I inquire,
+please, how the matter stands?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">M. C. Broke</span>, <i>Capt.</i></p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>February 1st, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To Lieut. C. M. Broke.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>I am to acknowledge receipt of your
+letter of 1/1/20, and to say that you
+will receive a further communication
+from this Department in due course.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">Cuthbert Rutt</span>,</p>
+<p>for Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>March 1st, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To the Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p><i>Re</i> your letter of February 1st, may
+I inquire how the matter now stands,
+please? (My rank, by the way, is
+captain, and my initials are "M. C."
+not "C. M." I hope you won't mind
+me mentioning it.)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">M. C. Broke</span>, <i>Capt.</i></p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>April 1st, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To Mr. M. Brake.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>I am to acknowledge receipt of your
+letter of 1/3/20 and to request that you
+will be good enough to state the date
+upon which you last received a payment
+on account of your pension.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">Cuthbert Rutt</span>,</p>
+<p>for Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>April 2nd, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To the Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>Replying to your inquiry of yesterday,
+I have not received any payment&mdash;not
+a bond, not a rouble, not a bean.
+That, between ourselves, was my idea
+in initiating this interesting correspondence.</p>
+
+<p>May I direct your attention to my
+signature?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">M. C. Broke</span>, <i>Capt.</i></p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>May 10th, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To Second-Lieut. J. Brooke.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>Your letter dated 2/4/20 has been
+duly received. I am to ask whether
+you are (<i>a</i>) demobilised; (<i>b</i>) disembodied;
+or (<i>c</i>) still serving?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">Cuthbert Rutt</span>,</p>
+<p>for Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>May 11th, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To the Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>I was so glad to hear yesterday that
+my letter of the 2nd of last month
+had been duly received. I was beginning
+to get quite anxious about it.
+In reply to your inquiry I have the
+honour to state (again) that I was
+(<i>a</i>) demobilised. I mentioned this, you
+know, last January. But perhaps you
+have forgotten? It is rather a long
+while ago.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">M. C. Broke</span>, <i>Capt.</i></p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I don't mind a bit how you
+spell my name and all that. But our
+postman is getting wild. And you
+know what workers are.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><i>June 30th, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To Mr. C. Bink.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>I am directed to acknowledge your
+letter of 11/5/20. In order to facilitate
+this Department's investigations into
+your claim, please say if you are in
+possession of Army Form Z.3.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">Cuthbert Rutt</span>,</p>
+<p>for Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>July 1st, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To the Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>Yes, I am in possession of Army
+Form Z.3. I do hope this will facilitate
+your Department's investigations. Not
+for my sake. But I enclose last quarter's
+accounts from my landlord, butcher,
+baker, etc. Perhaps you will be good
+enough to guarantee my credit? You
+know how impatient these vulgar
+fellows are.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">M. C. Broke</span>, <i>Capt.</i></p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I think I like "Bink" the least
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282" id="page282"></a>[pg 282]</span>
+of my new names. But perhaps you will
+think of a better one for my next letter.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><i>August 1st, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To Mr. M. Brooks.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>Your letter of 1/7/20 has been duly
+received, and I am to inquire whether
+you submitted a claim for disability
+pension at the time of your demobilisation.
+If so, please state date.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">Cuthbert Rutt</span>,</p>
+<p>for Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>August 2nd, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To the Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>With reference to your letter of yesterday,
+the answer is in the affirmative.
+By the way I think we went into that
+little matter too last January. But,
+of course, you can't think of everything.
+Excuse me mentioning it. Do you
+think you could get my pension through
+by the 30th inst? It is my birthday,
+and I would like to have my boots soled
+and heeled.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">M. C. Broke</span>, <i>Capt.</i></p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>August 30th, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To Mr. N. Brock.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>With reference to your application for
+disability pension I am to request that
+you will furnish this Department with a
+full statement of the circumstances under
+which you were wounded, giving the
+following particulars:&mdash;Christian and
+surname (in block letters); regiment;
+whether (<i>a</i>) demobilised; (<i>b</i>) disembodied;
+or (<i>c</i>) still serving; whether
+(<i>a</i>) shot; (<i>b</i>) bayoneted; (<i>c</i>) gassed;
+(<i>d</i>) shell-shocked; or (<i>e</i>) drowned;
+Christian and surname (in block letters)
+of batman, stretcher-bearers and O.i/c
+hospital ship.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">Cuthbert Rutt</span>,</p>
+<p>for Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>September 8th, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To the Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>Under medical advice I am to cease
+corresponding with your admirable Department.
+It seems a pity, since we
+have got to know each other so well. I
+have decided therefore to place the
+matter in the hands of the Miners'
+Federation. I do not think I have mentioned
+the fact before, but I was employed
+as a miner when I joined up in '14.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">M. C. Broke</span>, <i>Capt.</i></p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p><i>September 9th, 1920.</i></p>
+<p>To Captain M. C. Broke.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<p>I am directed to inform you that you
+have been awarded a disability pension
+at the rate of five hundred pounds per
+annum. A draft for the amount due,
+including arrears from 5/11/19&mdash;date of
+disembodiment or demobilisation&mdash;was
+despatched to your address this morning
+per King's Messenger.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>I have the honour to be, Sir,</p>
+<p>Your humble and obedient Servant,</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Cuthbert Rutt</span>,</p>
+<p>for Ministry of Pensions.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+ <a href="images/282.png"><img width="100%" src="images/282.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<h3>"ONE CROWDED HOUR OF GLORIOUS LIFE."</h3>
+
+<p><span class="sc">A bit of tobacco-ash in your eye, your reel jammed, one of your legs through
+a loop of your line and the biggest salmon you ever saw on the other end of it.</span></p>
+<hr />
+
+<h3><b>NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.</b></h3>
+
+<h4><span class="sc">The Glow-worm.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>The little glow-worm sits and glows</p>
+<p class="i2">As brilliant as the stars,</p>
+<p>But you are wrong if you suppose</p>
+<p class="i2">That he will light cigars.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>In fact, he seems to be exempt</p>
+<p class="i2">From Nature's general plan;</p>
+<p>He never makes the least attempt</p>
+<p class="i2">To be of use to Man.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>And if you think that it requires</p>
+<p class="i2">A scientific brain</p>
+<p>To understand his tiny fires</p>
+<p class="i2">Then you are wrong again.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The meaning of his shininess</p>
+<p class="i2">Is fairly clear to me;</p>
+<p>It is intended to impress</p>
+<p class="i2">The future Mrs. G.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>No doubt you think it is his nose</p>
+<p class="i2">Which gleams across the glen;</p>
+<p>Well, it is not; the part that glows</p>
+<p class="i2">Is on the abdomen.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>And very likely that explains</p>
+<p class="i2">Why all these millionaires</p>
+<p>Buy such expensive shiny chains</p>
+<p class="i2">To hang about on theirs.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<h5>* * * * *</h5>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The Editor who read these lines</p>
+<p class="i2">Has quite a different tale;</p>
+<p>He says it is the <i>she</i> that shines</p>
+<p class="i2">To captivate the male.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>He has a perfect right to doubt</p>
+<p class="i2">The statements in this song,</p>
+<p>But if he thinks I'll scratch them out</p>
+<p class="i2">He's absolutely wrong.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>A. P. H.</p>
+ </div> </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+ <a href="images/283.png"><img width="100%" src="images/283.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">Whatever will you do, grandpa, when you're too old for gardening?</span>"</p>
+<p>"<span class="sc">I expect I'll start golf. But I hope I shan't live as long as that.</span>"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page283" id="page283"></a>[pg 283]</span>
+
+<h2><b>FOR OURSELVES ALONE.</b></h2>
+
+<p>Our hostess had taken us over to "Sheltered End," the
+pleasant country home of Mrs. Willoughby Brock, to play
+tennis. As however there was only one court and quite a
+number of young and middle-aged people were standing near
+it with racquets in their hands and an expression on their
+faces in which frustration and anticipation fought for supremacy,
+it followed that other beguilements had to be found.
+My own fate was to fall into the hands of Mrs. Brock, whose
+greatest delight on earth seems to be to have a stranger to
+whom she can display the beauties of her abode and enlarge
+upon the unusual qualities of her personality. She showed
+and told me all. We explored the estate from the dog-kennel
+to the loggia for sleeping out "under the stars;" from the
+pergola to the library; from the sundial to the telephone,
+"the only one for miles;" and as we walked between the
+purple and mauve Michaelmas daisies in her long herbaceous
+borders, with Red
+Admiral butterflies
+among the myriad
+little clean blossoms,
+she said how odd it
+was that some people
+have the gift of
+attracting friends
+and others not; and
+what a strange thing
+it is that where one
+person has to toil to
+make a circle others
+are automatically
+surrounded by nice
+creatures; and asked
+me if I had any views
+as to the reason, but
+did not pause for the
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>It was a warm
+mellow day&mdash;almost
+the first of summer,
+according to one's
+senses, although
+nearly the last, according
+to the calendar&mdash;and
+Mrs. Brock
+was so happy to be
+in a monologue that I could enjoy the garden almost without
+interruption. For a two and a half years' existence it certainly
+was a triumph. Here and there a reddening apple
+shone. The hollyhocks must have been ten feet high.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! here comes the dear Vicar," said Mrs. Brock suddenly,
+and, rising up from a rose which I was inhaling (and I wish
+that people would grow roses, as they used to do years ago,
+nose-high), I saw a black figure approaching.</p>
+
+<p>"He is such a charming man," Mrs. Brock continued,
+"and devoted to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon," said the Vicar. "How exquisite those
+delphiniums are!" he added after introductions were complete;
+"such a delicate blue! I should not have intruded
+had I known you had a party"&mdash;he waved his hand towards
+the single tennis-court, around which the wistful
+racquet-bearers were now (as it seemed) some thousands
+strong, "but it is always a pleasure"&mdash;he turned to me&mdash;"to
+be able to walk in this paradise on a fine day and
+appreciate its colour and its fragrance. I find Mrs. Brock
+so valuable a parochial counsellor too."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I said, not in the least unwilling to be tactful,
+"I will see what the rest of our party are doing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," said the Vicar; "please don't let me drive you
+away. As a matter of fact, since there are so many here I
+won't stay myself. But I wonder," he addressed Mrs.
+Brock, "as I am here, if I might use your telephone for a
+moment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you so much," he replied; "yes, I know where
+it is," and with a genial and courtly salutation he moved
+off in the direction of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a true neighbour!" said Mrs. Brock. "Ah! and
+here is another," she went on. And along the same path,
+where the Michaelmas daisies were thickest, I saw a massive
+woman in white, like a ship in full sail, bearing down upon
+us, defending her head from the gentle September sun with
+a red parasol. "This," Mrs. Brock hurriedly informed me,
+"is Lady Cranstone, who lives in the house with the green
+shutters at the end of the village. Such a dear person!
+She's always in and out. The widow of the famous scientist,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't know; but
+what does it matter?</p>
+
+<p>By this time the
+dear person was
+within hailing distance,
+but she flew
+no signals of cordiality;
+her demeanour
+rather was austere
+and arrogant. Mrs.
+Brock hurried towards
+her to assist
+her to her moorings,
+and I was duly presented.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't intend
+to come in again
+to-day," said Lady
+Cranstone, whose
+features still successfully
+failed to give to
+the stranger any indication
+of the benignity
+that, it was
+suggested, irradiated
+her being.</p>
+
+<p>"But you are always
+so welcome,"
+said Mrs. Brock. "Lady Cranstone," she continued to me,
+"is kindness itself. She makes all the difference between
+loneliness and&mdash;and content."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Cranstone picked a rose and pinned it in her monumental
+bosom. "I don't know that I had anything in
+particular to say," she remarked. "I chanced to be passing
+and I merely looked in; but since I am here perhaps you
+would allow me to use your telephone&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brock beamed her delighted acquiescence and the
+frigate sailed on. "You've no idea," said Mrs. Brock, "what
+a friendly crowd there is in these parts. I don't know how
+it is, but this little place of mine, modest though it is, and
+unassuming and unclever as I am, is positively the very
+centre of the district. It's like a club-house. How strange
+life is! What curious byways there are in human sympathy!"</p>
+
+<p>This being the kind of remark that is best replied to
+with an inarticulate murmur, I provided an inarticulate
+murmur; and I was about to make a further and more
+determined effort to get away when a maid-servant approached
+with a card.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brock took it and read the name with a little cry of
+satisfaction. "Lord Risborough," she said to me. "At
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page284" id="page284"></a>[pg 284]</span>
+last! How nice of him to call. They live at Risborough
+Park, you know. I always said they would never condescend
+to dignify 'Sheltered End' with their presence;
+but I somehow knew they would." She purred a little.
