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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150,
+January 5, 1916, by Various, Edited by Owen Seaman
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: September 14, 2007  [eBook #22602]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 150, JANUARY 5, 1916***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, David King, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 22602-h.htm or 22602-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/6/0/22602/22602-h/22602-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/6/0/22602/22602-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+VOL. 150
+
+JANUARY 5, 1916.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Whitefriars Press.
+
+
+
+RESOLUTIONS.
+
+  I will not breakfast in my bed
+  With downy cushions at my head;
+  That would be very wrong--and so
+  Away the eggs and bacon go!
+
+  I will not read in bed at night
+  And burn the dear electric light;
+  Nor buy another costly hat;
+  Oh no! I'm much too good for that.
+
+  But I will rise before the dawn
+  And weed and cut and roll the lawn;
+  My border I will plant with veg,
+  Abundantly from hedge to hedge.
+
+  And all the day I'll practise thrift
+  And no more happily will drift
+  In deeper debt, as once, alas!
+  --But what an awful year I'll pass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Art of Sinking.
+
+    "Altogether we sank one gunboat, five steamers (one of 3,000
+    tons), and 17 large sailing ships, three trains, and one railway
+    embankment."--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Very Light Marching Order.
+
+From a notice issued to recruits for the New Zealand Expeditionary
+Force:--
+
+    "You should report wearing a pair of serviceable boots, and
+    bring with you your toilet outfit--no additional clothing is
+    required."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In a conversation with members of the Press Mr. Ford said now
+    was the time for peace on the basis of the _status quo anti
+    bellum_."
+
+    _Scotch Paper._
+
+He always spells it that way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AN ILL-USED AUTHOR.
+
+"I gather, Sir," remarked my fellow-traveller, after I had put away the
+writing-block on which I had been jotting down the outline of an
+article, "that you are a literary man, like myself?"
+
+We were the only occupants of a compartment in a L. & N. W. R. carriage.
+I had been too absorbed till then to notice his appearance, but I now
+observed that he had rather unkempt hair, luminous eyes, and a soft hat.
+"Oh, well," I admitted, "I write."
+
+"But I take it that, whatever you write, it is not _poetry_," he said.
+What led him to this inference I cannot say, but I had to confess that
+it was correct.
+
+"Still, even though you are not a Poet yourself, I hope," he said, "you
+can feel some sympathy for one who has been so infamously treated as I
+have."
+
+I replied that I hoped so too.
+
+"Then, Sir," said he, "I will tell you my unhappy story. At the
+beginning of this War I was approached by certain Railway magnates who
+shall be nameless. It appeared that they had realised, very rightly,
+that their official notices were couched in too cold and formal a style
+to reach the heart of their public. So they commissioned me to supply
+what I may term the human touch. As a poet, I naturally felt that this
+could only be effectively done through the medium of verse. Well, I rose
+to the occasion, Sir; I produced some lines which, printed as they were
+written, must infallibly have placed me at the head of all of my
+contemporaries. But they were _not_ printed as they were written. In
+proof of which I will trouble you to read very carefully the opening
+paragraph of those 'Defence of the Realm Regulations' immediately above
+your head ... Only the opening paragraph at present, please!"
+
+I was somewhat surprised, but, thinking it best to humour him, I read
+the first sentence, which was: "_In view of possible attack by hostile
+aircraft, it is necessary that the blinds of all trains should be kept
+down after sunset_," and gave him my opinion of it.
+
+"Whether," he said, with some acerbity, "it is or is not as lucidly
+expressed as you are pleased to consider, only the beginning of it is
+mine. This is what I actually wrote:--
+
+  "'In view of possible attack
+  By hostile aircraft overhead,
+  'Tis necessary now, alack!
+  Soon as old Sol has sought his bed,
+  That those who next the window sit,
+  Though they'd prefer to watch the gloaming,
+  Should draw the blind, nor leave a slit,
+  Keeping it down until they're homing,
+  Else on the metals will be thrown
+  A glowing trail as from a comet,
+  And Huns to whom a train is shown
+  Will most indubitably bomb it!'
+
+"That," he observed complacently, "is not only verse of the highest
+order, but clearly conveys the reason for such precautions, which the
+official mind chose to cut out. And now let me ask you to read the next
+paragraph." I did so. "_At night-time when the blinds are drawn_" it
+ran, "_passengers are requested before alighting to make sure when the
+train stops that it is at the platform_."
+
+"Which," he cried fiercely, "is their mangled and mutilated version of
+this:--
+
+  "'At night-time when the blinds are drawn
+  (As screens against those devils' spawn,
+  Which love the gloom, but dread the dawn),
+  A train may be at standstill,
+  Then we request 'twill not occur
+  That some impatient passenger,
+  Whose nerves are in a chronic stir,
+  And neither feet nor hands still,
+  Without preliminary peep
+  Will forth incontinently leap,
+  Alighting in a huddled heap
+  To lie, a limp or flat form,
+  In some inhospitable ditch,
+  If not on grittier ballast, which
+  (The darkness far surpassing pitch)
+  He took to be the platform!'
+
+"As to the next paragraph," he continued, "I don't complain so much,
+though, personally, I consider '_Extract from Order made by the
+Secretary of State for the Home Department_' a very poor paraphrase of
+the resounding couplet in which I introduced him:--
+
+  "'Now speaks in genial tones, from heart to heart meant,
+  The Secretary for the Home Department!'
+
+"I could have overlooked that, Sir, if they had retained the lines I had
+written for him. But they've only let him speak the first four
+words--'_Passengers in Railway Carriages_'--and then drivel on thus:
+'_which are provided with blinds must keep the blinds covered so as to
+cover the windows'_--a clumsy tautology, Sir, for which I am sure no
+Home Secretary would care to be held responsible, and from which I had
+been at some pains to save him, as you may judge when I read you the
+original text:--
+
+  "'Passengers in railway carriages
+  Possess a sense which none disparages;
+  So those who are not perverse or froward
+  May be trusted to see that the blinds are lowered,
+  To cover the windows so totally
+  That no one inside can be seen, or see.
+  Mem.--This need not be done, as lately decided,
+  If blinds for the windows have not been provided.'
+
+"But," he went on, "the deadliest injury those infernal officials
+reserved for the last. If you read the concluding sentence, Sir, you
+will observe that it begins: '_The blinds may be lifted in case of
+necessity_!' (That, I need hardly say, is _entirely_ my own. There is a
+sort of inspired swing in it, the true lyrical lilt with which even
+red-tape has not dared to tamper! But mark how they go on): '_when the
+train is at a standstill at a station, but, if lifted, they must be
+lowered again before the train starts_.' And this insufferable bathos,
+forsooth, was substituted for lines like these:--
+
+  "'The blinds may be lifted in case of necessity;
+  Thus, if the train at a station should halt,
+  And the traveller hears not its name, nor can guess it, he
+  Cannot be held to commit any fault,
+  Still farther be fined,
+  Should he pull up the blind
+  Out of mere curiosity: had he not looked
+  He might miss the station for which he had booked!'
+
+"Well," he concluded, "that is my case. But I can never put it before
+the public myself. My pride would not permit me. Though, if
+someone--yourself, for instance--would present my claims to redress--"
+
+I couldn't help thinking that he had been hardly treated, and so I
+undertook to do what I could for him. He gave me his verses, also his
+name, which latter I have unfortunately forgotten. However, I hope I
+have redeemed my promise here in other respects.
+
+There are times when I wonder uneasily whether he may not have been
+pulling my leg. But, after all, he could have had no possible object in
+doing that. Besides, if, the next time you travel by the L. & N.-W., you
+will study the printed instructions in your compartment, I fancy you
+will agree with me that they corroborate his statements to a rather
+remarkable extent.
+
+F. A.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Christmas Trifle.
+
+    "Some stale sponge cake is cut in slices less than an inch
+    thick, and these are spread generously with jam and arranged on
+    a crystal dish, blanched and chopped with Clara and Jo and all
+    their young cousins."--_The Bulletin._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE RUSH TO SALONIKA.
+
+[Illustration: Wilhelm and Franz Joseph. "FERDIE, THE POST OF HONOUR IS
+YOURS."
+
+Ferdie. "YOU CAN HAVE IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Fair Hostess_ (_entertaining wounded soldier_). "And so
+one Jack Johnson buried you, and the next dug you up again and landed
+you on the top of a barn! Now, what were your feelings?"
+
+_Tommy._ "If you'll believe me, Ma'am, I was never more surprised in all
+my life."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.
+
+It has come as an immense relief to all true lovers of peace to learn
+that such German soldiers as have been taking part in the war on the
+Italian frontier have previously resigned their positions in the
+KAISER'S army and been re-enrolled under the Austrian flag, so that no
+untoward incident may disturb the profound peace which exists between
+Germany and Italy. All the same there are elements of possible danger in
+the situation which should be carefully watched. We look forward to a
+time when our gallant ally may be confidently expected to advance on to
+German soil, and we think it would be well for the authorities at Rome
+(unless the invading host is provided with Montenegrin uniforms) to
+serve out beforehand a large number of tourist coupons, available over a
+wide choice of different routes. This might avert the terrible
+consequences that are likely to follow a breach of relations.
+
+Of course it must be remembered that Italy has now signed on not to
+enter into a separate peace, and no doubt the only true economy is to
+make the present one go as far as possible, as it cannot be replaced.
+Still, since the sinking of the _Ancona_ by a German crew (partially
+whitewashed so as to look like Austrians), Italy's neutrality has become
+of an extremely virulent order.