+And then, "Where is his lordship?" she asked; but the
+girl's reply was rendered unnecessary by the nobleman
+himself, who advanced briskly upon Mrs. Brock, hat in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust," he said, "that you will pardon the informality
+of this visit. Lady Risborough is so sorry not to have been
+able to call yet, but&mdash;but&mdash;Yes, I was wondering if you'd
+be so very kind as to do me a little favour? The fact is,
+our telephone is out of order&mdash;most annoying&mdash;and I
+wondered if you would let me use yours. I hear that you
+have one."</p>
+
+<p>"I will take you to it," said Mrs. Brock.</p>
+
+<p>"Most kind, most kind!" his lordship was muttering.</p>
+
+<p>There was no difficulty in making my escape now.</p>
+
+<p>E. V. L.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+ <a href="images/284.png"><img width="100%" src="images/284.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">I do hope you'll be able to come to the Mothers' Welfare meeting on Wednesday. We've persuaded a famous
+chef to come and give us a lecture on 'The Decay of Cookery.' It should be most helpful.</span>"</p>
+<p>"<span class="sc">Not to me, Mum. I allus gives mine to the pigs when it gets that far.</span>"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<p>Mr. Punch desires to express his sincere regret for an
+injustice done, though without malice, to the Publishers
+(Messrs. <span class="sc">Sweet and Maxwell</span>) and the Editor of <i>Williams'
+Real Property</i>, in an article that appeared in the issue of
+August 18th, under the title, "Blewitt on Real Property."
+The new edition of <i>Williams' Real Property</i> contains a large
+amount of fresh material and represents considerable labour
+spent over the careful revision of the previous edition.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"At 1 a.m., uninterrupted rifle fire and bomb explosions were audible.
+It is reported that a French officer was then addressing the crowd."
+<i>Times of Malaya.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Our old sergeant-major must look to his laurels.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE PEERLESS PROVINCIAL.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+[A London paper learns from a West End tailor that many people
+in the North and Midlands now achieve a higher standard of dress
+than the "man about town."]
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>If perchance you would gaze upon those whose array's</p>
+<p class="i2">Of impeccable texture and cut,</p>
+<p>It is futile to go to Pall Mall or the Row,</p>
+<p class="i2">Now the haunt of the second-rate nut;</p>
+<p>Take a train (G.N.R.), for example, as far</p>
+<p class="i2">As Cleckheaton or Cleethorpes-on-Sea,</p>
+<p>Where each male that you meet, from his head to his feet,</p>
+<p class="i2">Follows Fashion's most recent decree.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>A legitimate claim to sartorial fame</p>
+<p class="i2">Can be made by the locals at Leek,</p>
+<p>Whose apparel is apt to be ruthlessly scrapped</p>
+<p class="i2">After having been worn for a week;</p>
+<p>Trousers bag at the knees in no town on the Tees,</p>
+<p class="i2">And the Londoner has to admit</p>
+<p>That he cannot compete against Bootle's <i>élite</i>,</p>
+<p class="i2">And that Percy of Pudsey is <span class="sc">it</span>.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Wigan's well in the van, for her sons to a man</p>
+<p class="i2">Are the ultimate word in cravats</p>
+<p>And are said to outdo even Cheadle and Crewe</p>
+<p class="i2">In the matter of collars and spats;</p>
+<p>But the pick of the lot is the privileged spot</p>
+<p class="i2">Where the smart set, the quite <i>comme il faut</i>,</p>
+<p>Have a mentor and guide who is famed far and wide</p>
+<p class="i2">As Bertie the Bridlington Beau.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285" id="page285"></a>[pg 285]</span>
+
+<h3>THE PASSING OF ALFRED.</h3>
+
+<p>Alfred is dead and with him has gone
+John's last efforts at making and training
+pets. It has simply been one disappointment
+after another. There was
+Charles the monkey. Charles could
+write his own name with a pen and
+digest the creamiest shaving-stick without
+making a lather. There was Joey,
+the billy-goat, such an entertaining
+fellow, who could pick up and set down
+anything with his horns from a basket
+to a dustman. And then there was
+Livo&mdash;immortal Livo. There never
+was such a down-at-heel and unscrupulous
+young ruffian of a mongrel terrier as
+Livo, nor one that more completely convinced
+people that he was a gentleman
+of blood and a pure-souled spiritualist.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there were heaps of other
+pets as well, but just as they seemed
+about to reach that stage of human intelligence
+so earnestly desired by their
+young master they all suddenly died,
+even as Alfred, the last of a long list,
+gave up the ghost yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred was a trout. Not your ordinary
+fly-jumping kind of trout, because there
+is never anything ordinary about John's
+pets. Alfred, for instance, had not lived
+in water for three months. He simply
+had no use for the stuff, and, as for
+jumping at a fly, his nerves were far
+too good for that sort of thing.</p>
+
+<p>His attachment to John was complete.
+He would take food from no
+one else and the presence of his eight-year-old
+master in the long grass was
+sufficient to bring him erect on his tail,
+where he would wag his fins and make
+strange noises in cordial welcome. In
+many respects he was the most superior
+pet John has ever had. He could affect
+boredom and his exhibition of the glad
+eye was considered by John's eldest
+sister to be positively deadly. It is, in
+fact, true to say that his keen desire to
+adopt as many human habits as possible
+often led us to mistake him for
+one of ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>John, however, was not quite satisfied
+with his pupil until one bright
+morning last week when Alfred displayed
+the first signs of having acquired
+the Directional Wriggle. Strange as
+it may sound, this very human trout
+actually wriggled after John for a distance
+of five yards. Three days later
+he pursued his master to the village
+post-office and beat him by a short gill.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, however, Alfred excelled
+himself. John had left early for the
+stream, and being in a hurry took
+advantage of the thin plank crossing.
+Now the plank is very slippery and had
+been placed over the spot where the
+stream is deepest. John crossed it
+carefully enough, but looking back for
+a second he suddenly noticed that Alfred
+was following him. Before he could
+raise his voice in protest the trout had
+mounted the plank and was wriggling
+across it. Then, horror of horrors! in
+the middle of the plank the wretched
+fish suddenly lurched, lost its footing,
+plunged into the water and was
+drowned.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>FLOWERS' NAMES.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="sc">What the Fairies Wear</span>.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>If only you walk with an open ear</p>
+<p class="i2">And watch with an open eye,</p>
+<p>There's wonderful magic to see and hear</p>
+<p class="i2">By silently passing by;</p>
+<p>In meadows and ditches, here and there,</p>
+<p>You'll find the clothes that the fairies wear.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>You can see each golden and silvery frock</p>
+<p>In Lady's Mantle and Ladysmock;</p>
+<p>There's Lady's Garter (which, I suppose,</p>
+<p>They wear with the cowslips called Hose-in-hose);</p>
+<p>The solemn fairies who ride on owls</p>
+<p>Shroud their faces with Monkswood cowls;</p>
+<p>And there's other things besides fairy dresses&mdash;</p>
+<p>There's Lady's Mirror and Lady's Tresses.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Bachelors' Buttons must be for elves</p>
+<p>Who have to do up their clothes themselves;</p>
+<p>And the tailor fairies use Fairy Shears,</p>
+<p>Long cutting-grasses that grow by meres;</p>
+<p>And they mend their things with the Spider-stitches,</p>
+<p>Faint white flowers that you find in ditches,</p>
+<p>And Shepherd's Needle, which you'll see plain</p>
+<p>In every meadow and field and lane;</p>
+<p>And when they've used them they grow again.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>If only you walk with an open ear</p>
+<p class="i2">And watch with an open eye,</p>
+<p>There's wonderful secrets to see and hear</p>
+<p class="i2">By silently passing by;</p>
+<p>In meadows and ditches, here and there,</p>
+<p>You'll find the clothes that the fairies wear;</p>
+<p>And if you look when they think you've gone</p>
+<p>Perhaps you'll see them trying them on.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"The whole of the United States is intensely
+interested in a baseball scandal revealed a few
+days ago.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Judy, which is now investigating
+the charge, has already indicted eight of the
+leading players."&mdash;<i>Evening Paper</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. Punch wishes his old consort more
+power to her elbow.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>ROBBERY IN COURT.</h3>
+
+<p>There would seem to be some need
+for watchfulness in our Courts of Justice
+lest the customs and privileges which
+to so great an extent have made them
+what they are should be allowed to
+lapse.</p>
+
+<p>A great sensation was caused throughout
+the legal profession the other day
+when it was reported in the Press that
+a witness, in giving evidence, made the
+following remark:&mdash;"It goes in one ear
+and out of the other. Perhaps that
+is because there is nothing to stop it."
+The report stated that laughter followed,
+and, if that was indeed the case,
+then we have no hesitation whatever
+in characterising it as a most unseemly
+outburst.</p>
+
+<p>If witnesses are to be permitted with
+impunity to snatch out of the Judge's
+mouth the jokes which naturally arise
+out of their evidence, our whole judicial
+system will be imperilled. In offering
+an explanation as to why "it goes in
+one ear and out of the other," the
+witness committed a grave breach of
+etiquette. That explanation, if made
+at all, should have been made by the
+Judge in the first place. Or if, after
+due opportunity had been given, his
+Lordship showed no desire to avail
+himself of the opening, then the privilege
+should have fallen to the examining
+counsel. If he in turn waived it, it
+should have been open to counsel on
+the other side to snap up the chance.</p>
+
+<p>We fail to understand how such a
+remark, coming from a witness, could
+have been allowed to pass without
+rebuke from the Judge or protest from
+the counsel, or some attempt at least
+to maintain order on the part of the
+usher.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE CHANTRY.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>Grey dust lies on his battered face;</p>
+<p class="i2">The glories of his shield are dim;</p>
+<p>Half vanished are the words of grace</p>
+<p class="i2">Beseeching pity and peace for him</p>
+<p class="i4">Along the Purbeck rim.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>His hands are folded palm to palm</p>
+<p class="i2">(Some fingers lacking on the right),</p>
+<p>And at his peakéd feet the calm</p>
+<p class="i2">Old lion shows he fell in fight,</p>
+<p class="i4">As best became a knight.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The ivy shakes its tattered leaves</p>
+<p class="i2">Where once he saw the painted pane;</p>
+<p>The brooding, scurrying spider weaves</p>
+<p class="i2">Where cloth of damask dyed in grain</p>
+<p class="i4">Will never hang again.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>With missal propped upon his helm</p>
+<p class="i2">For him no drowsy chantor pleads;</p>
+<p>But blackbirds in the darkening elm</p>
+<p class="i2">Sing plain-song, and the Abbey meads</p>
+<p class="i4">Retell their daisy-beads.</p>
+ </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>D. M. S.</p>
+ </div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286" id="page286"></a>[pg 286]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;">
+ <a href="images/286.png"><img width="100%" src="images/286.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p><i>Lady</i>. <span class="sc">"And why did you leave your last situation?"</span></p>
+<p><i>Prospective Maid</i>. <span class="sc">"Well, that's a bit inquisitive, ain't it, Mum? I didn't ask you why your last girl left you."</span>]</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<h2><b>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE</b>.</h2>
+
+<p style="text-align:center;text-indent:0;">(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks</i>.)</p>
+
+<p>I am as a rule very strongly against the form of pedantry
+that hastens to cry "imitation" whenever a new writer
+finds himself impelled to a theme of the same character as
+that already associated with an old-established practitioner.
+But in the case of <i>The Lost Horizon</i> (<span class="sc">Methuen</span>) I find
+myself overwhelmed. Consciously or unconsciously Mr. G.
+<span class="sc">Colby Borley</span> has produced a story that in matter and
+treatment is so palpably a reflection of <span class="sc">Joseph Conrad</span>
+that the likeness simply refuses to be ignored. It is in its
+way a good story enough&mdash;an affair of adventure in South
+America and on the high seas, with a generous sufficiency of
+oaths and blood-letting; a tale moreover that gives evidence
+(in spite of that distressing echo) of being written by one
+who takes his craft with a becoming dignity of purpose.
+One peculiarity of the Master has not only been borrowed
+by Mr. <span class="sc">Borley</span>, but exaggerated to his own undoing: I
+mean the trick of introducing a character or group of characters
+so clogged and obscured by the adhesions of the
+uncommunicated past that not till this has been gradually
+flaked from them do they emerge as figures in whom it is
+possible to take an intelligent interest. In the present
+instance this process is delayed for more than half the book.
+As for the intrigue, that concerns a group of cut-throat
+Europeans, who, having been ruinously involved in a South
+American revolution, are now further plunged into the plots
+of a scoundrelly African magnate and his conspiratorial
+gang. For myself, I parted from them all with a feeling of
+regret that they had not explained themselves earlier as the
+entertaining villains that they turned out to be.</p>
+
+<p><i>Manhood End</i> (<span class="sc">Hurst and Blackett</span>) is the title, not
+very cheery, that Mrs. <span class="sc">Henry Dudeney</span> has given to her
+latest novel, a simple and quite human story of country
+vicarage life, told sympathetically, but in too many words
+for so slight a theme. The publishers are at the wholly
+superfluous pains of urging you as a preliminary to read the
+"turn-over of cover." Don't! All you will find there is a
+synopsis of the plot, just sufficient to destroy the slender
+thread of your interest in its development. And I must
+record a protest against the entirely unneeded Prologue, in
+which total strangers sit round at a churchyard picnic on
+the graves of the real protagonists, and speculate as to their
+history. The tale itself is placed in Sussex (why this
+invidious partiality of our novelists?), the actors being for
+the most part clerical. The main interest is centred in
+the matrimonial trials of the <i>Rev. Frederick Rainbird</i>,
+whose bride, having married him in haste, repented at
+leisure, eloped with the promising brother of a neighbouring
+parson, repented more, returned to domesticity, ran away
+again, and so on, <i>da capo</i>. Perhaps really these simple but
+not short annals have a flavour that I have failed to convey.
+Mrs. <span class="sc">Dudeney</span> writes easily, but should avoid the snares
+of originality. To say of her heroine's morning appearance
+at the breakfast table, that she "stood in the tangle of a
+delicious coffee smell," may convey an impression, but at a
+ruinous expense of style.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><i>Michael Winter</i>, hero of <i>The Black Knight</i> (<span class="sc">Hutchinson</span>),
+by Mrs. <span class="sc">Alfred Sidgwick</span> and <span class="sc">Crosbie Garstin</span>, had led a
+nice easy life till his father's nefarious schemes crashed,
+bringing down in a common ruin half the small investors
+in the country. Left penniless, he changes his disgraced
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287" id="page287"></a>[pg 287]</span>
+name and goes out to Canada to make good. There, on the
+prairies, he puts in some hard honest work. But, in his
+haste to be rich, the <i>Black Knight</i>, as they do in chess,
+after moving straight, moved obliquely. In order to make
+a coup out of a Wall Street cinch he helped himself to the
+money of the bank of which he was cashier. Other people
+who shall be nameless have done this sort of thing
+before, and, after returning the "borrowed" cash, have
+enjoyed a stainless prosperity. But <i>Michael</i>, through a
+motor-car accident, just failed to put it back in time, and
+had to do two years. But he had made a fortune, and on
+emerging from prison returned to Europe to enjoy it.
+There he rescues an innocent English girl from a shady
+Parisian environment and marries her. By chance she
+learns the secret of the source of his wealth and leaves him.
+In order to appease her
+scruples and recover her he
+signs away his goods for the
+benefit of his father's creditors.
+What might have
+been a too sugary conclusion
+is saved by a pleasant touch
+of corrective irony in the very
+last line, where his wife expresses
+a very human satisfaction
+on finding that her
+best necklace was not included
+in the noble sacrifice.
+I hope I shall not be suspected
+of flattering Mr.
+Punch's "<span class="sc">Patlander</span>" if I
+admire the excellence of the
+Canadian section, obviously
+contributed by Mr. <span class="sc">Crosbie
+Garstin</span>, who has knocked
+about most of the world
+marked red on the maps.
+Here his humour and vitality
+are at their keenest. The
+rest of a well-told tale I
+attribute to Mrs. <span class="sc">Alfred
+Sidgwick</span>, with the exception
+of a pugilistic episode, for
+which I imagine that the
+male fist was called in to
+supplement her proper inexperience.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;">
+ <a href="images/300.png"><img width="100%" src="images/300.png" alt="" /></a>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">My dear, I <i>felt</i> I ought never to have taken the holiday. Scarcely had I set foot in my apartments when I was handed
+a telegram from Sarah:&mdash;'Parrot laid an egg. Wire instructions.'"</span></p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<p>I do believe that I have
+caught a detective napping; a
+real private detective, one of the great infallibles of fiction.
+Mr. <span class="sc">J. S. Fletcher's</span> <i>Exterior to the Evidence</i> (<span class="sc">Hodder
+and Stoughton</span>) is one of those thrills in which any of the
+characters might have committed the murder and there is
+every reason, at times, to suspect that they have all had a hand
+in it. Over the moorland there ran a path, and at a spot
+known as Black Scar it came perilously near the edge of a
+forty-foot drop, with rocks at the bottom. Over this precipice
+went <i>Sir Cheville Stanbury</i> at midnight, a very odd circumstance
+considering his life-long familiarity with the path.
+<i>Weathershaw</i>, the great detective called in to investigate the
+matter on behalf of one of the suspects, took a line of his
+own and eventually hit upon someone you and I would
+never have thought of. We have this excuse, that we had
+no idea of his existence until he was hit upon; but no more
+had <i>Weathershaw</i>. Now I am not going to give away the
+secret of this enticing affair, but I must dispute the detective's
+identification, on the last page but one, of the man
+responsible for <i>Sir Cheville's</i> death. If you compare the
+statement of fact on page 301, seven lines from the bottom,
+which corroborates that on page 279, also seven lines from
+the bottom, with <i>Weathershaw's</i> dramatic accusation, you
+will understand what I mean and you will be left in considerable
+doubt (as I was) of what the author means. Does
+he suggest that <i>Sir Cheville</i> was never murdered at all?
+After so much excitement that would be a sad pity.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The publishers of <i>The Amorous Cheat</i> (<span class="sc">Chatto and
+Windus</span>) generously label it "an enthralling story of
+domestic and stage life." To which my comment must be,
+that the domesticity supplied by the hero's family and
+their quite uninteresting hesitations between town and
+suburban residence are entirely nebulous and illusive, that
+the stage as background has no significance one way or
+other, but that the impropriety
+upon which (I must
+say frankly) the appeal of
+the book seems to depend is
+given without stint, in a
+measure that certainly may,
+for some readers, justify the
+publishers' epithet. You will
+understand therefore that I
+experience a little natural
+hesitation about suggesting
+the intrigue. It is certainly
+of the simplest&mdash;a mere question
+as to whether <i>Edward</i>
+and <i>Vivian</i>, casual acquaintances
+of a restaurant, shall
+or shall not spend a sequence
+of week-ends together. The
+lady is described as on the
+stage, but she might as well
+belong to a guild of art-needlework.
+<i>Edward</i> is the
+only question of importance,
+and the week-ends; if you
+ponder the significance of the
+title you can probably guess
+the rest. To be honest I
+ought to add that Mr. <span class="sc">Basil
+Creighton</span> wields an easy-flowing
+pen, and that at
+least one chapter certainly
+is wickedly entertaining, in
+the style of what we used to
+call "Continental" humour.
+To sum up, not a novel for
+family reading or for the fastidious. The others may
+even be enthralled.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><i>The Diary of a Sportsman Naturalist in India</i> (<span class="sc">Lane</span>)
+contains an excellent collection of sporting anecdotes, and
+dip where you may you will find none of them trivial or
+tiresome. Mr. <span class="sc">E. P. Stebbing</span> states that his purpose in
+selecting material from his note-books was "to emphasize
+the necessity which exists of affording protection to the
+game and other animals of India," and, shy as some of us
+are of purposeful books, there is no reason to be scared by
+this one. In the first place Mr. <span class="sc">Stebbing</span>'s purpose is one
+which will generally be commended, and in the second he
+achieves it in an absolutely unobtrusive manner. To sportsmen,
+and especially to those who have enjoyed the good
+fortune of shooting in India, this volume will be extremely
+welcome. The only cumbrous thing about it is its title.
+Add that Mr. <span class="sc">Stebbing</span> is as profuse in his illustrations as
+he is happy in his choice of subjects.</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume
+159, October 13, 1920, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159,
+October 13, 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, October 13, 1920
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: September 26, 2006 [EBook #19382]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephanie Maschek, Jonathan Ingram and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH,
+
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 159.
+
+
+
+OCTOBER 13, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+Mr. RIAZANOV, the successor to KAMENEFF, is now residing in Grosvenor
+Street. Several readers have written to ask us how his name is
+pronounced. Wrongly, we believe, in nine cases out of ten.
+
+ * * *
+
+We have been given to understand that that versatile pair, the TWO
+BOBS, are contemplating a tour of the music-halls in the mining
+district, where they are sure to be given a rousing reception.
+
+ * * *
+
+According to _The Evening News_ two miners recently played a quoit
+match for a hundred pounds. In all probability they are now agitating
+for the two shillings' increase to enable them to have a little side
+bet.
+
+ * * *
+
+"We cannot choose how we will be born," says a medical writer. No;
+some are born poor and others are born into a miner's family.
+
+ * * *
+
+"Where stands England to-day?" we are asked. While travelling in the
+Tube we have often thought that most of it was standing on our feet.
+
+ * * *
+
+"With the outgoing of September we face once more the month of
+October, with its falling leaves and autumn gales," states a writer in
+a daily paper. This, we understand, is according to precedent.
+
+ * * *
+
+A Glamorgan collier, summoned for income-tax, stated that he earned
+eleven pounds a week and wanted every penny of it. It is said that he
+is saving up to buy a strike of his own.
+
+ * * *
+
+A live frog is reported to have been found in a coal seam at a
+Monmouthshire colliery. It seems to have been greatly concerned at
+having missed the previous strike ballot.
+
+ * * *
+
+With reference to Mr. SPENDER'S interview with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
+we regret that no mention is made of the exact date when the PRIME
+MINISTER will declare the New World open.
+
+ * * *
+
+Since it has been so well advertised we understand that the banned
+poster, "The Unknown," is shortly to be renamed "The Very Well Known."
+
+ * * *
+
+The EX-KAISER is reported to have made his will. He has bequeathed his
+trial to his youngest grandson.
+
+ * * *
+
+It is proposed to make Poole a first-class port, at a cost of
+L3,750,000. We cannot help thinking that hidden away in some
+Government office is a man who could do it at treble the cost.
+
+ * * *
+
+A London firm of pastrycooks have purchased two obsolete tanks from
+the Disposal Boards. They are said to make excellent utensils for
+flattening pancakes.
+
+ * * *
+
+A dainty little invention has just been tried by the Bolshevists,
+which consists of a method whereby boiling water from the ship's
+boiler can be pumped on to sailors who do not obey their officers.
+It is said to be just the thing to keep their minds off the idea of
+mutiny.
+
+ * * *
+
+"I have all the qualifications for a post in some Government office,"
+writes an Unemployed Ex-Soldier in a contemporary. It is to be hoped
+that this drawback will be overlooked if his other disqualifications
+are satisfactory.
+
+ * * *
+
+Washable hats for boys is one of the new inventions at the Leather and
+Shoe Trade Exhibition. Small boys are now going about in fear that the
+next discovery will be a washable neck.
+
+ * * *
+
+Six bandits entered the Central Cafe, New York, the other day and took
+one thousand pounds from the diners. The ease with which they did it
+suggests that they were mistaken for waiters.
+
+ * * *
+
+A plumber in Aberdeen is giving lessons to a women's class in
+knitting. It is said that his treatise on How to Crochet a Burst
+Bath-Pipe is likely to become a standard work.
+
+ * * *
+
+In taking away a safe containing six thousand pounds from a Fenchurch
+Street office, burglars broke down a door with a thick glass panel.
+The profession is of the opinion that the blame for this lies with the
+firm. They had locked the door.
+
+ * * *
+
+_The Daily Chronicle_ informs us that a New York couple who were
+engaged in 1868 have just been married. But surely the wonder is that
+they were not married long before.
+
+ * * *
+
+A woman has told the medical officer of Burnham that rats so like the
+poison being used that they come out of their holes for it while it is
+being put down. We always make our rats stand up and beg for it.
+
+ * * *
+
+A domestic servant was recently blown out of her mistress's house
+through the too liberal use of paraffin whilst lighting fires.
+Luckily, however, it was her day out, so no complications ensued.
+
+ * * *
+
+On being asked his recipe for keeping young, a well-known physician
+refused to reply. In view of the increasing number of precocious
+authors, the question again arises, "Should a doctor tell?"
+
+ * * *
+
+_The Daily Express_ states that there is "very little demand for
+champagne to-day." We fancy this is due to the fact that a number of
+people are saving up to buy coffee at Messrs. LYONS'.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE MORNING TOILET.
+
+"OH, LOOK, MUMMY! THERE'S WILFRED DOING HIS HAIR FROM MEMORY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"THE PASSIONATE SPECTATOR."
+
+We are asked to say that the above title of a book written by Miss
+JANE BURR and published by Messrs. DUCKWORTH (it is described on the
+wrapper as "an entirely unconventional novel founded on original and
+ultra-modern views concerning life and marriage") has nothing to do
+with our respected contemporary.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "GOVERNMENT'S STRIKING ATTITUDE. WAITING TILL THE CAR JUMBS?"
+
+ _Nigerian Pioneer_.
+
+Personally we always try to get out when this seems to be imminent.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+TO OUR PLAY-MAKERS.
+
+ [_The Daisy_ and _The Crossing_, which both dealt with the
+ life after death, have come to an untimely end; and, in
+ deference to public feeling, the heroine of _Every Woman's
+ Privilege_ has been furnished with a fresh _fiance_.]
+
+ When in my stall at eve I sit
+ (And these remarks would still apply,
+ Perhaps with greater force, were I
+ Accommodated in the Pit)--
+ Worn with the long day's dusty strife,
+ I ask a brief surcease of gloom;
+ I want a mirror held to life,
+ But not the life beyond the tomb.