+
+We need hardly say that President WILSON even on his honeymoon is
+closely watching the situation and thinking over it very deeply, very
+slowly and very calmly, hoping to discover hints for his own future
+guidance. It is said that he feels himself being drawn more and more
+into the vortex, and his attitude of passive belligerency may be
+followed by one of aggressive non-interference. It is common knowledge
+in Washington that if he can get no satisfaction on the _Ancona_
+question he will either despatch a new note (which will be _almost_ an
+ultimatum) or simply pass on and declare war on Albania.
+
+Portugal (as the ancient ally of Great Britain), who has already been
+involved in a scrap with German troops in Angola, is naturally deeply
+exercised as to what are her present relations with Turkey. The matter
+is an urgent one and might become crucial in the event of a Turkish
+Zeppelin drifting in a fog over Portuguese territory.
+
+The King of GREECE is said to have found a happy solution of his
+difficulty about a Bulgarian invasion of Greece. The incoming forces are
+to be provided with return tickets to Salonika and back, available only
+for forty-five days, and containing a stipulation that the traveller may
+not break his journey at any other point.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"FOR THIS RELIEF--"
+
+(_Suggested by the poster commending a recent Revue as "the last word in
+syncopation."_)
+
+  The days of our mourning are ended,
+    The lean years of famine are fled,
+  When, sick for a spoonful of aught that was tuneful,
+    We've sorrowed as over the dead
+  For Music, forlorn and unfriended,
+    Gone down into glimmerless gloom,
+  While rude "rag-time" revels were dancing a devils'
+      Tattoo on her tomb.
+
+  A new dawn of promise doth redden
+    The rim of our Stygian night;
+  Our bondage is breaking--O blessed awaking
+    To melody merry and bright!
+  My heart, long o'erloaded and leaden,
+    Now bounds to the blue like a bird;
+  The shadow has shifted; with paean uplifted
+      I hail that "last word"!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+Leap Year Anticipations.--A fine spring is expected in France, Flanders
+and Poland. If the weather is propitious a total eclipse will be visible
+in Berlin and Vienna.
+
+       ***
+
+Asked by some American journalists where the Peace Conference would be
+held, Dr. SVEN HEDIN is reported to have said, "Peace will be dictated
+from Berlin." And so say all of us!
+
+       ***
+
+Relations between Potsdam and Sofia are said to be badly strained. Three
+days after the Kaiser had issued his celebrated manifesto, "To my noble
+and heroic Serbian people," FERDINAND in the Sobranje was publicly
+denouncing the Serbians as obstinate, treacherous, and tyrannical. The
+KAISER considers this conduct extremely tactless, and threatens, if it
+continues, to spell Bulgarian with a "V."
+
+       ***
+
+All hitherto-published explanations of the threatened German attack on
+the Suez Canal are hereby cancelled. The fact is that the KAISER'S fleet
+is increasing so rapidly that it has outgrown its present accommodation.
+
+       ***
+
+During the visit of Mr. FORD'S Ark to Bergen the following notice was
+posted up at the Grand Hotel:--"All members of the Henry Ford Peace
+Expedition are requested to call for their laundry at the Grand Hotel,
+Room 408, Tuesday evening after supper. This notice supersedes the
+original plan to have the laundry delivered to each individual hotel."
+It may also explain why the members of the expedition have since washed
+their dirty linen in public.
+
+       ***
+
+Some of the pilgrims on the _Oscar II._ were much annoyed at the
+prohibition of card-playing on board. "What is the use," they asked, "of
+crying _Pax_ when there are none?"
+
+       ***
+
+Some strait-laced Conservatives, who were a little shocked to see the
+announcement of "Mr. Balfour on the Film," were comforted on its being
+pointed out to them that Mr. CHAPLIN set him the example.
+
+       ***
+
+A ten-year-old girl's essay on "Patriotism":--"Patriotism is composed of
+patriots, and they are people who live in Ireland and want Mr. Redmond
+or other people to be King of Ireland. They are very brave, some of
+them, and are so called after St. Patrick, who is Ireland's private
+saint. The patriots who are brave make splendid soldiers. The patriots
+who are not brave go to America."
+
+       ***
+
+Lord KITCHENER, who has a choice collection of old china, has lately
+added to it several fine specimens of Crown Derby.
+
+       ***
+
+So many Parliamentarians have recently requested the Treasury to stop
+sending them their £400 a year that a slight change in the designation
+of the others is suggested--P.M. (Paid Member) instead of M.P.
+
+       ***
+
+A soldier's letter: "DEAR SIS,--You ask what I want--well, for Heaven's
+sake send us a barber! You never saw such heads in your life as we've
+got.
+
+Lovingly, Bob.
+
+P.S.--Failing a barber send us a box of hair-pins."
+
+       ***
+
+Is it true that while the Cliff Hotel at Gorleston was blazing furiously
+during the gale last week a zealous official went up to the unfortunate
+proprietor and threatened him with pains and penalties for allowing a
+naked light to be seen far out at sea?
+
+       ***
+
+We understand that since the entrance-fee was suspended and the
+subscription reduced, the Automobile Club has increased its membership
+so largely that the Committee are thinking of re-naming it the Omnibus.
+
+       ***
+
+A conversation in the trenches:--
+
+_Private Dougal McTavish_ (_late of the Alberta Police_): "Mon, in ma
+section 'tis aften fafty degrees below zero. But, bless ye, 'tis dry
+cold, ye'll never feel it."
+
+_L.C. Owen Tyrrell_ (_late of Carpentaria Telegraphs_): "Down-under it
+is usually 125 in the shade. But thin it is dry heat, you are niver
+sinsible of ut."
+
+_Corpl. James Brown_ (_late Tram Conductor, Vancouver_): "In B.C. we
+stake upon 312 to 314 rainy days in the year. But it is dry rain, it
+don't wet you."
+
+       ***
+
+In an article on the employment of women as dentists, the writer says:
+"A new charm has been added to the delights of dentistry." Optimist!
+
+       ***
+
+He also says that one lady "extracted 38 teeth from nine patients, and
+showed little signs of fatigue from it, either." But what about the
+nine?
+
+       ***
+
+We observe that Mr. PEARCE, the Commonwealth Minister of Defence, fell
+while in his garden and broke two of his ribs, but are glad to learn
+that his condition is not serious. The conjunction of a rib, a garden,
+and a fall has in at least one previous case resulted in permanent
+injury.
+
+       ***
+
+A martyr to insomnia threatens, unless the Government stops the
+whistling for taxis, to let Mr. MCKENNA whistle for his.
+
+       ***
+
+Our men in the trenches are beginning to welcome the German gas-attacks.
+They say there is nothing like them for keeping down the rats.
+
+       ***
+
+Suggested motto for the controversy between the headmasters as to the
+publication of Public School Rolls of Honour--"Quot dominies tot
+santentiæ."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE NEW LEAF.
+
+[Illustration: Fancy portrait of Prussian poet preparing to write a Hymn
+of Love--in case it should be wanted.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Note.
+
+The "Wingfield House" mentioned in the article "Cases," which appeared
+in _Punch_ a fortnight ago, was a purely imaginary name and had nothing
+to do with the Wingfield House, near Trowbridge, where a hospital has
+for some time been established.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Juvenile War Lord._. "'Ere! Someone else 'ave a go--I'm
+sick o' war. It ain't in reason ter expect a bloke ter be the Kaiser
+three days running!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE VINDICATION OF JIMMY.
+
+In one corner of the school play-ground stood a small boy in deep
+dejection, with his hands in his pockets, his lower lip trembling
+slightly, whilst he strove to kick a hole in the ground with his right
+toe. It was Jimmy--Jimmy in his hour of trial.
+
+He wasn't going to blub, he wasn't going to do anything.
+
+Suddenly he stopped kicking at the ground, as he remembered that his
+mother had told him he must be careful of his boots now that the War was
+on.
+
+He took out of his pocket a match-box, the temporary home of a large
+beetle--a buzzer, Jimmy called it--which had hitherto refused to eat
+either grass or bran or Indian corn. His gaze then wandered to a hole in
+his stockings, which he had mended by applying ink to the exposed part
+of his skin.
+
+From the opposite side of the playground came the tumultuous noise of
+the calm deliberations of Form II.
+
+Jimmy knew perfectly well that they were discussing him, and that in
+time one of their number would be sent to inform him of the verdict and
+sentence.
+
+He expected that he would have to fight them all, one by one, and he
+wondered how many blows he would be able to stand without returning
+them, for to hit back was out of the question under the unfortunate
+circumstances.
+
+Jimmy wished they would get it over, for he was quite willing to undergo
+any form of punishment they might decide upon, if only they would let
+him know quickly. He hoped they wouldn't make the Biffer fight him, not
+that he was afraid of the Biffer, but because it would be so hard to
+keep himself from hitting back, and that he had decided not to do. You
+see the Biffer was a new boy, and, for another thing, he wore a leather
+strap round his wrist. On his very first day at school the Biffer had
+volunteered the information that he once gave a boy such a biff on the
+nose that he had sprained his wrist, and that ever since he had worn a
+wrist strap, lest it should happen again. It was Jimmy who had
+nick-named him the Biffer, and from that time the Biffer had sought
+Jimmy's blood.
+
+But Jimmy was not easy to quarrel with.