+
+ The views of parties who have "crossed"
+ (Meaning to Jordan's further shore),
+ Those, as they say, who've "gone before,"
+ But not (unhappily) been "lost"--
+ They make me ill; they decompose
+ My vital essence at its fount
+ (Excepting BARRIE'S _Mary Rose_,
+ But then, of course, he doesn't count).
+
+ Give me the life that quick men lead,
+ Of which I know the hopes and fears
+ Better than those of shadier spheres;
+ And, if at first you don't succeed,
+ If you should hear the critics croak,
+ "As to your heroine's choice, you err,"
+ Just hand her to the other bloke--
+ That's what they did with MARIE LOeHR.
+
+ So shall creative art suggest
+ A world where people may revise
+ Their silly past, and realise
+ Those second thoughts which are the best;
+ Where, having seen the larger light,
+ A perfect liberty to hedge
+ And swap the wrong man for the right
+ Is "Every Woman's Privilege."
+
+ O. S.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+YET ONE MORE PLAN FOR IRELAND.
+
+Feeling rather lonely because almost everybody had entered for the
+great Irish Problem Competition in the morning and evening press
+except myself, I sat down and wrote the following solution, which
+I posted immediately to the Editors of _The Times_ and of _The
+Westminster Gazette_:--
+
+"SIR"--I began indignantly, for I noticed all the best competitors
+begin like that. In these Bolshevistic days I should have preferred of
+course to have started off with "Comrade" or "Brother," or even, since
+I was writing from the heart of the country, have opened with
+"Eh bor," as people do in dialect novels, but, fearing I might be
+disqualified, I began, as I say, "Sir," and went on, much as the other
+statesmen did:--
+
+"In all the lengthy annals of this Government, vacillation between
+weakness and tyranny has never proved so disastrous as it is proving
+in Ireland to-day, and the conduct of that unhappy country's affairs
+is now plunged in a chaos so profoundly chaotic that it has become a
+gross misuse of language to call them affairs at all. Out of all this
+welter and confusion two salient facts are seen to emerge:--
+
+"(1) No two Englishmen are agreed upon a settlement that will at the
+same time satisfy the just aspirations of Ireland and preserve the
+integrity of the British Empire.
+
+"(2) No two Irishmen are either.
+
+"At the same time the number of sane and carefully considered plans
+for the government of Ireland was never so great as it is to-day. When
+will our incompetent Cabinet perceive that the only way of warding
+off the stain of perfidy which dogs their footsteps and threatens to
+overwhelm them is to make use of all these plans? I put aside for the
+moment the most violent proposals of the extremists on either side,
+such as that of the annexation of England by the Sinn Fein Empire and
+that of the deportation of all Irishmen to the Andaman Islands and the
+re-colonisation of the country with correspondents to the daily press;
+but between these two extremes there surely lie innumerable solutions
+which both can and ought to be employed. I will only name here a few
+of them:--
+
+ ASQUITH autonomy.
+ Dominion Home Rule.
+ DUNRAVEN autonomy.
+ GREY autonomy.
+ Red autonomy.
+ Government by Dhail Eireann.
+ Government by Dhail Ymaill.
+ Administration by the L.C.C.
+ Clan warfare.
+
+"And there are infinite shades and variations of all these.
+
+"Every one of the policies I have named, and as many more as possible,
+should now be adopted at once, one after the other, I suggest, for
+quarterly periods and in alphabetical order.
+
+"But let there be no mistake. They must be strictly enforced. It must
+be impossible for Irishmen to come to England in the future and say
+to her, as they have so often said in the past, 'You made us promises
+which, when we leant on them, proved a broken reed and turned to dust
+and ashes in our mouths.'
+
+"One of the bitterest reproaches that is hurled, and hurled justly, at
+British maladministration is that through all the seeming variations
+of misgovernment there has been in fact no change. Dublin Castle
+remains where it did. This must be altered at once. _The site of
+Dublin Castle must be moved every three months._ There must be
+infinite change, and it must be infinitely thorough and infinitely
+systematic, so that, side by side with the continuous grievances of
+all dissatisfied parties, will be the certain assurance that those
+grievances will in strict rotation be remedied.
+
+"The objection will, of course, be raised that these continual changes
+of government will involve a certain amount of disorder; that one
+system will scarcely be working before it is superseded by another;
+that the rapid alterations in the _personnel_ of the judicature, civil
+service and police will be inconvenient; that everything, in fact,
+will be in a muddle. But by how much is not well-organised muddle to
+be preferred to unsystematic anarchy? And as each type of government
+recurs in due course will it not be found to work more simply and
+satisfactorily?
+
+"To those who shrug their shoulders and say that a series of
+kaleidoscopic changes in Irish administration would never be approved
+by the good sense of the British electorate I can only urge that it is
+precisely this attitude of intolerance towards and ignorance of Irish
+psychology which has rendered our behaviour to Ireland for so many
+centuries a by-word not only throughout Europe but the whole civilised
+world and the United States of America.
+
+"I am, Sir, yours, etc."
+
+Through some accident or other, either because I have not followed
+exactly the prescribed rules of the competition, such as writing on
+one side of the paper only, or addressing it from the National Liberal
+Club, or obtaining the signature of five witnesses, my solution
+has not yet appeared in _The Times_ or in _The Westminster Gazette_
+either. Feeling it a pity, however, that any helpful suggestion should
+be lost at a time when never in the annals of Irish misgovernment
+has vacillation vacillated so vacillatingly as it does to-day, I have
+repeated my strong but simple proposals here.
+
+K.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Clever forgeries of Fisher notes are in circulation in St.
+ Pancras.
+
+ Last night, during the busy period, a number of publications
+ in the Kentish Town district were victimised."--_Evening
+ Paper_.
+
+We had no idea that Kentish Town was such a literary centre.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Even Paris seems willing this season to add a few inches to
+ the length of skirts, and six to eight inches is becoming the
+ accepted length for street wear. This is an excellent length,
+ not so long as to endanger the chic of the costume, nor
+ so short as to be unbecoming in either sense of the
+ word."--_Fashion Paper_.
+
+We refrain from any speculations as to the previous length of these
+skirts before the "few inches" were added.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE POLISH HUG.
+
+BOLSHEVIST. "YOUR ATTITUDE CONVINCES ME, KAMERAD, THAT WE WERE MEANT
+TO BE FRIENDS."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Willium_ (_having at critical stage in four-handed
+game undertaken to spot the red_). "'TIS ALL OVER, GEARGE--MY HAND BE
+STUCK IN THE POCKUT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ELIZABETH OUTWITTED.
+
+"An' when I dies they give me fifteen pounds on the nail an' no
+waitin'," said Elizabeth triumphantly, as she explained her latest
+insurance scheme.
+
+"On what nail?" I asked distrustfully. I could not understand why
+Elizabeth felt justified in paying sixpence per week for a benefit
+fraught with so little ultimate joy to herself. But she is the sort of
+girl that can never resist the back-door tout. She is constantly being
+persuaded to buy something for which she pays a small weekly sum.
+This is entered in a book, and the only conditions are that she must
+continue paying that sum for the rest of her natural lifetime.
+
+On these lines Elizabeth has "put in" for many articles in the course
+of her chequered career. She has had fleeting possession of a steel
+engraving of QUEEN VICTORIA, a watch that never would go--until her
+payments ceased--a sewing-machine (treadle), a set of vases and a
+marble timepiece. The timepiece, she explained, was destined for "the
+bottom drawer," which she had begun to furnish from the moment a young
+man first inquired which was her night out.
+
+As all these things were taken from her directly her payments fell
+off, I thought I had better give her the benefit of my ripe judgment.
+"I shouldn't buy anything on the instalment plan, if I were you," I
+advised. "Some people seem to be made for the system, but you are not
+one of them."
+
+"But I 'aven't told you wot I'm buyin' now," she said excitedly,
+putting a plate on the rack as she spoke. I ought to say she meant to
+put it on the rack; that it fell two inches short wasn't Elizabeth's
+fault.
+
+"It was cracked afore," she murmured mechanically as she gathered
+up the fragments. "Yes, I pays a shillin' a week an' I gets a
+grammerfone."
+
+"A what?" I gasped.
+
+"A grammerfone--to play, you know."
+
+"Where will it play?" I asked feebly.
+
+"'Ere," she said, waving a comprehensive hand; "an' it won't 'arf
+liven the place up. My friend 'as 'ers goin' all day long."
+
+I stifled a moan of horror, for I am one of the elect few who loathe
+gramophones, even at their best and costliest.
+
+"Elizabeth," I cried, tears of anguish rising to my eyes, "let me
+implore you not to get one of those horr--I mean, not to be imposed on
+again."
+
+"I've got it," she announced. "I meantersay I've paid the first
+shillin' an' it's comin' to-morrow. I 'ave it a month on trial."
+
+The month certainly was a trial--for me. Ours is not one of those
+old-fashioned residences with thick walls that muffle sound, and where
+servants can be consigned to dwell in the bowels of the earth. Every
+noise which arises in the kitchen, from Elizabeth's badinage with
+the butcher's boy to the raucous grind of the knife-machine, echoes
+through the house _via_ the study where I work.
+
+Thus, although Elizabeth kept the kitchen-door shut, I found myself
+compelled for one-half of the day to consider an insistent demand as
+to the ultimate destination of flies in the winter-time. The rest of
+the day the gramophone gave us _K-K-K-Katie_. (Elizabeth had only two
+records to begin with.)
+
+I became unnerved. My work suffered. It began to trickle back to me
+accompanied by the regrets of editors; and to writers the regrets of
+editors are the most poignant in the world.
+
+The situation was saved by the most up-to-date tout of the whole
+back-door tribe. He persuaded Elizabeth to go in for Spiritualism.
+Do not misunderstand me. You can be a Spiritualist and also keep a
+gramophone, but, if you are Elizabeth, you cannot keep the two running
+at the same time if you must pay a shilling per week for each. When
+she sought my opinion I strongly advised the seances, which I
+said were cheap at the price; indeed I thought they were when the
+gramophone departed.
+
+It was now Elizabeth's turn to become unnerved. She has a mind that
+is peculiarly open to impressions, and communion with the spirits
+unbalanced her. She justified her expenditure of a shilling weekly by
+placing the utmost faith in them.
+
+"I 'ad a message from them there spirits larst night," she informed me
+one day, "an' they tell me I must change my 'abitation."
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked, startled.
+
+"I put a message through, arskin' them when I should get a settled
+young man, an' they told me that the fates are agen me in my present
+dwellin', so if you'll please take my notice from--"
+
+I will not go through the sickening formula. Every housewife must have
+heard it several times at least in the past year or so. I accepted
+Elizabeth's resignation and began to concentrate on newspaper
+announcements. But I took an utter dislike to the spirits and listened
+with cold aloofness when Elizabeth began, "I was talkin' to the spirit
+of my young man larst night--"
+
+"I didn't know you had the spirit of any young man," I interrupted.
+
+"Yes, I 'ave. I mean Ned Akroyd, 'oo was drownded."
+
+Now I have never believed in the alleged drowning of the said Ned.
+The news--conveyed to Elizabeth by his mate--that he had fallen from
+a ferry-boat near Eel Pie Island seemed unconvincing, especially as it
+happened shortly after Elizabeth had lent him fifteen-and-six.
+
+"I 'ad quite a long talk with 'im," she went on. "Next time I'm goin'
+to arst 'im about the fifteen-and-six 'e borrowed, an' see if I can't
+get it back some'ow."
+
+How the spirit would have considered this proposition is still
+uncertain, for Elizabeth never returned to the seances. She came to me
+one day in a state of violent agitation. "I see Ned Akroyd when I was
+out larst night," she began, "an' would you believe it, 'e's no more
+dead than I am, the wretch!"
+
+"Well, aren't you glad?" I inquired.
+
+"Glad, an' 'im with another girl an' pretendin' all the time not to
+see me! Men are 'ounds, that's what they are. An' I'll go to no more
+seeonces. They're a swindle."
+
+"They were wrong about telling you to change your habitation too,
+weren't they?" I suggested insinuatingly.
+
+"Course they were." Suddenly her face brightened. "I'll be able to
+'ave the grammerfone back now," she said.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+At the moment I am writing to the sounds of _K-K-K-Katie_, which, I
+fear, is giving me rather a syncopated style. But if the Editor is
+k-k-k-kind he will not banish me from _P-P-P-Punch_ for this reason,
+as anyone can see my intentions are g-g-g-good.
+
+Stay! _K-K-K-Katie_ has ceased and I can think lucidly. An inspiration
+has come to me. Has not Elizabeth in her time wrought havoc among my
+crockery? The hour is ripe for me to retaliate.
+
+To morrow at dawn I shall examine the gramophone records and--_they
+will come in two in my hands_.
+
+It will be the first time I have broken any record.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Wife_ (_to husband being bundled in as train moves
+off_). "DID YE GET RETURN TICKETS?"
+
+_Husband_. "NOA (_puff_)--DIDN'T 'AVE TIME."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "MISUSE OF RESEARCH GRANTS.
+
+ By Professor ----, F.R.S."
+
+ _Sunday Paper Poster_.