+
+He was the acknowledged champion of Form II., and you had to commit
+three offences before Jimmy would seriously consider you. At the first
+offence you got a note with the one word "Beware!" written upon it; at
+the second, another note with the word "Blood" written underneath a
+skull and crossbones; and at the third you received a note with the word
+"Deth," and underneath was the drawing of a coffin.
+
+The Biffer had so far arrived at the second note.
+
+Jimmy did hope they wouldn't choose the Biffer, for he could hear even
+now the Biffer's yell when he had made that awful mistake which had
+brought about the present deplorable situation.
+
+Jimmy couldn't think how he had come to say what he did say; he could
+have bitten off his tongue when he realised it; but it was too late--he
+had said it.
+
+He tried to think how it had all occurred, and the scene flashed again
+before his mind. There was the master with his pointer resting upon the
+Dogger Bank on the map of Europe.
+
+"Who can tell me the name of this sea?" he had said, and Jimmy had
+snapped his fingers and waved his arm about in his anxiety to catch the
+master's eye. You see, it was so seldom, so very seldom, that Jimmy felt
+he knew the right answer to any question, and the new experience was
+intoxicating. The master too seemed to find it unusual, and he at once
+turned to Jimmy and said, "Well, what is this sea called, then?" Jimmy,
+full of the pride of knowledge, burst out with "The North Sea, Sir." Oh!
+if he had only stopped at that; but in his desire to show how much he
+knew he added without thinking the fatal words, "or German Ocean!"
+
+In the shout of derision which had followed, Jimmy realised what he had
+said, and felt himself falling, falling, falling....
+
+Jimmy became aware that the noise on the opposite side of the playground
+was ceasing, and soon, from the corner of his eye, he saw Jones minimus
+detach himself from the crowd. "Half a mo'," he heard Jones minimus say;
+"I want to get a knotted handkerchief," and he saw him hurry into the
+school. As he emerged he flourished the knotted handkerchief, but when
+delivering the verdict to Jimmy that he would have to run the gauntlet
+three times to the tune of the knotted handkerchiefs of Form II., he
+tried to smuggle into Jimmy's hands an exercise-book which he said Jimmy
+could stuff up his back; it would stick there if Jimmy buttoned his
+jacket, he said, and it would take the sting off a bit. Jimmy had to
+bite his lip as he refused the exercise-book, and then with head erect
+and lips no longer trembling he went forth to face the ordeal.
+
+Form II. had arranged themselves in two ranks, facing one another, and
+the knots in the handkerchiefs were firm and hard. "You have got to bunk
+through and back again and then down again," said Jones minimus in a
+hoarse whisper.
+
+The Biffer was at the head of one rank, and had got his handkerchief
+slung over his shoulder in happy readiness for the first blow.
+
+"Are you ready? Go!" shouted Form II. in one voice.
+
+At the word "Go!" Jimmy pulled his hands out of his pockets--he was glad
+his mother wasn't there to see him--and with head still up and eyes to
+the front he walked slowly up the double lines and as slowly down them.
+The Biffer got in a good one, he got in two before Jimmy was out of
+reach, and he then changed the handkerchief to his left hand in
+readiness for the return journey. Arrived at the end of the lines, Jimmy
+turned on his heel and began to walk even more slowly than at first.
+
+But there was no sting in the blows this time; all the zest seemed to
+have gone out of the affair; and, but for the whack the Biffer gave,
+Jimmy never felt anything. The third time down was a farce, for, after
+Jimmy had deliberately stopped opposite the Biffer in order to let him
+have as many as his injured soul required, no one touched him. In fact
+they were all shaking hands with Jimmy, who was now his smiling self
+once more and ready to play with the best of them, when suddenly the
+Biffer took it into his head to make a joke.
+
+"Perhaps he _is_ a German," said the Biffer, and waited for the general
+laugh to follow his sally.
+
+But the laugh didn't come; instead there was a dead silence.
+
+Who was the Biffer--a new boy at that--to call anyone a German?
+Instinctively a ring was formed and the Biffer found himself in the
+middle of it.
+
+Jimmy took off his coat and gave it to Jones minimus, who danced for
+sheer delight.
+
+Jimmy had only one regret: the butcher-boy was not there to see him--the
+butcher-boy who had expended so much time over him, had taught him the
+upper cut, the under cut, every cut that the heart of a butcher-boy
+delights in. The Biffer was very busy biffing the air with a rapid
+circular motion of the arms, for Jimmy's fixed scowl and set of jaw
+troubled him.
+
+Oh, why wasn't the butcher-boy there to see that tremendous smack on the
+nose the Biffer got? He would have felt amply rewarded.
+
+No one had ever seen Jimmy fight like this, and Jones minimus shouted in
+his joy, for the Biffer was outbiffed in every direction.
+
+In vain did he cry "_Pax_," for Jimmy had not half relieved his
+feelings, and there was no end to the dodges the butcher-boy had taught
+him, each of which, he had said, meant sudden death.
+
+"He's had enough, Jimmy," whispered Jones minimus. "I'm satisfied," he
+added as the Biffer, who was lying on the ground, refused to get up and
+have any more.
+
+As the boys entered the class-room the next day there was the map of
+Europe still hanging up in front of the class, and the very first
+question that was asked by the master was, "Well, Jimmy, what is this
+sea?"
+
+"The North Sea or British Ocean, Sir!" said Jimmy, a reply that was
+greeted with a rousing cheer by the whole of Form II.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A SECOND HELPING!
+
+  Our Bagdad force fell in a rut
+    At Ctesiphon; Turks made things hum.
+  We found that we had got to Kut,
+  Whilst Russians found a way to Kum!
+
+  Our men know not the word "defeat,"
+    They'll make it clear on Tigris plain
+  That, Russian-like, when they retreat,
+    'Tis but to cut and come again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A TURKISH TROPHY.
+
+(_A belated letter from Gallipoli._)
+
+My dear ----, By this week's post I trust you will receive the long
+promised trophy, to wit one Turkish headpiece procured by my own
+personal exertions. As the story of its capture, though somewhat out of
+the ordinary, has been passed over in stony silence both by the official
+_communiqués_ and "Our Special Correspondent" I shall endeavour to give
+you a brief impression of the difficulties overcome as truthfully as my
+sense of imagination will allow me. First of all I must draw a map:--
+
+[Illustration:
+
+A B British trench, with traverses.
+
+C D Turkish trench, without.
+
+E F Ditch
+
+G British barricade.
+
+H Turkish barricade.]
+
+This should give you an idea of the English and Turkish lines at a point
+where they are about eighty yards apart. Without going into details you
+will see the English trench is of the superior pattern, as it has
+traverses. I had to work in that technical term to show I know all about
+it; I know another, "the berm," but I am not too sure about what that
+is, and also I don't suppose I could draw a "berm" if I saw one. Anyway,
+I know it's quite a good term connected with trenches, as I heard a
+G.O.C. fairly strafe a subaltern, the other day, because he hadn't got a
+"berm." Well, to refer to the map, you will observe that there is an old
+ditch running between the two lines of trenches, and both sides have
+advanced a certain distance along this ditch and have built barricades
+about ten yards apart. Every day it is part of my job to take a
+constitutional along our trenches, and after discussing the European
+situation and the latest Budget with the various battalion commanders to
+ask them whether there is any particularly obnoxious part of the
+opposition line they would like me to salute with my battery. Usually
+they say, "No, there's nothing in particular, but let's have a shoot all
+the same; for example, there's a dog that barks abominably every night
+opposite L 57. Couldn't you abolish him?" Incidentally we no longer give
+our trenches names, such as Piccadilly, Rotten Row, but mere letters and
+numbers; the reason being that one of the staff was picked up in a
+fainting condition, having strolled down Park Lane and then found
+himself, to his horror, in Peckham High Street. The shock--his own home
+being in Baling Broadway--had proved too much for his constitution.
+However, to refer back to the map once more, our barricade across the
+ditch is a most convenient spot for observing artillery fire and as such
+is frequently used by me. Unfortunately my view was always hasty and
+badly interrupted by the attentions of a Turkish sniper behind their
+barricade. This man's name was Ibrahim, and he was a Constantinople
+cab-driver, married, with two children, both boys. You may be surprised
+that we know so much about the enemy, but we live in such close
+proximity that opposite the Lancashire Fusiliers a Turk named Mahomet,
+who lives at No. 3, Golden Horn Terrace, told the reporter of _The
+Worpington Headlight_ that for three years he had been suffering from
+pains in the back--but that's another story. Incidentally Mahomet at
+present inhabits a sniper's post surrounded by a perfect thicket of
+barbed-wire, and I had a bright scheme for its removal. I got hold of a
+trench catapult, an ingenious contrivance of elastic that hurls a bomb
+some hundreds of yards, and placed in it a harpoon attached to a long
+coil of rope. The idea was that on release of the catapult the harpoon
+would be hurled in the air, the rope would neatly pay out, and then, as
+soon as the harpoon had grappled Mahomet, all we would have to do would
+be to haul on the rope and over would come the whole bag of tricks.
+Unfortunately something went wrong, and the rope, instead of neatly
+uncoiling, flailed round the trench like a young anaconda, and, catching
+a harmless spectator by the leg, hurled him twenty feet in the air.
+Immediately the opposition lines resounded like a rifle-booth at a
+country fair. However our spectator descended unpunctured, and the only
+damage done was to our vanity, when Mahomet threw over a message
+attached to a stone to ask whether we would repeat the performance as he
+and a pal had a bet on as to who was the best shot and wanted a human
+aeroplane to judge.