+
+We refuse to believe it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE CONSPIRATORS.
+
+III.
+
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--Essential to that millennium which our restless
+revolutionaries are after is your head on a charger and my head on a
+charger; provided both heads are present it may be the same charger
+for all they care. When you think of the importance which we of
+the detested middle classes attach to our heads and the regrettable
+violence we might exhibit towards whoever called at our houses to
+collect them, then it seems to me you must confess to a sneaking
+admiration for the bravery of the turbulent minority in attacking so
+big a problem.
+
+But when you get the inside details of their schemes you find that
+discretion is not only the better part but the whole of their valour.
+For arms you find incendiary speeches; for ammunition, viperish
+propaganda, and for epoch-making action you have nothing. In that
+"nothing" lies their main ingenuity and strong hope. If they can
+prevail on the masses to do nothing, at the right moment, and to go
+on doing nothing till there is nothing left, then, say they, they will
+have civilisation under; and if our heads don't fall off of their own
+accord then a thousand willing hands will be stretched forward to pull
+them off.
+
+You ask me how I know all this. Close the doors so that we cannot
+be overheard, and I will tell you. I buy their continental
+newspaper--"organ" they prefer to call it, being rather proud of the
+noise--and there I read all that I want to know. It costs a halfpenny
+a day, runs to six pages, is well printed and brightly composed and
+contains no advertisements. There is generally a picture in thick
+black lines in the centre of the first page. Blood being the easy
+thing for the printer to "feature," the picture generally deals with
+the cutting off of heads. If it refers to the past, you and I are
+cutting off the worker's head, severing from a fine muscular body a
+noble head with a halo to it. If it refers to the future, the worker
+is having our heads off, severing from a fat and uncontrolled corpus a
+most unpleasant excrescence in a very shiny top-hat.
+
+To run a daily newspaper of that "make-up," without advertisements and
+for subscribers of whom the larger number, like myself, omit to pay
+their half-penny, is not easy business. In fact it is not business at
+all. The question being raised as to where the money came from, the
+producers tried to allay our suspicion by making a great show of an
+appeal for help. The published results, which I give you in their
+English equivalent, were much as follows:--
+
+ +------------------------------------------------------+
+ | L s. d. |
+ | B. de M. 6 0 |
+ | Z. X. 5 0 |
+ | Idealist 5 0 |
+ | U. W. K. 5 0 |
+ | A Frenchman who is ashamed of France 4 6 |
+ | Young Communist 4 0 |
+ | Three young Communists 3 6 |
+ | "Great Britain" (collection) 3 3 |
+ | Disgusted 2 6 |
+ | Association of Women Fighters for Justice 2 3 |
+ | O. F. 1 0 |
+ | Down with Capital 9 |
+ | One Who will stick at Nothing 3 |
+ | ------------ |
+ | 2 3 0 |
+ | Previous lists 14 6 8-3/4 |
+ | ------------ |
+ | L16 9 8-3/4 |
+ +------------------------------------------------------+
+
+The grand total of sixteen pounds, nine shillings and eight-pence
+three-farthings shows a magnificent spirit, but wouldn't keep much
+more than a couple of square inches of the front page alive for more
+than one day. Reverting, then, to the more pressing question of the
+removal of our heads, who is paying for the operation?
+
+He is a heavy-built octopus sort of man of about forty-seven; a red
+cheery complexion, rather more fat than muscle, long grey hair tending
+to curl at the extremes, and followed about by a lady who acts as his
+secretary, calls him "Master" and adores the ground he walks on. They
+are married, but not, I should hasten to add, to each other; none of
+your dull orthodox practices for them. About his profile there is
+an undeniable something which makes his head a suggestive model for
+sculpture. It is framed in a large, white, soft silk collar, which
+falls gracefully over the lapels of the coat and is, I am told, of a
+mode much worn among the _elite_ of the anarchist and atheist world.
+
+I've a friend here in the law-and-order business who thought that,
+having reported all the movements of this Master of the Black Arts,
+he might find it worth while to make his acquaintance in the flesh.
+Indirect enquiry elicited that the desire to get into touch was
+reciprocated, the attentions of the police being insufficient to
+satisfy his sense of importance. So the meeting was arranged, and I
+was allowed to come along too.
+
+We were received in great state in a special suite of the local hotel
+de luxe. The Lady Secretary was there, overflowing with "Masters" and
+"Sirs," and obsessed by the fear that her idol might not do himself
+justice in our presence. A very touching instance of human devotion:
+the fifth instance in his case, I believe.
+
+This is the gentleman who finances the propaganda of destruction; we
+asked him if that was not so, and he answered, "Why, of course." Had
+we any fault to find with his protege, the admirable halfpenny daily?
+We had noticed that its news was punctual and exact. Then of what did
+we complain?
+
+"Of a certain exaggeration in the leading articles," said I, rubbing
+the back of my neck and wondering how long it would be there to rub
+and I to rub it.
+
+"But what newspaper leaders are not exaggerated?" he asked.
+
+"Your editors should not be paid to twist everything into an
+irritant," I protested.
+
+"Of which of your great English dailies is the editor not paid to
+twist, as you put it?" he asked.
+
+I knew that I had right on my side and he had not. But still somehow I
+seemed to be in the wrong all the way.
+
+So my friend took the matter in hand. He didn't argue. He just drew
+his chair up to the Master's and asked him to tell us all about
+himself, how he came by his great ideals, what was the future of the
+world as he foresaw it and how he meant to arrange the universe when
+at length he took over?
+
+The Master, gently smiling his appreciation of this recognition of his
+Ego, gave voice.
+
+To the lady it was all, of course, above criticism: sublime, adorable.
+To me the frankness of it and the impudence of it was, I confess,
+amusing.
+
+ The world is out of joint; how good 'twill be
+ When Heaven is sacked and leaves the job to me!
+
+An agreeable, if wrong-headed, crank, was my summary.
+
+And this or something like it was my friend's:--"b. U.S.A. of Eng.
+parents, 9.5.78; tinned meat business, Chicago; 6 months' h.l. for
+frauds in connection with packing; went to Mexico, but left to avoid
+prosecution for similar frauds on larger scale; prison in Belgium,
+France and England in connection with illegal dealings in rifles
+(? for Germany); apparently liable to more prison in U.S.A. for crime
+unknown, if returns there; won't say where he gets his money from, but
+doesn't seriously pretend it is his own."
+
+And when I came to go back over the Master's two hours' chat about
+himself, those are about the facts it all boiled down to.
+
+ Yours ever, HENRY.
+
+(_To be continued._)
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "L40.--Handsome Black Silk Golf Goat (large size)."--_Irish Paper_.
+
+The very thing for the butting-green.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: NIL DESPERANDUM.
+
+_The Amateur Championship_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, WHO FAILED TO SURVIVE THE
+FIRST ROUND.
+
+_The East of France Championship_. MR. POTT-HUNTER IN FATAL
+DIFFICULTIES IN THE SECOND ROUND.
+
+_The Championship of Central Switzerland_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, DEFEATED
+IN THE THIRD ROUND.
+
+_The Sicilian Championship_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, WHO REACHED THE FOURTH
+ROUND.
+
+_The Championship of Mozambique_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, A FIFTH ROUND
+VICTIM.
+
+_The Spitzbergen Championship_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, ONE OF THE
+SEMI-FINALISTS.
+
+_The Championship of Upper Senegal_. MR. POTT-HUNTER, BEATEN IN THE
+FINAL BY MR. HUNT-POTT.
+
+_The Tierra del Fuego Championship_. THE WINNER, MR. POTT-HUNTER.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "NEVER YOU MIND IF 'E DID SAY YOU'D GOT A NECK LIKE A
+CAMEL. 'TAIN'T NEARLY AS LONG AS ALL THAT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE KORBAN BATH.
+
+[_Korban_--"It is a gift"--Hebrew (or some such language).]
+
+With some reluctance I return to the subject of baths. I went into
+the matter of bathrooms pretty carefully a few months ago, but since
+I have been in this hotel I see that there are one or two aspects of
+hotel bathing which still require attention.
+
+To begin with, there is the question of the Korban or free bath.
+It is, of course, a scandal that a bath should be an extra, and an
+eighteen-penny one at that. After all, what is the bathroom for? We
+are not charged extra for smoking in the smoking-room or drawing in
+the drawing-room; why should we be bled for bathing in the bathroom?
+At the same time this practice does provide the visitor with the
+wholesome sport of Korban bathing. The object of the game is, of
+course, to have as many baths as possible which are not put down in
+your bill; and many are the stratagems which are employed.
+
+The true sportsman attempts the feat just before dinner, because at
+that time there are sentries posted in every corridor. Ostensibly they
+are maids waiting to assist any lady who has a crisis while dressing,
+but no real pretence is made that they are there for any other purpose
+than to charge you for as many baths as possible. On my corridor
+there is a post of no fewer than three sentries, and it is extremely
+difficult to evade them. The only thing to do is to get to know three
+nice ladies on the same floor and arrange for them to have a
+dressing crisis simultaneously and go on having it for about a
+quarter-of-an-hour.
+
+This needs a good deal of organisation. However smoothly the operation
+begins, one of the dressing crises nearly always collapses too soon,
+and the sentry catches you on your return journey.
+
+For the lady visitor the problem is comparatively simple. I should
+mention that it is a perfectly legitimate manoeuvre to get your bath
+put down to somebody else if you can do it; and the crack lady-player
+usually wraps herself in an unobtrusive bath-wrap, shrouds her head,
+modestly conceals her face, slips into a friend's room to borrow some
+Creme-Limon and, after an interval, rushes noisily out of the friend's
+room to her bath, which, with any luck, is charged to her friend's
+account.
+
+The beginner at the game contents himself with less complicated ruses.
+Sometimes he has his bath late at night, when the sentries have been
+taken off; but, as the lights go out _en masse_ at eleven, even this
+operation has to be carefully timed. There is nothing much gloomier
+than a bath by candle-light, except perhaps a bath in the dark.
+Hundreds, however, of both sorts are endured in this hotel.
+
+The more brazen or the more timid simply walk into the bathroom fully
+dressed during the day, carrying a number of dirty golf-balls in their
+hands, and towels in their pockets and sponges up their sleeves, and
+issue later fully dressed with clean white golf-balls in their
+hands. It is generally thought, however, that this device is _just_ a
+little--I mean it's not exactly--_you_ know what I mean.
+
+The Korban Bath Rules will probably remain unwritten for many a
+day, but I earnestly hope that before next summer the traditions and
+etiquette of bath-warfare as between individual hotel-visitors will
+be codified and issued in an intelligible form. At the moment the
+most extraordinary confusion prevails, and no one can tell whether
+any particular stratagem will be hailed with applause as a bold and
+legitimate operation of war or universally condemned as a barefaced
+piece of bath-hoggery. Recently, for example, an extremely courteous,
+not to say gallant, old gentleman was severely lectured by a lady for
+digging himself in on the mat and maintaining his position there till
+she emerged. She stated with, I think, considerable force that she had
+passed the age when a lady likes to be seen coming out of a bathroom
+with disordered locks; she also said that he was ruining her chance of
+a Korban bath by drawing attention to the fact that there was somebody
+inside.
+
+He replied with equal force that, whenever he considerately withdrew
+from the mat in order to let a lady escape unseen, some less
+scrupulous combatant (usually one of his own daughters) immediately
+rushed the position, and he was not going to be had in that way again,
+though as a matter of fact, while they were arguing the matter out,
+somebody actually did this, so he was.
+
+Now what is the way out of this dilemma? The only solution I see is
+the Sponge System, by which every competitor puts down a sponge, as
+one puts down a ball at the first tee. In this way definite claims
+can be staked out in rotation without congestion of the avenues of
+approach. I hope this system will be generally adopted next summer
+and, if it is used in conjunction with my Progress Indicator (which
+shows by a moving needle what stage the person bathing has reached),
+it ought to work very smoothly. But there must be no hanky-panky, no
+sharp practice with caddies; every sponge must be put down by one
+of the players in person. And there must be none of that regrettable
+collusion between husband and wife which has brought such discredit on
+the present system.
+
+There was a very bad case of this the other day. A certain wife used
+to entrench herself in the bathroom early and remain in it till her
+husband--a heavy and persistent sleeper--arrived. When you rattled
+angrily at the door-knob she said very sharply, "Who is that?"--in
+itself a sufficiently disturbing thing. Even in the present days of
+shamelessness and crime there are few men who care to confess openly
+that they have angrily rattled at the bathroom door. If you said
+sheepishly, "It is Smith" or "Thompson" or "Lord Bumble," a heavy
+silence fell, broken only by those gentle watery sounds which it is so
+maddening to hear from without. When her husband arrived and answered
+the challenge with "It is I, Arthur," sounds of feverish activity were
+heard within, and a new bath was immediately turned on.
+
+Casting all scruples to the winds, seven desperate men rehearsed the
+password, "It is I, Arthur;" seven desperate men presented themselves
+in a single morning and murmured lovingly, "It is I, Arthur." None of
+them had a bath. Seven times the good lady opened the door and beheld
+Smith or Thompson or Lord Rumble or nobody. And seven times she bolted
+back into the burrow again. She remained undefeated. Her husband got
+his bath.
+
+I wonder what devilry she would be up to under the Sponge System.
+
+A. P. H.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A NOVELTY FROM THE PAST.
+
+ "ANTIQUE, over a hundred years old, oak sideboard, brand new
+ ... Apply after 6.30."
+
+ _Evening News_.
+
+Surely after this candour there is no help to be got out of the
+twilight hour.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Mr. Robert ----, who is now manager, entered his late
+ employer's service three or four months after he commenced,
+ and remained with him until he gave up."
+
+ _Local Paper_.
+
+"They have their exits and their entrances"--the former in this case
+being the more satisfactory.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Intending Purchaser_ (_to Artist, who is selling his
+house_.) "DID YOU PUT THOSE FIGURES ON THE WALLS?"
+
+_Artist_ (_modestly, though regarding them as a strong asset_.) "OH,
+YES--I--"
+
+_Intending Purchaser_. "WELL, THEY DON'T REALLY MATTER. A COAT OF
+WHITEWASH WOULD SOON PUT THAT RIGHT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+WHEN AND IF.
+
+(_It is rumoured that Mr. BALFOUR is shortly going to the House of
+Lords_.)
+
+ When BALFOUR goes to the Lords--
+ For the Upper Chamber's adorning--
+ The Lower House, if it has any _nous_,
+ Will have solid reason for mourning;
+ For he has no axes to grind;
+ His strategy injures no man,
+ And his keen sword play in the thick of the fray
+ Is a joy to friend and foeman.
+
+ When BALFOUR goes to the Lords,
+ To strengthen that gilded muster,
+ 'Twill be sad and strange if he has to change
+ The name he has crowned with lustre;
+ For already there's "B. of B.,"
+ A baron of old creation;
+ And Whittingehame is an uncouth name
+ For daily pronunciation.
+
+ If BALFOUR goes to the Lords,
+ Will the atmosphere, I wonder,
+ With the placid balm of its dreamful calm
+ Bring his nimble spirit under?
+ Or will he act on the Peers
+ Like an intellectual cat-fish,
+ Or startle their sleep with the flying leap
+ Of a Caribbean bat-fish?
+
+ If BALFOUR goes to the Lords--
+ But can the Commons spare him?
+ Besides I'm sure that a coronet's lure
+ Is the very last thing to ensnare him;
+ And I'd rather see him undecked
+ With the gauds that merely glister,
+ In the selfsame box with PITT and FOX
+ And GLADSTONE--a simple Mister.
+
+ Still if he goes to the Lords,
+ Whatever, his style and title,
+ For the part he has played in his country's aid
+ 'Twill be but a poor requital;
+ For he never once lost his nerve
+ When the outlook was most alarming,
+ And always remained, with shield unstained,
+ Prince ARTHUR, the good Prince Charming.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "Mrs. Hawke would be glad to employ a Wren for domestic work."
+
+ _Advt. in Daily Paper_.
+
+Will she have to "live in"?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "If it be true, as SHELLEY said, that 'a thing of beauty is
+ a joy for ever,' the good people of Roydon are to be
+ congratulated on the new bridge over the River Stort."
+
+ _Local Paper_.
+
+But, supposing KEATS, for instance, said it, will that make any
+difference?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Enlightened Minister_. "I CANNA UNDERSTAND YOUR
+OBJECTION TO DANCING, MR. MCTAVISH. WE HAVE BIBLICAL AUTHORITY FOR IT.
+DAVID HIMSELF DANCED."
+
+_Elder_. "AY, BUT NO WI' A PAIRTNER."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+PRISCILLA FAILS TO QUALIFY.
+
+"So it runned out of its little grassy place and went all round the
+garden," said Priscilla, emerging suddenly in pink from under the
+table.
+
+"What are you playing at now, Priscilla?" I inquired.
+
+"I'm a little pussy-cat."
+
+"And what is this?" I asked, pointing to the waste-paper basket which
+she had planted beside my chair.
+
+"It's the pussy-cat's basket of milk. It's to drink when she's
+firsty," she explained.
+
+I sighed. It did not appear to me that the child's education was
+proceeding upon proper lines. I had been reading portions of the diary
+of Miss OPAL WHITELEY, written when she was seven years old, a work
+which has just lifted for America the Child-authoress Cup. I had hoped
+to find in Priscilla some faint signs that the laurels lost by Miss
+DAISY ASHFORD might be wrested back. The latest feature in nursery
+autobiography, so far as I could gather, was to have a profound
+objective sympathy with vegetables and a faculty for naming domestic
+animals after the principal figures in classical mythology. If you
+have these gifts you get published by _The Atlantic Monthly_, with a
+preface by Viscount GREY. But I doubted whether Priscilla had them. I
+thought I would try.
+
+"Priscilla," I said, "be a little girl again and tell me what flower
+you like best."
+
+"Woses."
+
+"What do the roses say to each other when you aren't there?"
+
+"Oh, they don't _say_ anyfing," she said with great contempt.
+
+This was bad.
+
+"Priscilla," I continued, "what do you call the dog next-door?"
+
+"Bill," she said; "but it's runned away."
+
+"There you are!" I exclaimed, turning to the child's mamma. "Bill,
+indeed! If she were being properly educated she would be calling it
+Jupiter Agamemnon Wilcox by now. Does she ever speak to you at all of
+the star-gleams amongst the cabbage-leaves?"
+
+"I don't think there are any star-gleams amongst the cabbages in this
+garden," she replied. "Only slugs."
+
+"I don't care," I said; "the fact remains that Priscilla ought to be
+constantly wondering what the cabbages do say to each other when they
+have lonesome feels at night."
+
+"Priscilla," I began again, "in about three years you will be seven
+years old and quite a big girl. What will you play at then?"
+
+"Oh, I san't play at all," she said. "I sall go visiting and sopping."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I sall have a knife."
+
+"A pocket-knife?"
+
+"No, not a pocket-knife, a knife to cut meat wiv, of course."
+
+I had forgotten this goal of maidenly desires.
+
+"And won't you go long walks in the big woods with me and tell me the
+names of all the flowers and what they are thinking about?"
+
+"Yes," she replied rather doubtfully. "Are there beasts in the woods?"
+
+"Only rabbits, I think."
+
+"We must be very careful, then, 'cos they're _very_ wild creatures,
+aren't they?"
+
+"Oh, not _very_ wild."
+
+"Will you buy a gun at the gun-sop and soot them and we take them home
+and eat them?"
+
+Bless the child, I thought, there seems to be no getting her away from
+this eating business.
+
+"Priscilla," I began again, "in the woods there is a great big
+lake, with trees and rushes all round it, and there are water-lilies
+floating about and forget-me-nots at the edge."
+
+Now, I thought, we shall perhaps have something about the lullaby
+songs of the trees and the willow that does sing by the creek.
+
+"Are there fiss in the lake?" inquired Priscilla.
+
+"Yes," I said, "beautiful shining fish."
+
+"And sall we catch the fiss and put them on the fire?"
+
+"I suppose we might," I admitted.
+
+"And will they sizzle?"
+
+"Araminta," I said, "the child is hopeless. She has no soul. She
+will never be a great authoress. The Cup must remain in Oregon, and
+Priscilla will never tell the world how the wind did go walking in
+the field, talking to the earth voices, with a preface by Sir AUCKLAND
+GEDDES or Lord READING. She thinks about nothing but her food."
+
+"Perhaps you had better try again after she's said her prayers,"
+suggested Araminta. "She may be feeling a little more soulful then."
+
+I attended the ceremony, which was performed with the utmost decorum
+and gravity. When it was ended Priscilla looked up.
+
+"I said them very somnly and in rarver a low voice, didn't I?" she
+announced, and then went off into gurgles of laughter.
+
+I determined to make one last despairing effort.
+
+"Priscilla," I asked, "which of your books do you like the best?"
+
+"_The Gobbly Goblin_," she said.
+
+"Araminta," I cried, "I give it up. She has no bent for literature.
+There can never have been any great authoress, young or old, who
+started with such a materialistic mind."
+
+"You forget Mrs. Beeton," she replied.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE EXPERTS.
+
+ASQUITH. "GIVE HIM HIS HEAD!"
+
+GREY. "TELL HIM YOU'LL CUT THE STRING IN A COUPLE OF YEARS!"
+
+MORLEY. "WHAT YOU WANT IS A MORE POWERFUL SANITY!"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+COLD COMFORT.
+
+(_It is stated that M. KAMENEFF, on his return to Russia, having
+fallen out of favour with the Soviet Government, has been appointed
+Commissar at Taganrog_.)
+
+ Upon the mighty wheels of life
+ I'm but a very little cog,
+ And, when engaged in active strife,
+ Always the under-dog.
+
+ No honours yet have come to me
+ (My name is Ebenezer Blogg);
+ I haven't got an O.B.E.
+ Nor yet the Dannebrog.
+
+ A taxi-man the other night
+ Called me a measly little frog;
+ It's true that in respect of height
+ I can't compare with OG.
+
+ At school I was the whipping-boy
+ Whom every master used to flog,
+ Although I took no stealthy joy
+ In pipes or cards or grog.
+
+ The only time that I bestrode
+ A horse, like _Gilpin_ all agog,
+ The creature bolted from the road
+ And plunged me in a bog.
+
+ I never learned to sing or dance,
+ To bowl or bat, to stick or slog;
+ The only time I crossed to France
+ I struck a Channel fog.
+
+ I'm old and poor and rather deaf;
+ I'm often very short of prog;
+ Yet still I grudge not KAMENEFF
+ His post at Taganrog.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _First Bookie_. "I MUST 'AVE TAKEN TWO 'UNDRED QUID
+TO-DAY. MARVELLOUS! I CAN'T THINK WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM."
+
+_Second Bookie_. "FROM ME MOSTLY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+OUR MODEST ADVERTISERS.
+
+"To be Sold, small unexceptionally attractive gentleman's Residential
+Estate."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ There was an American "DAISY"
+ Whose Diary set people crazy;
+ Some called it a fake--
+ A most venial mistake,
+ For Opals are apt to be hazy.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Humble Guest_ (_at Profiteer's castle_). "WHAT THE
+DEUCE IS THIS?"
+
+_Magnificent Flunkey_. "THE TEMPERATURE OF YOUR BATH-WATER, SIR."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE MINISTRY FOR HEROES.
+
+ _January 1st, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+When demobilised on 5th November last I applied for a disability
+pension. Having received no official communication on the subject, may
+I inquire, please, how the matter stands?
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _February 1st, 1920._
+ To Lieut. C. M. Broke.
+
+I am to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 1/1/20, and to say that
+you will receive a further communication from this Department in due
+course.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _March 1st, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+_Re_ your letter of February 1st, may I inquire how the matter now
+stands, please? (My rank, by the way, is captain, and my initials are
+"M. C." not "C. M." I hope you won't mind me mentioning it.)
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _April 1st, 1920._
+ To Mr. M. Brake.
+
+I am to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 1/3/20 and to request
+that you will be good enough to state the date upon which you last
+received a payment on account of your pension.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _April 2nd, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+Replying to your inquiry of yesterday, I have not received any
+payment--not a bond, not a rouble, not a bean. That, between
+ourselves, was my idea in initiating this interesting correspondence.
+
+May I direct your attention to my signature?
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _May 10th, 1920._
+ To Second-Lieut. J. Brooke.
+
+Your letter dated 2/4/20 has been duly received. I am to ask whether
+you are (a) demobilised; (b) disembodied; or (c) still serving?
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _May 11th, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+I was so glad to hear yesterday that my letter of the 2nd of last
+month had been duly received. I was beginning to get quite anxious
+about it. In reply to your inquiry I have the honour to state (again)
+that I was (a) demobilised. I mentioned this, you know, last January.
+But perhaps you have forgotten? It is rather a long while ago.
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+P.S.--I don't mind a bit how you spell my name and all that. But our
+postman is getting wild. And you know what workers are.
+
+
+ _June 30th, 1920._
+ To Mr. C. Bink.
+
+I am directed to acknowledge your letter of 11/5/20. In order to
+facilitate this Department's investigations into your claim, please
+say if you are in possession of Army Form Z.3.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _July 1st, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+Yes, I am in possession of Army Form Z.3. I do hope this will
+facilitate your Department's investigations. Not for my sake. But I
+enclose last quarter's accounts from my landlord, butcher, baker, etc.
+Perhaps you will be good enough to guarantee my credit? You know how
+impatient these vulgar fellows are.
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+P.S.--I think I like "Bink" the least of my new names. But perhaps you
+will think of a better one for my next letter.
+
+
+ _August 1st, 1920._
+ To Mr. M. Brooks.
+
+Your letter of 1/7/20 has been duly received, and I am to inquire
+whether you submitted a claim for disability pension at the time of
+your demobilisation. If so, please state date.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _August 2nd, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+With reference to your letter of yesterday, the answer is in the
+affirmative. By the way I think we went into that little matter too
+last January. But, of course, you can't think of everything. Excuse
+me mentioning it. Do you think you could get my pension through by the
+30th inst? It is my birthday, and I would like to have my boots soled
+and heeled.