+
+But we have got a long way from Ibrahim. Ibrahim possessed the headpiece
+I am sending you. I could not think of a method for obtaining it, as his
+vigilance was deadly. However a bright thought struck me, and I
+assiduously saved up my rum ration for a month. Then one bitter cold
+night I tossed over the accumulation in a bottle wrapped up in an old
+sock. Presently there resounded in the still air a pleasant bubbling
+sound indicative of liquid being poured out of a glass receptacle, then
+a deep sigh, followed by a profound silence. Inch by inch I crawled over
+our barricade and slowly wormed my way along the ditch. At last I
+reached the Turkish barricade and cautiously slid my hand over the top
+until my fingers encountered Ibrahim's toque. Then I gave a gentle tug.
+Horror! he had the flap down under his chin. Unmanned for a moment I
+recovered, and I slowly slid my fingers down his hirsute neck and with a
+gentle titillation slid the flap clear. Ibrahim merely stirred in his
+sleep and resumed his slumbers. Triumphantly hugging the trophy to my
+bosom I crawled back to our barricade.
+
+The saddest part of the tale is yet to come. I had promised to procure
+you a trophy unstained by association with human slaughter, but when the
+day dawned there lay poor Ibrahim stiff and stark behind his barricade,
+killed by a cold in his head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PANTOMIME ANNOUNCEMENTS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Message Boy Wanted for Butchery."
+
+            _Brechin Advertiser._
+
+A lot of people are after that boy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Taxi driver who laid down Fare at Royal Hotel at 2.45 p.m. on
+    Christmas Day, would oblige by returning Gent's Umbrella to
+    Hotel."
+
+          _Aberdeen Journal._
+
+We gather that it had been a wet morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Cyril_ (_eating his bread-and-jam--with not too much
+jam_). "This is prepostrous--this war economy."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HUNTIN' WEATHER.
+
+  There's a dog-fox down in Lannigan's spinney
+    (And Lannigan's wife has hens to mourn);
+  The hunters stamp in their stalls an' whinny,
+    Soft with leisure an' fat with corn.
+
+  The colts are pasturin', bold an' lusty,
+    Sleek they are with their coats aglow,
+  Ripe to break, but the bits grow rusty
+    And the saddles sit in a dusty row.
+
+  Old O'Dwyer was here a-Monday
+    With a few grey gran'fathers out for a field
+  (Like the ghostly hunt of a dead an'-done day),
+    They--an' some lassies that giggled an' squealed.
+
+  The houn's they rioted like the devil
+    (They ran a hare an' they killed a goose);
+  I cursed Caubeen, but he looked me level:
+    "The boys are away--so what's the use?"
+
+  The mists lie clingin' on bog an' heather,
+    Haws hang red on the silver thorn;
+  It's huntin' weather, ay, huntin' weather,
+    But trumpets an' bugles have beat the horn!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Debt of Honour.
+
+Mr. Punch ventures to plead on behalf of the nine hundred men of the
+Royal Naval Division who were taken prisoners by the enemy in the
+retirement from Antwerp. Less fortunate than those of the same Division
+who were interned in Holland (for want of official information most
+people imagine that all the missing were so interned), they lack the
+necessities of life. Parcels of food are sent to them, fortnightly to
+each man, as well as clothing and tobacco; and it is known that they
+receive all that is sent. Mr. Punch begs his readers to help the fund
+from which these simple comforts are provided, and to address their
+gifts to Lady GWENDOLEN GUINNESS, at 11, St. James's Square, S.W.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a report of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S speech:--
+
+    "The works of Ireland have been extremely helpful, and I am glad
+    to acknowledge that I have been extremely helpful."
+
+    _Manchester Guardian._
+
+On this occasion the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS appears to have allowed
+himself the privilege of "thinking aloud."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "_The Daily Mail_ will not be published to-morrow, and for that
+    reason we seize the occasion to-day of bidding our readers a
+    merry Christmas,"--_Daily Mail of December 24th._
+
+And a very good reason too.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seasonable.
+
+    "The Canadian Government has granted to Canadian troops oversea
+    and in training at home a Christmas allowance of one chilling."
+
+    _Provincial Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "He much regretted that it was not possible to-day to
+    communicate the results of the Derby Report in any detail, or,
+    indeed, at all. The task had been one of stupendous bagnitude."
+
+    _Evening Standard._
+
+Yes, but how big was the bag?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two descriptions of the new Chief of the Imperial General Staff:--
+
+    "Of Scottish descent, and familiarly known to the Army as
+    'Jock,' he is one of the most remarkable soldiers of the time."
+
+    _Glasgow Evening Times._
+
+    "That he is known throughout the whole Army simply as 'Wullie'
+    is a sure token that the private soldier has taken him to his
+    heart."
+
+    _Glasgow Evening Citizen._
+
+Won't the Germans be puzzled?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Eddie Harvey (Fleetwood) and Ike Whitehouse (Barrow) went
+    through 15 rounds contest for £5 a side and a nurse, and Harvey
+    won on points."--_The People._
+
+The stakes, we presume, were divided.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A kid was born with monkey face and human skull at Saidapet on
+    the 13th instant."
+
+    _New India._
+
+This is headed "A Curious Phenomenon." But is it? Some of our
+neighbours' kids are just like that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW EDGE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON AS USUAL.
+
+("_Kelly's London Directory_" for 1916, a contemporary remarks, is very
+much the same as the volume for 1915.)
+
+  Where, where are the signs of the raider
+    Who swam to our ken like a kite,
+  Who swore he had played the invader
+    And knocked us to bits in the night;
+  Who pounded these parts into jelly
+    From Mile End, he said, to the Mall?
+  For the man who should know (J. J. KELLY)
+        Can't spot 'em at all.
+
+  You may turn up the street that is Vigo
+    Or alight on the Lane that is Mark;
+  You may let your incredulous eye go
+    O'er each Crescent and Corner and Park;
+  You may hunt through the humblest of alleys
+    Or the giddiest haunts of the town,
+  And Kelly's, who're "safe" as the Palace,
+        Have got 'em all down.
+
+  So I sing to those equals in wonder,
+    Of BRADSHAW (the expert on trains),
+  Who have torn the Hun's fiction asunder--
+    That our City's a mass of remains;
+  Here's our proof that we're plainly not undone,
+    That, although every night she lies hid,
+  Our stolid undaunted old London
+        Still stands where she did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Porter_ (_dug-out_). "Shall I put yer 'ockey-knockers in
+the van, Sir?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+STUDIES IN FRUSTRATION.
+
+I.
+
+The scene was the comfortable spacious breakfast-room in the Bishop's
+Palace. His lordship sat nearest to the fire; the bishop's wife presided
+over the fragrant coffee-pot, and the curate, their dine-and-sleep
+guest, sat opposite the bishop and farthest from the warmth. As a curate
+this position was his due. Some day he also would be a bishop, and then
+he too would know what it was to intercept the glow.
+
+The curate was looking dubiously into the recesses of an egg. His fine
+Anglican features underwent a series of contortions.
+
+"I am afraid," said the bishop, "that that egg is not a good one."
+
+"You are right, my lord," said the curate. "It is not only bad, it's
+alive. I think it's the worst egg that was ever offered me."
+
+
+II.
+
+The wounded soldier lay in his deck-chair placidly smoking his hundredth
+cigarette that day. He was not naturally a smoker, but cigarettes
+arrived in enormous numbers and something had to be done with them.
+
+His visitor sat beside him, note-book in hand. "Yes?" he remarked.
+
+"And then," said the soldier, "came the order to charge. We fixed
+bayonets and rushed at the Bosches like mad. It was glorious--like the
+best kind of football match."
+
+The visitor took it all down, and more.
+
+"I remember bayonetting two men," said the soldier, "and then I remember
+nothing else. And that's six months ago. Still, I'm getting well, and
+then there's only one thing on earth that I really want with a
+passionate desire ..."
+
+"I know! I know!" said the visitor, moistening his pencil.
+
+"Never to see any more war as long as I live," the soldier continued.
+
+
+III.
+
+The aged artist sat in his luxurious studio surrounded by his
+masterpieces--that is, by the pictures he had never been able to sell.
+
+The gem of the collection stood on an easel in the middle of the room;
+while a connoisseur, hat in hand, inspected it closely,
+enthusiastically, breathlessly. Then, coming over to where the artist
+was resting, he sat down opposite to him and in a voice trembling with
+emotion asked, "Tell me, how _do_ you mix your colours?"
+
+There was a deep silence, almost painful in its intensity. A drawing-pin
+fell with a deafening crash.
+
+The venerable painter stood up with a calm and leonine expression. "I
+use an ivory palette knife," he said.
+
+
+IV.
+
+The shadows were lengthening in the beautiful garden. It was a warm
+spring evening. The old sun-dial had just struck seven.
+
+The poet threw aside his book and called his Airedale terrier; the dog,
+responding in time, eventually reached his master's knee.
+
+Seizing his opportunity, the representative of the Press observed, "You
+are, I see, fond of dogs."
+
+"Fond of dogs?" replied the poet. "I? I detest them;" and so saying he
+kicked the Airedale a distance of several feet into the air, so that,
+falling immediately on the sun-dial, it was transfixed by the gnomon.
+
+As he watched its struggles, thus impaled, the poet laughed the hearty
+resonant laugh for which he was famous.
+
+
+V.
+
+The Civil Service clerk so famous for his drollery was entering the
+office doors at half-past ten in the morning, or exactly sixty minutes
+past the appointed time. By an unfortunate chance his principal met him,
+as, alas! he had too often done, at the same tardy hour. "Late again,"
+said the great man, consulting his watch. "I believe that you get here
+later every day." "Yes," said the clerk, "I do. But then I always stay
+on and work overtime."
+
+
+VI.
+
+The eminent publicist replaced his glass on the table and turned to the
+lady who sat beside him. "My business," he said, "is the manufacture of
+mustard. I have made a vast fortune out of it."
+
+"How very interesting," the lady replied absently; but the next moment,
+inspired by a hidden thought, she added with quickened interest, "Please
+don't think me inquisitive, but how can a fortune be made out of a thing
+like mustard? People take so little of it."
+
+"Madam," answered the mustard magnate deliberately, "we do not make our
+fortunes from the mustard that people eat"--
+
+"Yes, yes?" cried the lady eagerly.--"but," he continued, "from what
+they spill in mixing poultices."
+
+
+VII.
+
+The famous money-lender one evening arrived as usual at the Casino, but
+this time only to bid his friends good-bye.
+
+"Not leaving Monte?" they asked.
+
+"Yes, I am," he replied; "I'm going to Rome."
+
+"Rome?"
+
+"Yes, why not? I'm told it's wonderful. I shall be there a month;" and
+so saying he hurried to his hotel.
+
+Three days later he walked into the Casino again.
+
+"What," cried his friends--"you here? We thought you were going to be in
+Rome a month."
+
+"So I am," said the money-lender, "and more. I came back for my things,
+most of which I left here, as it had occurred to me I might not like it.
+But I adore it. Rome is beautiful, august, sublime. The simple severe
+beauty of the Vatican, the vast solemnity of the Campagna! It is indeed
+the eternal city. Let me keep Rome!"
+
+And again he hurried away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Excited individual_ (_who has picked up umbrella left in
+bar, to despatch rider just leaving_). "Hi! Mister. Is this your
+umbrella?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Long Turn.
+
+    "To-morrow evening Miss Phyllis Bedells makes her final
+    appearance at the London Empire, where she has danced without
+    interruption for nine and a half years."
+
+    _Bristol Times and Mirror._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+De Mortuis....
+
+    "Tired of this much worn physical life Chief George Moshesh
+    bursted the bands of morality as under Tuesday, November 2nd."
+
+    _South African Paper._
+
+    "Tenders invited for alterations and additions to the late Mr.
+    Waata W. Hipango, Pitiki, are hereby cancelled."--_New Zealand
+    Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Neighbour._ "And how does your son like his training?"
+
+_Proud Mother of Recruit._ "Oh, he's very happy. But he says they do
+take him very long walks."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE XMAS ADVENTURES OF A DRAWING.
+
+_From Robert Simpson, Edinburgh, to Joan Dalgleish, London._
+
+_December_ 15.
+
+Dear Miss Dalgleish,--I send you as promised, when we parted in Skye,
+one of my little drawings. I am sorry I have had no time to get it
+framed. I am off in ten days to India to resume my work. If you have no
+room for this little picture on your walls it will do for a Red Cross
+Bazaar.
+
+Hoping to meet you some other summer,
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+R. Simpson.
+
+_From Joan Dalgleish to Robert Simpson._
+
+_London, December_ 17.
+
+Dear Mr. Simpson,--So many thanks for the drawing of the bay. It will
+always remind me of our delightful holiday in the North, and in the
+murky days of December it will make me feel again in the fresh air of
+Scotland.
+
+With best wishes for a pleasant
+journey,
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+Joan Dalgleish.
+
+
+_From Joan Dalgleish to Mary Morris, Manchester._
+
+_December_ 23.
+
+Dearest Mary,--I am sending you a little Christmas card, in the shape of
+a water-colour drawing with a calendar attached, which can be removed
+each year. It will remind you of the fine time we spent bathing and
+boating on the Welsh Coast, which I know you people in the North adore.
+I have long wanted to send you some token of our days together in that
+pleasant land, and, after much searching, here at last it is.
+
+Your affectionate Friend,
+
+Joan Dalgleish.
+
+
+_From Mary Morris to Joan Dalgleish._
+
+_December_ 24.
+
+Dearest Joan,--What a treat to see that glorious Welsh Coast, that
+heaving sea and those sunny cliffs, when I am barely existing in this
+gloomy city! _Always_ will this _dear_ scene be in my sight morning and
+evening, to remind me of my friend whom I miss _so much_, and of those
+grand aspects of nature which we enjoyed together.
+
+With dear love,
+
+Mary.
+
+
+_From Mary Morris to Miss Eleanor Mendip, Writers' Club, London._
+
+_December_ 30.
+
+Dear Miss Mendip,--It seems ages since we met after your _great_ visit
+to Manchester and after that _splendid_ lecture on "Some Aspects of
+Nature." I cannot let the New Year pass without sending you a little
+picture of our Northern coast as a humble token of my _immense_
+admiration for your charming work--the poor offering of a constant
+admirer.
+
+Hoping to see you again in our city
+and that you will again stay at our
+home,
+
+Your affectionate admirer,
+
+Mary Morris.
+
+
+_From Miss Mendip to Miss Morris._
+
+_January_ 2.
+
+Dear Miss Morris,--Forgive me for not acknowledging before the graceful
+tribute of your admiration for my work. I do indeed regard you as a
+friend--few girls of my acquaintance have so real a sense of literary
+perfection as my dear young friend in Manchester. Always will I cherish
+your appreciative gift as a remembrance of my sweet young friend.
+
+Yours affectionately,
+
+Eleanor Mendip.
+
+
+_From Miss Mendip to the Editor, "Women's Welfare," London._
+
+_January_ 4.
+
+Dear Mr. Scrimbles,--You said you intended to obtain an illustration to
+my paper on "Cottage Homes by Western Waters." I can save you trouble
+and some expense. I have succeeded in obtaining just the picture you
+want. I accordingly enclose it. You can add the fee of 10s. 6d. to my
+cheque for the article. I hope it will come out in February.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+Eleanor Mendip.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "WANTED. Good School-Master, in exchange for Blue Pom dog, 3
+    months, splendid coat, or sell £1. Approval both ways."
+
+    _Welsh Paper_.
+
+Lest our scholastic readers should be incensed at this cynical estimate
+of their value we hasten to inform them that this "School-Master" is a
+pigeon and not a pedagogue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"Puss in Boots."
+
+If Messrs. SIMS, DIX and COLLINS did in fact, as they claim, make the
+book of this year's pantomime at the Lane, Mr. GEORGE GRAVES gagged and
+bound it. This popular annual festival indeed tends to become more and
+more of a GRAVES solo (with of course the innumerable customary _da
+capos_) and a bright sketchy EVANS _obbligato_. As a Grand Duchess and
+Duke respectively the genial twain present themselves. Mr. GEORGE
+GRAVES, in a flounced skirt of green tartan check, copper curls and
+mahogany features, is a delectable creation; says some strangely
+unlady-like things (as is expected of him); is still oddly preoccupied
+with "gear-boxes" and other anatomical detail; and generally indulges in
+a fine careless rapture of reminiscence and improvisation--zealously
+assisted by Mr. WILL EVANS' familiar tip-tilted nose and bland refusal
+to be perturbed by entirely unrehearsed effects and obviously irregular
+cues. A jovial and irreverent pair of potentates, crowned by public
+laughter.
+
+There is, of course, a sort of background to all this audacious fooling,
+more definitely directed _virginibus puerisque_. The new principal boy,
+Mr. ERIC MARSHALL, woos his princess with a romantic air and a mellow
+tenor, in which emotion somewhat overshadows tone. Miss FLORENCE
+SMITHSON, an accepted Drury Lane favourite, looks very charming, makes
+love in pretty kitten wise and still indulges in those queer harmonics
+of hers--virtuosity rather than artistry, shall we call it?--but is
+altogether quite a nice princess of pantomime. Little RENÉE MAYER is the
+Puss. Nothing could well be daintier. But I hope she will let me tell
+her (in a whisper, so that the others won't hear), that she doesn't
+_quite_ realise what a jolly part she has got. I would implore her to
+spend an hour or two at serious play with any decent young cat and study
+the grace and variety of its beautiful, imitable gestures. Then she will
+assuredly pounce on her magician turned mouse, and fawn on her master
+and friends, with a greater air of conviction. And she will mightily
+please all the other nice children in the house.
+
+Of the great _ensemble_ scenes unquestionably the finest was the Fairy
+Garden, with a quite beautiful back-cloth by R. MCCLEERY and a
+bewildering (and, to tell truth, largely bewildered) bevy of
+butterflies, decked by COMELLI, fluttering in a flowery pleasaunce. And
+there was also a clever variation on the now inevitable staircase
+_motif_ as a _finale_. But the Harlequinade of happy memory has
+deplorably declined to something like a mere display of
+advertisements--a sad business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Starlight Express."
+
+It would be uncandid to pretend that Mr. ALGERNON BLACKWOOD gets
+everything he has to say in _The Starlight Express_ safely across the
+footlights--those fateful barriers that trap so many excellent
+intentions. But he so evidently _has_ something to say, and the saying
+is so gallantly attempted, that he must emphatically be credited with
+something done--something rather well done really. The little play has
+beautiful moments--and that is to say a great deal.