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _August 30th, 1920._
+ To Mr. N. Brock.
+
+With reference to your application for disability pension I am to
+request that you will furnish this Department with a full statement of
+the circumstances under which you were wounded, giving the following
+particulars:--Christian and surname (in block letters); regiment;
+whether (a) demobilised; (b) disembodied; or (c) still serving;
+whether (a) shot; (b) bayoneted; (c) gassed; (d) shell-shocked; or
+(e) drowned; Christian and surname (in block letters) of batman,
+stretcher-bearers and O.i/c hospital ship.
+
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+
+ _September 8th, 1920._
+ To the Ministry of Pensions.
+
+Under medical advice I am to cease corresponding with your admirable
+Department. It seems a pity, since we have got to know each other so
+well. I have decided therefore to place the matter in the hands of the
+Miners' Federation. I do not think I have mentioned the fact before,
+but I was employed as a miner when I joined up in '14.
+
+ M. C. BROKE, _Capt._
+
+
+ _September 9th, 1920._
+ To Captain M. C. Broke.
+
+I am directed to inform you that you have been awarded a disability
+pension at the rate of five hundred pounds per annum. A draft for the
+amount due, including arrears from 5/11/19--date of disembodiment or
+demobilisation--was despatched to your address this morning per King's
+Messenger.
+
+ I have the honour to be, Sir,
+ Your humble and obedient Servant,
+ CUTHBERT RUTT,
+ for Ministry of Pensions.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "ONE CROWDED HOUR OF GLORIOUS LIFE."
+
+A BIT OF TOBACCO-ASH IN YOUR EYE, YOUR REEL JAMMED, ONE OF YOUR LEGS
+THROUGH A LOOP OF YOUR LINE AND THE BIGGEST SALMON YOU EVER SAW ON THE
+OTHER END OF IT.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.
+
+THE GLOW-WORM.
+
+ The little glow-worm sits and glows
+ As brilliant as the stars,
+ But you are wrong if you suppose
+ That he will light cigars.
+
+ In fact, he seems to be exempt
+ From Nature's general plan;
+ He never makes the least attempt
+ To be of use to Man.
+
+ And if you think that it requires
+ A scientific brain
+ To understand his tiny fires
+ Then you are wrong again.
+
+ The meaning of his shininess
+ Is fairly clear to me;
+ It is intended to impress
+ The future Mrs. G.
+
+ No doubt you think it is his nose
+ Which gleams across the glen;
+ Well, it is not; the part that glows
+ Is on the abdomen.
+
+ And very likely that explains
+ Why all these millionaires
+ Buy such expensive shiny chains
+ To hang about on theirs.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ The Editor who read these lines
+ Has quite a different tale;
+ He says it is the _she_ that shines
+ To captivate the male.
+
+ He has a perfect right to doubt
+ The statements in this song,
+ But if he thinks I'll scratch them out
+ He's absolutely wrong.
+
+A. P. H.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "WHATEVER WILL YOU DO, GRANDPA, WHEN YOU'RE TOO OLD FOR
+GARDENING?"
+
+"I EXPECT I'LL START GOLF. BUT I HOPE I SHAN'T LIVE AS LONG AS THAT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+FOR OURSELVES ALONE.
+
+Our hostess had taken us over to "Sheltered End," the pleasant country
+home of Mrs. Willoughby Brock, to play tennis. As however there was
+only one court and quite a number of young and middle-aged people were
+standing near it with racquets in their hands and an expression
+on their faces in which frustration and anticipation fought for
+supremacy, it followed that other beguilements had to be found. My own
+fate was to fall into the hands of Mrs. Brock, whose greatest delight
+on earth seems to be to have a stranger to whom she can display the
+beauties of her abode and enlarge upon the unusual qualities of her
+personality. She showed and told me all. We explored the estate from
+the dog-kennel to the loggia for sleeping out "under the stars;" from
+the pergola to the library; from the sundial to the telephone, "the
+only one for miles;" and as we walked between the purple and mauve
+Michaelmas daisies in her long herbaceous borders, with Red Admiral
+butterflies among the myriad little clean blossoms, she said how odd
+it was that some people have the gift of attracting friends and others
+not; and what a strange thing it is that where one person has to
+toil to make a circle others are automatically surrounded by nice
+creatures; and asked me if I had any views as to the reason, but did
+not pause for the reply.
+
+It was a warm mellow day--almost the first of summer, according to
+one's senses, although nearly the last, according to the calendar--and
+Mrs. Brock was so happy to be in a monologue that I could enjoy
+the garden almost without interruption. For a two and a half years'
+existence it certainly was a triumph. Here and there a reddening apple
+shone. The hollyhocks must have been ten feet high.
+
+"Ah! here comes the dear Vicar," said Mrs. Brock suddenly, and, rising
+up from a rose which I was inhaling (and I wish that people would grow
+roses, as they used to do years ago, nose-high), I saw a black figure
+approaching.
+
+"He is such a charming man," Mrs. Brock continued, "and devoted to me."
+
+"Good afternoon," said the Vicar. "How exquisite those delphiniums
+are!" he added after introductions were complete; "such a delicate
+blue! I should not have intruded had I known you had a party"--he
+waved his hand towards the single tennis-court, around which the
+wistful racquet-bearers were now (as it seemed) some thousands strong,
+"but it is always a pleasure"--he turned to me--"to be able to walk
+in this paradise on a fine day and appreciate its colour and its
+fragrance. I find Mrs. Brock so valuable a parochial counsellor too."
+
+"I think," I said, not in the least unwilling to be tactful, "I will
+see what the rest of our party are doing."
+
+"Oh, no," said the Vicar; "please don't let me drive you away. As a
+matter of fact, since there are so many here I won't stay myself. But
+I wonder," he addressed Mrs. Brock, "as I am here, if I might use your
+telephone for a moment?"
+
+"Of course," said she.
+
+"Thank you so much," he replied; "yes, I know where it is," and with
+a genial and courtly salutation he moved off in the direction of the
+house.
+
+"Such a true neighbour!" said Mrs. Brock. "Ah! and here is another,"
+she went on. And along the same path, where the Michaelmas daisies
+were thickest, I saw a massive woman in white, like a ship in full
+sail, bearing down upon us, defending her head from the gentle
+September sun with a red parasol. "This," Mrs. Brock hurriedly
+informed me, "is Lady Cranstone, who lives in the house with the green
+shutters at the end of the village. Such a dear person! She's always
+in and out. The widow of the famous scientist, you know."
+
+I didn't know; but what does it matter?
+
+By this time the dear person was within hailing distance, but she
+flew no signals of cordiality; her demeanour rather was austere
+and arrogant. Mrs. Brock hurried towards her to assist her to her
+moorings, and I was duly presented.
+
+"I didn't intend to come in again to-day," said Lady Cranstone,
+whose features still successfully failed to give to the stranger any
+indication of the benignity that, it was suggested, irradiated her
+being.
+
+"But you are always so welcome," said Mrs. Brock. "Lady Cranstone,"
+she continued to me, "is kindness itself. She makes all the difference
+between loneliness and--and content."
+
+Lady Cranstone picked a rose and pinned it in her monumental bosom. "I
+don't know that I had anything in particular to say," she remarked.
+"I chanced to be passing and I merely looked in; but since I am here
+perhaps you would allow me to use your telephone--"
+
+Mrs. Brock beamed her delighted acquiescence and the frigate sailed
+on. "You've no idea," said Mrs. Brock, "what a friendly crowd there is
+in these parts. I don't know how it is, but this little place of
+mine, modest though it is, and unassuming and unclever as I am, is
+positively the very centre of the district. It's like a club-house.
+How strange life is! What curious byways there are in human sympathy!"
+
+This being the kind of remark that is best replied to with an
+inarticulate murmur, I provided an inarticulate murmur; and I was
+about to make a further and more determined effort to get away when a
+maid-servant approached with a card.
+
+Mrs. Brock took it and read the name with a little cry of
+satisfaction. "Lord Risborough," she said to me. "At last! How nice
+of him to call. They live at Risborough Park, you know. I always said
+they would never condescend to dignify 'Sheltered End' with their
+presence; but I somehow knew they would." She purred a little. And
+then, "Where is his lordship?" she asked; but the girl's reply was
+rendered unnecessary by the nobleman himself, who advanced briskly
+upon Mrs. Brock, hat in hand.
+
+"I trust," he said, "that you will pardon the informality of this
+visit. Lady Risborough is so sorry not to have been able to call yet,
+but--but--Yes, I was wondering if you'd be so very kind as to do me
+a little favour? The fact is, our telephone is out of order--most
+annoying--and I wondered if you would let me use yours. I hear that
+you have one."
+
+"I will take you to it," said Mrs. Brock.
+
+"Most kind, most kind!" his lordship was muttering.
+
+There was no difficulty in making my escape now.
+
+E. V. L.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "I DO HOPE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO COME TO THE MOTHERS'
+WELFARE MEETING ON WEDNESDAY. WE'VE PERSUADED A FAMOUS CHEF TO COME
+AND GIVE US A LECTURE ON 'THE DECAY OF COOKERY.' IT SHOULD BE MOST
+HELPFUL."
+
+"NOT TO ME, MUM. I ALLUS GIVES MINE TO THE PIGS WHEN IT GETS THAT
+FAR."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Mr. Punch desires to express his sincere regret for an injustice done,
+though without malice, to the Publishers (Messrs. SWEET AND MAXWELL)
+and the Editor of _Williams' Real Property_, in an article that
+appeared in the issue of August 18th, under the title, "Blewitt on
+Real Property." The new edition of _Williams' Real Property_ contains
+a large amount of fresh material and represents considerable labour
+spent over the careful revision of the previous edition.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "At 1 a.m., uninterrupted rifle fire and bomb explosions
+ were audible. It is reported that a French officer was then
+ addressing the crowd." _Times of Malaya_.
+
+Our old sergeant-major must look to his laurels.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE PEERLESS PROVINCIAL.
+
+ [A London paper learns from a West End tailor that many people
+ in the North and Midlands now achieve a higher standard of
+ dress than the "man about town."]
+
+ If perchance you would gaze upon those whose array's
+ Of impeccable texture and cut,
+ It is futile to go to Pall Mall or the Row,
+ Now the haunt of the second-rate nut;
+ Take a train (G.N.R.), for example, as far
+ As Cleckheaton or Cleethorpes-on-Sea,
+ Where each male that you meet, from his head to his feet,
+ Follows Fashion's most recent decree.
+
+ A legitimate claim to sartorial fame
+ Can be made by the locals at Leek,
+ Whose apparel is apt to be ruthlessly scrapped
+ After having been worn for a week;
+ Trousers bag at the knees in no town on the Tees,
+ And the Londoner has to admit
+ That he cannot compete against Bootle's _elite_,
+ And that Percy of Pudsey is IT.
+
+ Wigan's well in the van, for her sons to a man
+ Are the ultimate word in cravats
+ And are said to outdo even Cheadle and Crewe
+ In the matter of collars and spats;
+ But the pick of the lot is the privileged spot
+ Where the smart set, the quite _comme il faut_,
+ Have a mentor and guide who is famed far and wide
+ As Bertie the Bridlington Beau.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE PASSING OF ALFRED.
+
+Alfred is dead and with him has gone John's last efforts at making and
+training pets. It has simply been one disappointment after another.
+There was Charles the monkey. Charles could write his own name with
+a pen and digest the creamiest shaving-stick without making a lather.
+There was Joey, the billy-goat, such an entertaining fellow, who
+could pick up and set down anything with his horns from a basket to a
+dustman. And then there was Livo--immortal Livo. There never was such
+a down-at-heel and unscrupulous young ruffian of a mongrel terrier
+as Livo, nor one that more completely convinced people that he was a
+gentleman of blood and a pure-souled spiritualist.
+
+Of course there were heaps of other pets as well, but just as they
+seemed about to reach that stage of human intelligence so earnestly
+desired by their young master they all suddenly died, even as Alfred,
+the last of a long list, gave up the ghost yesterday.
+
+Alfred was a trout. Not your ordinary fly-jumping kind of trout,
+because there is never anything ordinary about John's pets. Alfred,
+for instance, had not lived in water for three months. He simply had
+no use for the stuff, and, as for jumping at a fly, his nerves were
+far too good for that sort of thing.
+
+His attachment to John was complete. He would take food from no one
+else and the presence of his eight-year-old master in the long grass
+was sufficient to bring him erect on his tail, where he would wag his
+fins and make strange noises in cordial welcome. In many respects he
+was the most superior pet John has ever had. He could affect boredom
+and his exhibition of the glad eye was considered by John's eldest
+sister to be positively deadly. It is, in fact, true to say that his
+keen desire to adopt as many human habits as possible often led us to
+mistake him for one of ourselves.