+
+This novelist turned playwright wishes to make you see that "the Earth's
+forgotten it's a Star." In plainer words he wants to present you with a
+cure for "wumbledness." People who look at the black side of things, who
+think chiefly of themselves--these are the wumbled. The cure is
+star-dust--which is sympathy. The treatment was discovered by the
+children of a poor author in a cheap Swiss _pension_ and by
+"Cousinenry," a successful business man of a quite unusual sort. You
+have to get out into the cave where the starlight is stored, gather
+it--with the help of the Organ Grinder, who loves all children and sings
+his cheery way to the stars; and the Gardener, who makes good things
+grow and plucks up all weeds; and the Lamplighter, who lights up heads
+and hearts and stars impartially; and the Sweep, who sweeps away all
+blacks and blues over the edge of the world, and the Dustman, with his
+sack of Dream-dust that is Star-dust (or isn't it?), and so forth. Then
+you sprinkle the precious stuff on people, and they become miracles of
+content and unselfishness. (The fact that life isn't in the very least
+like that is a thing you have just got to make yourself forget for three
+hours or so.)
+
+The author was well served by his associates. Sir EDWARD ELGAR wove a
+delightfully patterned music of mysterious import through the queer
+tangle of the scenes and gave us an atmosphere loaded with the finest
+star-dust. Lighting and setting were admirably contrived; and the
+grouping of the little prologue scenes, where that kindly handsome giant
+of an organ-grinder (Mr. CHARLES MOTT), with the superbly cut corduroys,
+sang so tunefully to as sweet a flock of little maids as one could wish
+to see, was particularly effective.
+
+Of the players I would especially commend the delicately sensitive
+performance of Miss MERCIA CAMERON (a name and talent quite new to me)
+as _Jane Anne_, the chief opponent of wumbledom. She was, I think,
+responsible more than any other for getting some of the mystery of the
+authentic Black-woodcraft across to the audience. The jolly spontaneity
+of RONALD HAMMOND as young _Bimbo_ was a pleasant thing, and ELISE HALL,
+concealing less successfully her careful training in the part, prettily
+co-operated as his sister _Monkey_. The part of _Daddy_, the congested
+author who was either "going to light the world or burst," was in O. B.
+CLARENCE'S clever sympathetic hands. Mr. OWEN ROUGHWOOD gave you a sense
+of his belief in the efficacy of star-dust. On what a difficult rail our
+author was occasionally driving his express you may judge when he makes
+this excellent but not particularly fragile British type exclaim, "I am
+melting down in dew." The flippant hearer had always to be inhibiting
+irreverent speculations occasioned by such speeches.
+
+I couldn't guess if the children in the audience liked it. I hope they
+didn't feel they had been spoofed, as MAETERLINCK so basely spoofed them
+in _The Blue Bird_, by offering them a grown-ups' play "sicklied o'er
+with the pale cast of thought." But the bigger children gave the piece a
+good welcome, and called and acclaimed the shrinking author. T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Princess Rosabel_ ... Miss Florence Smithson. _Florian_
+... Mr. Eric Marshall.
+
+_Princess Rosabel_ and _Florian_, a young man--though only a miller's
+son--of considerable polish, especially about the hair and feet.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "36 Magnificent, Acclimatised, Well-bred Dairy Cows, &c. Many of
+    these were bred on the Premises, and others were purchased from
+    a renowned Breeder of Friesland Cattle, and they need no comment
+    from the Auctioneers, but will speak for themselves."
+
+    _Natal Mercury._
+
+Blowing their own horns, so to speak.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Irish Sergeant._ "Keep yer head down there! Don't ye
+know that's the very place that Mike Rooney was shot through the fut?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THEY.
+
+Just lately I have been thinking often of Them. But Their image has
+never been more vividly in my mind than now, when I sit here among the
+aftermath of festival. I wonder, for example, are the homes in which
+They live pervaded with this same _débris_ of Christmas (or, as They
+themselves are so fond of calling it, Yuletide)? Does dismembered turkey
+coldly furnish forth Their meals? Are there too many calendars, and a
+litter of crumpled paper? And cards--do They send each other cards?
+Stupendous thought!
+
+Most of all is my fancy busy with Them to-morrow, Tuesday, December the
+twenty-eighth. I see Them rising, a little wearily, perhaps, and
+heavy-eyed. Breakfast They snatch, and so out into the winter morning
+towards that place where, unknown and unrecognised, They pursue
+throughout the year Their changeless toil. I imagine Them gathering with
+mutual greetings in the workroom--a little company about whose features
+I have so often speculated. Poets are there, and artists; probably some
+among the men may wear their hair a trifle longer than the military
+fashion of to-day; but the greater part of the crowd are almost
+certainly women. Now the talk dies down; presently They are all once
+more bending in silence over Their appointed tasks.
+
+Yes, here at one desk is the artist to whose genius we owe the obese
+robin perched upon a horse-shoe, or the churchyard by moonlight after
+(apparently) a severe spangle-storm. Here again a poet, whose eye in a
+fine frenzy rolling proclaims an inspiration, or at least some subtle
+variant upon a familiar theme. He stoops and, even as I watch, has
+traced swiftly, with vibrant pen, this couplet:--
+
+  "The old, old wish I send to thee,
+  Jocund may thy Xmas be!"
+
+Then, with a little sigh, he leans back, satisfied that for him the
+holiday intermission had not rusted the fine edge of originality.
+"Jocund" proved that.
+
+Behind him perhaps sits a maiden like Fate, who with abhorred shears
+fashions strange shapes and borderings of foliage unknown to mere
+nature. And further still, in yonder obscure and shadowy corner, is one
+who by her art can penetrate the future and outstrip the foot of Time
+himself. For see, upon her cards, there is already written--
+
+  "With every blessing good and true
+  May the New Year be packed,
+  And 1917 bring to you
+  What 1916 lacked."
+
+I wonder--how does their work seem to Them upon this morning after
+Boxing-day?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What to do with our Boys.
+
+    "Bun-Prover wanted, 20-25 Trays Capacity."
+
+_Portsmouth Evening News._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not from the Cocoa Press.
+
+    "At a concert given in the sick bay, H.M.S. Crystal Palace, 34
+    large boxes of chocolates were distributed among the patients.
+    Mr. Balfour sent a telegram wishing the men a speedy
+    recovery."--_The Times._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following advertisement appeared on Dec. 23:--
+
+    "Lady recommends her Companion-Hosekeeper."--_Morning Paper._
+
+She was not going to risk her own Christmas stocking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "It is no easy thing to replace an artist of the quality of Miss
+    Lily Elsie, who, in spite of the warmth of her reception at His
+    Majesty's Theatre, recently took so severe a chill that the
+    doctor would not hear of her playing again for some
+    time."--_Daily Mail._
+
+The figurative has no chance with the actual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE SOURCE.
+
+"Oh," said Francesca, coming into the library, "I see you're busy with
+your papers. Don't let me disturb you."
+
+"If," I said, "it depended on me I wouldn't. I'd take you at your word
+and have you out of the room in two-twos. But you wouldn't like that,
+now, would you?"
+
+"I'm afraid I should have to enter a protest. That's right, isn't it?
+Protests _are_ things that have to be entered, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "they're like candidates for examinations, or rooms, only
+some rooms oughtn't to be entered, but are."
+
+"Jocose?" said Francesca.
+
+"No," I said; "I was thinking of Blue Beard. I daresay you remember
+about him. He was a very uxorious man, you know, and most domestic.
+Something of a traveller, and when"--
+
+"We won't worry about Blue Beard," she said. "I think I know the
+outlines of his family history."
+
+"Well then," I said, "why can't you leave me alone? You see I'm busy and
+yet you insist on staying here and interrupting me. Do you call that
+being a helpmeet?"
+
+"Well," she said, "I call it joining myself unto you, and that's what we
+were told to do to one another in the marriage service."
+
+"You're wrong," I said. "I was told to do that unto you, but you were
+told to submit yourself unto me and to reverence me."
+
+"It's all the same," she said. "All I'm doing is to help you to obey the
+Prayer-Book."
+
+"Anyhow," I said, "you've sat down and you mean to stay here. Is that
+what it comes to?"
+
+"It is," she said. "You're in tremendous guessing form to-day."
+
+"All I know," I said gloomily, "is that if my return for Income Tax
+contains many mistakes it'll be your fault, not mine; and I shall take
+care so to inform the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. I shall put down in
+the Exemptions and Abatements, 'Interrupted by wife. Abatement claimed,
+£100.' The CHANCELLOR will understand. He's a married man himself."
+
+"So you're doing your Income Tax," she said dreamily. "I've often
+wondered how that was done. Do you like it?"
+
+"No, Francesca," I said, "I do not like it. To be quite frank with you I
+detest it."
+
+"But you're helping the War," she said. "That ought to buck you up like
+anything. Every extra penny you pay is a smack in the eye for the
+KAISER, so cheer up and make a good big return."
+
+"I will do," I said, "what is strictly fair between myself and the
+Government. I can afford to be just to the CHANCELLOR, but, by Heaven, I
+cannot afford to be generous. Generosity has no place in an Income Tax
+return."
+
+"Go ahead with it then," she said. "I don't know what's stopping you."
+
+"You," I said, "are stopping me--you and that part of my income from
+which the tax is not deducted at the source."
+
+"That sounds quite poetical," she said. "It runs into metre directly.
+Listen:--
+
+  No man can well be rude or even coarse
+  Who has his tax deducted at the source.
+
+But I wish you'd tell me what it means."
+
+"Francesca," I said bitterly, "you are pleased to be a rhymer. You are,
+in fact, rhyming while the exchequer is burning; and then you add insult
+to injury by asking me the meaning of an elementary financial phrase."
+
+"Well, what _does_ it mean?"
+
+"It means," I said, "that if your money is invested in public companies
+or things of that nature, then when your half-yearly dividend--You know
+what a dividend is?"
+
+"Rather," she said. "It comes in on blue paper or pink, and you say,
+'That's something to be thankful for;' and you write your name on one
+half of it and you send that half to the bank, and you tear off the
+other half and lose it in the next spring-cleaning. I know what a
+dividend is all right."
+
+"Francesca," I said, "your knowledge is very wonderful. But if you
+suppose that that is the whole dividend, you are much mistaken. It is
+the dividend minus the tax. The company saves you trouble by deducting
+the tax and pays it to the CHANCELLOR for you."
+
+"Bravo the company!" said Francesca.
+
+"And so say I. You see you never get that part of your money, so there's
+no temptation to spend it--in fact you don't spend it."
+
+"That," she said, "sounds highly plausible."
+
+"Yes, but listen. Suppose you've got some little job at, say, two
+hundred and fifty pounds a year"--
+
+"Like the little job you were so pleased to get a few years ago."
+
+"Yes," I said, "more or less like that."
+
+"Not so honourable, of course," said Francesca.
+
+"No, of course not, but similar as to emoluments. Well, in that case you
+get the whole amount, and you spend it in perfectly useless things and
+forget all about it after you've put it down in your return; and then
+suddenly some Surveyor of Taxes writes and demands Income Tax on those
+two hundred and fifty pounds, actually demands something like forty
+pounds. I tell you, it goes through you like a knife."
+
+"Haven't you any remedy?"
+
+"Of course I could chuck the job," I said, "or do it for nothing. Yes, I
+think I'll chuck it. It'll be a lesson to them."
+
+"Yes," she said, "it would probably make the Government sit up--but, on
+the whole, I don't think I should go so far if I were you. You see"--
+
+"Go on," I said, for she was hesitating. "Let us strip ourselves of
+everything at once and throw ourselves on the charity of our
+neighbours."
+
+"Well," she said, "I'd go on for a bit. A job's a job even if it does
+make you pay. You've had £210 on balance, and you ought to be thankful
+to have been allowed to pay forty pounds for munitions."
+
+"And now," I said, "perhaps you'll let me get on with my work."
+
+R. C. L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Pull-Through:
+
+_Being a paraphrase of an answer in an O.T.C. examination._
+
+  Just one long pull, a straight strong pull--no other pull will do;
+  A man must never take two pulls to pull the pull-through through.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Village Amenities.
+
+    "The hearty congregational stinging was a feature of church life
+    to be proud of."--_Parish Magazine._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "WANTED.--Comfortable Home with private family for Gentleman who
+    is not strong in Brighton, Eastbourne, or St. Leonards."
+
+    _The Times._
+
+The poor fellow should try Bournemouth or Torquay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GETTING EVEN.
+
+[Illustration: _Outraged victim of "Confidential Report" (being put to
+bed prematurely_). "Please, God, Nurse _sewed_ for her soldier on
+SUNDAY!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+If it should ever be your lot, which pray Heaven forbid, to be stranded
+on the coast of Panama, seek out Miss WINIFRED JAMES as your hostess,
+for she can teach you how to tolerate, and even in a way enjoy, an
+existence one might have thought unendurable. She lives, I gather, some
+two hundred miles or so from the Canal, in a town that is going to be
+built some fine day on a site that has to be prepared by filling up a
+marsh with clay and sand. In the meantime, until the day and the town
+arrive, she rightly describes herself as _A Woman in the Wilderness_
+(CHAPMAN AND HALL). Civilisation is turned back to front out there, for
+although such comforts as refrigerators and electric light are a matter
+of course, there is still lacking to _Mrs. Henry de Jan_ and her rather
+shadowy _William_ anything, for instance, in the nature of a road on
+which to walk, or indeed any approach to their own verandah except,
+floating on the clay, a narrow plank gangway that has to serve as a
+hustling high-road for a mixed and dusky populace. Under the
+circumstances she has done nobly well to arm herself with the twin
+defences of cheerfulness and humour; and if the cheerfulness comes at
+times near to being that of a martyr on the rack, while the fun is
+perilously apt to swing from themes that are nice for a lady's wit to
+others that are not so nice, and back to sheer triviality, what, in the
+name of a population of sand-flies and negroes, can you expect? It is
+much that so lifelike a picture of a region so desolate should be
+presented on the whole with sweetness and charm, when no better material
+is available than the myriad misdeeds of her coloured servants, the
+antics of her puppies and an occasional reminiscence of home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Certainly VIOLET HUNT and FORD MADOX HUEFFER have one achievement to
+their credit. They have evolved an entirely new and original setting in
+which to bring together a number of short stories. What is supposed to
+happen is that sundry persons who did not feel exactly drawn towards bed
+before 2 A.M. on those summer nights when Zeppelins were about, meet for
+bridge and sandwiches and incidentally to listen to certain stories read
+aloud by their author. In this way they are able to forget their
+apprehensions of the gas-bags (dare I put it that they lose Count?) and
+spend a pleasant series of evenings with history. For the stories in
+_Zeppelin Nights_ (LANE) are all historical of a kind. Mostly they deal
+with the byways of history, or rather with the emotions of ordinary
+people who are just on the outer edge of historical happenings. For
+example, the central figure of the first is a slave whose basket of figs
+is upset by PHEIDIPPIDES running from Marathon; while the last concerns
+an insignificant little anti-militarist who finds himself cheering for
+the army on the outbreak of the Boer War. That is the kind of tales they
+are, slight and momentary things, with no plot but plenty of atmosphere,
+and in their style remarkably well done. Whether they would actually
+keep the nerve-ridden oblivious of bombs for the thousand-and-one nights
+that might have seen raids and didn't is a matter that need not concern
+us. For my part, I liked as much as any the pages in which Miss HUNT or
+Mr. HUEFFER folded up her or his manuscript and allowed the other
+(whichever it was) to tell us about the very pleasant and human
+audience. I had only one disappointment, but that was acute. I did want
+just once for them to hear a distant bang, and see what happened. I
+rather doubt whether the placid and literary charm of the tales would
+have sufficed to keep them within doors had there been anything to see
+outside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"In his hot indignation his yellowish face had in places turned
+blackish: literally, black streaks ran from the corners of his lips
+upwards and downwards, and from the inner corners of his eyes." If you
+read that sentence in a novel with Mr. EDGAR JEPSON'S name on the cover,
+and found that the passage was a description of a man named _Shadrach
+Penny_, would you not, as I did, settle down comfortably in your
+armchair and wait with perfect confidence for the human zebra to murder
+somebody in the most fascinatingly brutal manner? But he did not do
+anything of the kind. I think that the fact that I was disappointed in,
+and even seriously bored by, _The Man Who Came Back_ (HUTCHINSON) was
+largely due to the mild, dull way in which the story developed. And yet
+I think I could have forgiven the absence of lurid sensationalism if the
+book had been a good book of its kind. It is not. It is so crude and
+amateurish that it is difficult to believe that a professional writer
+could have written it. Mr. JEPSON, like most other authors, has had the
+idea of modernising the story of the Prodigal Son. He adheres to the
+original story closely in one respect, for _Roland Penny's_ first meal
+in his old home consists of roast veal, but he departs from it in making
+_Roland_, so far from wasting his substance, amass a large fortune among
+the husks and swine. I do not know how to classify _The Man Who Came
+Back_. It is not a novel of incident, for nothing happens in it. It is
+not a novel of character, for there is no attempt at any but the crudest
+character-drawing. It is just a six-shilling novel, and I do not see
+what else one can say of it. Mr. JEPSON must do one of two things. He
+must either brace up and make his style less irritatingly slipshod, or
+he must give us a few more murders. If we cannot have literary elegance
+he must give us blood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lieutenant L. B. RUNDALL, of the 1st Gurkha Rifles, author of _The Ilex
+of Stra-Ping_ (MACMILLAN), was not only a soldier and a sportsman, but a
+writer with a most keen sense of the beauty of nature and the beauty of
+words. Children should love these Himalayan sketches, for Mr. RUNDALL,
+from material which in some cases was admittedly slight, could weave a
+tale full of magic and charm. The story of the old brown bear in "The
+Scape-goat" may not greatly stir the heart with the thrill of adventure,
+but the hero has attractions that no child and no man that has not
+forgotten his childhood could resist. An inconspicuous notice in the
+book tells us that the author fell in action towards the close of 1914.
+I salute his memory. Rich as we are to-day in authors who can write
+enchantingly of birds and animals, I feel a sense of personal sorrow in
+the loss of one whose work gave so fair a promise of high achievement.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When you take up _Russian Folk-Tales_ (KEGAN, PAUL), don't allow
+yourself to be subdued by the deplorably learned preface of the
+translator, Mr. LEONARD MAGNUS, LL.B., because it is not the proper
+attitude really. Forget how little business a Bachelor of Law has to lay
+his sceptical hands on such inappropriate material, and plunge into a
+jolly, bewildering tangle of tales of magic and adventure,
+bloodthirstiness and treachery, simple charity, _vodka_ and genial
+superstition. You will be led from one to the other, puzzled but, I dare
+conjecture, highly entertained. I think you may take it, too, that a
+certain healthy sort of children will like to have these queer stories
+read aloud. The villainies of the _Bába Yagá_, an old witch of terrific
+resourcefulness, and the oddly inconsequent animal stories should make
+particular appeal. But you will be hard put to it to answer the
+questions which will be thrust at you; and (by the way) perhaps you will
+discreetly have to leave out a phrase or two for prudence' sake. On no
+account let the youngsters read the preface. I am not really quite sure
+whether you ought to read it yourself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Recruit._ "Aw--I say Sergeant--I'm afraid this horse is
+a bit too tall for me."