+
+John, however, was not quite satisfied with his pupil until one bright
+morning last week when Alfred displayed the first signs of having
+acquired the Directional Wriggle. Strange as it may sound, this very
+human trout actually wriggled after John for a distance of five yards.
+Three days later he pursued his master to the village post-office and
+beat him by a short gill.
+
+Yesterday, however, Alfred excelled himself. John had left early for
+the stream, and being in a hurry took advantage of the thin plank
+crossing. Now the plank is very slippery and had been placed over the
+spot where the stream is deepest. John crossed it carefully enough,
+but looking back for a second he suddenly noticed that Alfred was
+following him. Before he could raise his voice in protest the trout
+had mounted the plank and was wriggling across it. Then, horror
+of horrors! in the middle of the plank the wretched fish suddenly
+lurched, lost its footing, plunged into the water and was drowned.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+FLOWERS' NAMES.
+
+WHAT THE FAIRIES WEAR.
+
+ If only you walk with an open ear
+ And watch with an open eye,
+ There's wonderful magic to see and hear
+ By silently passing by;
+ In meadows and ditches, here and there,
+ You'll find the clothes that the fairies wear.
+
+ You can see each golden and silvery frock
+ In Lady's Mantle and Ladysmock;
+ There's Lady's Garter (which, I suppose,
+ They wear with the cowslips called Hose-in-hose);
+ The solemn fairies who ride on owls
+ Shroud their faces with Monkswood cowls;
+ And there's other things besides fairy dresses--
+ There's Lady's Mirror and Lady's Tresses.
+
+ Bachelors' Buttons must be for elves
+ Who have to do up their clothes themselves;
+ And the tailor fairies use Fairy Shears,
+ Long cutting-grasses that grow by meres;
+ And they mend their things with the Spider-stitches,
+ Faint white flowers that you find in ditches,
+ And Shepherd's Needle, which you'll see plain
+ In every meadow and field and lane;
+ And when they've used them they grow again.
+
+ If only you walk with an open ear
+ And watch with an open eye,
+ There's wonderful secrets to see and hear
+ By silently passing by;
+ In meadows and ditches, here and there,
+ You'll find the clothes that the fairies wear;
+ And if you look when they think you've gone
+ Perhaps you'll see them trying them on.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "The whole of the United States is intensely interested in a
+ baseball scandal revealed a few days ago.
+
+ The Grand Judy, which is now investigating the charge, has
+ already indicted eight of the leading players."--_Evening
+ Paper_.
+
+Mr. Punch wishes his old consort more power to her elbow.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ROBBERY IN COURT.
+
+There would seem to be some need for watchfulness in our Courts of
+Justice lest the customs and privileges which to so great an extent
+have made them what they are should be allowed to lapse.
+
+A great sensation was caused throughout the legal profession the
+other day when it was reported in the Press that a witness, in giving
+evidence, made the following remark:--"It goes in one ear and out of
+the other. Perhaps that is because there is nothing to stop it." The
+report stated that laughter followed, and, if that was indeed the
+case, then we have no hesitation whatever in characterising it as a
+most unseemly outburst.
+
+If witnesses are to be permitted with impunity to snatch out of the
+Judge's mouth the jokes which naturally arise out of their evidence,
+our whole judicial system will be imperilled. In offering an
+explanation as to why "it goes in one ear and out of the other," the
+witness committed a grave breach of etiquette. That explanation, if
+made at all, should have been made by the Judge in the first place.
+Or if, after due opportunity had been given, his Lordship showed no
+desire to avail himself of the opening, then the privilege should have
+fallen to the examining counsel. If he in turn waived it, it should
+have been open to counsel on the other side to snap up the chance.
+
+We fail to understand how such a remark, coming from a witness, could
+have been allowed to pass without rebuke from the Judge or protest
+from the counsel, or some attempt at least to maintain order on the
+part of the usher.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE CHANTRY.
+
+ Grey dust lies on his battered face;
+ The glories of his shield are dim;
+ Half vanished are the words of grace
+ Beseeching pity and peace for him
+ Along the Purbeck rim.
+
+ His hands are folded palm to palm
+ (Some fingers lacking on the right),
+ And at his peaked feet the calm
+ Old lion shows he fell in fight,
+ As best became a knight.
+
+ The ivy shakes its tattered leaves
+ Where once he saw the painted pane;
+ The brooding, scurrying spider weaves
+ Where cloth of damask dyed in grain
+ Will never hang again.
+
+ With missal propped upon his helm
+ For him no drowsy chantor pleads;
+ But blackbirds in the darkening elm
+ Sing plain-song, and the Abbey meads
+ Retell their daisy-beads.
+
+D. M. S.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Lady_. "AND WHY DID YOU LEAVE YOUR LAST SITUATION?"
+
+_Prospective Maid_. "WELL, THAT'S A BIT INQUISITIVE, AIN'T IT, MUM? I
+DIDN'T ASK YOU WHY YOUR LAST GIRL LEFT YOU."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
+
+I am as a rule very strongly against the form of pedantry that hastens
+to cry "imitation" whenever a new writer finds himself impelled to
+a theme of the same character as that already associated with an
+old-established practitioner. But in the case of _The Lost Horizon_
+(METHUEN) I find myself overwhelmed. Consciously or unconsciously Mr.
+G. COLBY BORLEY has produced a story that in matter and treatment is
+so palpably a reflection of JOSEPH CONRAD that the likeness simply
+refuses to be ignored. It is in its way a good story enough--an affair
+of adventure in South America and on the high seas, with a generous
+sufficiency of oaths and blood-letting; a tale moreover that gives
+evidence (in spite of that distressing echo) of being written by
+one who takes his craft with a becoming dignity of purpose. One
+peculiarity of the Master has not only been borrowed by Mr. BORLEY,
+but exaggerated to his own undoing: I mean the trick of introducing
+a character or group of characters so clogged and obscured by the
+adhesions of the uncommunicated past that not till this has been
+gradually flaked from them do they emerge as figures in whom it is
+possible to take an intelligent interest. In the present instance this
+process is delayed for more than half the book. As for the intrigue,
+that concerns a group of cut-throat Europeans, who, having been
+ruinously involved in a South American revolution, are now further
+plunged into the plots of a scoundrelly African magnate and his
+conspiratorial gang. For myself, I parted from them all with a feeling
+of regret that they had not explained themselves earlier as the
+entertaining villains that they turned out to be.
+
+_Manhood End_ (HURST AND BLACKETT) is the title, not very cheery, that
+Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY has given to her latest novel, a simple and quite
+human story of country vicarage life, told sympathetically, but in
+too many words for so slight a theme. The publishers are at the
+wholly superfluous pains of urging you as a preliminary to read the
+"turn-over of cover." Don't! All you will find there is a synopsis
+of the plot, just sufficient to destroy the slender thread of your
+interest in its development. And I must record a protest against the
+entirely unneeded Prologue, in which total strangers sit round at
+a churchyard picnic on the graves of the real protagonists, and
+speculate as to their history. The tale itself is placed in Sussex
+(why this invidious partiality of our novelists?), the actors being
+for the most part clerical. The main interest is centred in the
+matrimonial trials of the _Rev. Frederick Rainbird_, whose bride,
+having married him in haste, repented at leisure, eloped with the
+promising brother of a neighbouring parson, repented more, returned
+to domesticity, ran away again, and so on, _da capo_. Perhaps really
+these simple but not short annals have a flavour that I have failed
+to convey. Mrs. DUDENEY writes easily, but should avoid the snares
+of originality. To say of her heroine's morning appearance at the
+breakfast table, that she "stood in the tangle of a delicious coffee
+smell," may convey an impression, but at a ruinous expense of style.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_Michael Winter_, hero of _The Black Knight_ (HUTCHINSON), by Mrs.
+ALFRED SIDGWICK and CROSBIE GARSTIN, had led a nice easy life till
+his father's nefarious schemes crashed, bringing down in a common ruin
+half the small investors in the country. Left penniless, he changes
+his disgraced name and goes out to Canada to make good. There, on the
+prairies, he puts in some hard honest work. But, in his haste to be
+rich, the _Black Knight_, as they do in chess, after moving straight,
+moved obliquely. In order to make a coup out of a Wall Street cinch he
+helped himself to the money of the bank of which he was cashier. Other
+people who shall be nameless have done this sort of thing before,
+and, after returning the "borrowed" cash, have enjoyed a stainless
+prosperity. But _Michael_, through a motor-car accident, just failed
+to put it back in time, and had to do two years. But he had made a
+fortune, and on emerging from prison returned to Europe to enjoy
+it. There he rescues an innocent English girl from a shady Parisian
+environment and marries her. By chance she learns the secret of the
+source of his wealth and leaves him. In order to appease her scruples
+and recover her he signs away his goods for the benefit of his
+father's creditors. What might have been a too sugary conclusion is
+saved by a pleasant touch of corrective irony in the very last line,
+where his wife expresses a very human satisfaction on finding that her
+best necklace was not included in the noble sacrifice. I hope I shall
+not be suspected of flattering Mr. Punch's "PATLANDER" if I admire
+the excellence of the Canadian section, obviously contributed by Mr.
+CROSBIE GARSTIN, who has knocked about most of the world marked red on
+the maps. Here his humour and vitality are at their keenest. The rest
+of a well-told tale I attribute to Mrs. ALFRED SIDGWICK, with the
+exception of a pugilistic episode, for which I imagine that the male
+fist was called in to supplement her proper inexperience.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "MY DEAR, I _FELT_ I OUGHT NEVER TO HAVE TAKEN THE
+HOLIDAY. SCARCELY HAD I SET FOOT IN MY APARTMENTS WHEN I WAS HANDED A
+TELEGRAM FROM SARAH:--'PARROT LAID AN EGG. WIRE INSTRUCTIONS.'"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I do believe that I have caught a detective napping; a real private
+detective, one of the great infallibles of fiction. Mr. J. S.
+FLETCHER'S _Exterior to the Evidence_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is one of
+those thrills in which any of the characters might have committed the
+murder and there is every reason, at times, to suspect that they have
+all had a hand in it. Over the moorland there ran a path, and at
+a spot known as Black Scar it came perilously near the edge of a
+forty-foot drop, with rocks at the bottom. Over this precipice
+went _Sir Cheville Stanbury_ at midnight, a very odd circumstance
+considering his life-long familiarity with the path. _Weathershaw_,
+the great detective called in to investigate the matter on behalf of
+one of the suspects, took a line of his own and eventually hit upon
+someone you and I would never have thought of. We have this excuse,
+that we had no idea of his existence until he was hit upon; but no
+more had _Weathershaw_. Now I am not going to give away the secret
+of this enticing affair, but I must dispute the detective's
+identification, on the last page but one, of the man responsible for
+_Sir Cheville's_ death. If you compare the statement of fact on page
+301, seven lines from the bottom, which corroborates that on page
+279, also seven lines from the bottom, with _Weathershaw's_ dramatic
+accusation, you will understand what I mean and you will be left
+in considerable doubt (as I was) of what the author means. Does he
+suggest that _Sir Cheville_ was never murdered at all? After so much
+excitement that would be a sad pity.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The publishers of _The Amorous Cheat_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) generously
+label it "an enthralling story of domestic and stage life." To which
+my comment must be, that the domesticity supplied by the hero's family
+and their quite uninteresting hesitations between town and suburban
+residence are entirely nebulous and illusive, that the stage as
+background has no significance one way or other, but that the
+impropriety upon which (I must say frankly) the appeal of the book
+seems to depend is given without stint, in a measure that certainly
+may, for some readers, justify the publishers' epithet. You will
+understand therefore that I experience a little natural hesitation
+about suggesting the intrigue. It is certainly of the simplest--a mere
+question as to whether _Edward_ and _Vivian_, casual acquaintances
+of a restaurant, shall or shall not spend a sequence of week-ends
+together. The lady is described as on the stage, but she might as well
+belong to a guild of art-needlework. _Edward_ is the only question of
+importance, and the week-ends; if you ponder the significance of the
+title you can probably guess the rest. To be honest I ought to add
+that Mr. BASIL CREIGHTON wields an easy-flowing pen, and that at least
+one chapter certainly is wickedly entertaining, in the style of what
+we used to call "Continental" humour. To sum up, not a novel
+for family reading or for the fastidious. The others may even be
+enthralled.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_The Diary of a Sportsman Naturalist in India_ (LANE) contains an
+excellent collection of sporting anecdotes, and dip where you may you
+will find none of them trivial or tiresome. Mr. E. P. STEBBING states
+that his purpose in selecting material from his note-books was "to
+emphasize the necessity which exists of affording protection to
+the game and other animals of India," and, shy as some of us are of
+purposeful books, there is no reason to be scared by this one. In
+the first place Mr. STEBBING's purpose is one which will generally
+be commended, and in the second he achieves it in an absolutely
+unobtrusive manner. To sportsmen, and especially to those who have
+enjoyed the good fortune of shooting in India, this volume will be
+extremely welcome. The only cumbrous thing about it is its title. Add
+that Mr. STEBBING is as profuse in his illustrations as he is happy in
+his choice of subjects.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume
+159, October 13, 1920, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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