+
+_Sergeant_ (_old school_). "Oh! And does the _colour_ suit you, Sir?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Charge of the Six Hundred.
+
+  Some three-score years or so ago six hundred gallant men
+  Made a charge that cost old England dear, they lost four hundred then;
+  To-day six hundred make a charge that costs the country dear,
+  But now they take four hundred each--four hundred pounds a year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Somebody to steal of my cabbage, cauliflower, old potato, new
+    potato, and a small rake and hooks, fork. Everything. Somebody
+    snatch on Thursday and Saturday night. Perhaps anybody to see
+    the steal man to take something from my garden to tell me about
+    that is I will reward five pounds truth, £3 for tell-tale.--Wong
+    Long."
+
+    _Poverty Bay Herald._
+
+Wong Long apparently differs from the accepted authorities as to the
+value of hearsay evidence.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+150, JANUARY 5, 1916***
+
+
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916, by Various</title>
+  <style type="text/css">
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+  .poem
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150,
+January 5, 1916, by Various, Edited by Owen Seaman</h1>
+<pre>
+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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916</p>
+<p>Author: Various</p>
+<p>Editor: Owen Seaman</p>
+<p>Release Date: September 14, 2007  [eBook #22602]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 150, JANUARY 5, 1916***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, David King,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pg" />
+ <h1>PUNCH,<br />
+  OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+  <h2>Vol. 150.</h2>
+  <hr class="full" />
+
+  <h2>January 5, 1916.</h2>
+  <hr class="full" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/vol-001.png"><img width="100%" src="images/vol-001.png" alt=""/></a></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"><a href="images/vol-002.png"><img width="100%" src="images/vol-002.png" alt=""/></a>
+  <p>The Whitefriars Press."</p>
+</div>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page1" id="page1"></a>[pg 1]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"><a href="images/001.png"><img width="100%" src="images/001.png" alt="" /></a></div>
+
+<h2>RESOLUTIONS.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>I will not breakfast in my bed</p>
+<p>With downy cushions at my head;</p>
+<p>That would be very wrong&mdash;and so</p>
+<p>Away the eggs and bacon go!</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I will not read in bed at night</p>
+<p>And burn the dear electric light;</p>
+<p>Nor buy another costly hat;</p>
+<p>Oh no! I'm much too good for that.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>But I will rise before the dawn</p>
+<p>And weed and cut and roll the lawn;</p>
+<p>My border I will plant with veg,</p>
+<p>Abundantly from hedge to hedge.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>And all the day I'll practise thrift</p>
+<p>And no more happily will drift</p>
+<p>In deeper debt, as once, alas!</p>
+<p>&mdash;But what an awful year I'll pass.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>The Art of Sinking.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Altogether we sank one gunboat, five
+steamers (one of 3,000 tons), and 17 large
+sailing ships, three trains, and one railway
+embankment."&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Very Light Marching Order.</h3>
+
+<p>From a notice issued to recruits
+for the New Zealand Expeditionary
+Force:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"You should report wearing a pair of serviceable
+boots, and bring with you your toilet
+outfit&mdash;no additional clothing is required."
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"In a conversation with members of the
+Press Mr. Ford said now was the time for
+peace on the basis of the <i>status quo anti bellum</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Scotch Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He always spells it that way.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page2" id="page2"></a>[pg 2]</span>
+
+<h2>AN ILL-USED AUTHOR.</h2>
+
+<p>"I gather, Sir," remarked my fellow-traveller, after I
+had put away the writing-block on which I had been
+jotting down the outline of an article, "that you are a
+literary man, like myself?"</p>
+
+<p>We were the only occupants of a compartment in a
+L. &amp; N. W. R. carriage. I had been too absorbed till then
+to notice his appearance, but I now observed that he had
+rather unkempt hair, luminous eyes, and a soft hat. "Oh,
+well," I admitted, "I write."</p>
+
+<p>"But I take it that, whatever you write, it is not <i>poetry</i>,"
+he said. What led him to this inference I cannot say, but
+I had to confess that it was correct.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, even though you are not a Poet yourself, I hope,"
+he said, "you can feel some sympathy for one who has
+been so infamously treated as I have."</p>
+
+<p>I replied that I hoped so too.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Sir," said he, "I will tell you my unhappy story.
+At the beginning of this War I was approached by certain
+Railway magnates who shall be nameless. It appeared
+that they had realised, very rightly, that their official
+notices were couched in too cold and formal a style to
+reach the heart of their public. So they commissioned me
+to supply what I may term the human touch. As a poet,
+I naturally felt that this could only be effectively done
+through the medium of verse. Well, I rose to the occasion,
+Sir; I produced some lines which, printed as they were
+written, must infallibly have placed me at the head of all
+of my contemporaries. But they were <i>not</i> printed as they
+were written. In proof of which I will trouble you to read
+very carefully the opening paragraph of those 'Defence of
+the Realm Regulations' immediately above your head ...
+Only the opening paragraph at present, please!"</p>
+
+<p>I was somewhat surprised, but, thinking it best to
+humour him, I read the first sentence, which was: "<i>In
+view of possible attack by hostile aircraft, it is necessary
+that the blinds of all trains should be kept down after
+sunset</i>," and gave him my opinion of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether," he said, with some acerbity, "it is or is not
+as lucidly expressed as you are pleased to consider, only the
+beginning of it is mine. This is what I actually wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>"'In view of possible attack</p>
+<p>By hostile aircraft overhead,</p>
+<p>'Tis necessary now, alack!</p>
+<p>Soon as old Sol has sought his bed,</p>
+<p>That those who next the window sit,</p>
+<p>Though they'd prefer to watch the gloaming,</p>
+<p>Should draw the blind, nor leave a slit,</p>
+<p>Keeping it down until they're homing,</p>
+<p>Else on the metals will be thrown</p>
+<p>A glowing trail as from a comet,</p>
+<p>And Huns to whom a train is shown</p>
+<p>Will most indubitably bomb it!'</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>"That," he observed complacently, "is not only verse of
+the highest order, but clearly conveys the reason for such
+precautions, which the official mind chose to cut out. And
+now let me ask you to read the next paragraph." I did so.
+"<i>At night-time when the blinds are drawn</i>" it ran, "<i>passengers
+are requested before alighting to make sure when the
+train stops that it is at the platform</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Which," he cried fiercely, "is their mangled and mutilated
+version of this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>"'At night-time when the blinds are drawn</p>
+<p>(As screens against those devils' spawn,</p>
+<p>Which love the gloom, but dread the dawn),</p>
+<p>A train may be at standstill,</p>
+<p>Then we request 'twill not occur</p>
+<p>That some impatient passenger,</p>
+<p>Whose nerves are in a chronic stir,</p>
+<p>And neither feet nor hands still,</p>
+<p>Without preliminary peep</p>
+<p>Will forth incontinently leap,</p>
+<p>Alighting in a huddled heap</p>
+<p>To lie, a limp or flat form,</p>
+<p>In some inhospitable ditch,</p>
+<p>If not on grittier ballast, which</p>
+<p>(The darkness far surpassing pitch)</p>
+<p>He took to be the platform!'</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>"As to the next paragraph," he continued, "I don't
+complain so much, though, personally, I consider '<i>Extract
+from Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home
+Department</i>' a very poor paraphrase of the resounding
+couplet in which I introduced him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>"'Now speaks in genial tones, from heart to heart meant,</p>
+<p>The Secretary for the Home Department!'</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>"I could have overlooked that, Sir, if they had retained
+the lines I had written for him. But they've only let him
+speak the first four words&mdash;'<i>Passengers in Railway Carriages</i>'&mdash;and
+then drivel on thus: '<i>which are provided with
+blinds must keep the blinds covered so as to cover the
+windows'</i>&mdash;a clumsy tautology, Sir, for which I am sure no
+Home Secretary would care to be held responsible, and
+from which I had been at some pains to save him, as you
+may judge when I read you the original text:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>"'Passengers in railway carriages</p>
+<p>Possess a sense which none disparages;</p>
+<p>So those who are not perverse or froward</p>
+<p>May be trusted to see that the blinds are lowered,</p>
+<p>To cover the windows so totally</p>
+<p>That no one inside can be seen, or see.</p>
+<p>Mem.&mdash;This need not be done, as lately decided,</p>
+<p>If blinds for the windows have not been provided.'</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>"But," he went on, "the deadliest injury those infernal
+officials reserved for the last. If you read the concluding
+sentence, Sir, you will observe that it begins: '<i>The blinds
+may be lifted in case of necessity</i>!' (That, I need hardly
+say, is <i>entirely</i> my own. There is a sort of inspired swing
+in it, the true lyrical lilt with which even red-tape has not
+dared to tamper! But mark how they go on): '<i>when the
+train is at a standstill at a station, but, if lifted, they must
+be lowered again before the train starts</i>.' And this insufferable
+bathos, forsooth, was substituted for lines like these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>"'The blinds may be lifted in case of necessity;</p>
+<p>Thus, if the train at a station should halt,</p>
+<p>And the traveller hears not its name, nor can guess it, he</p>
+<p>Cannot be held to commit any fault,</p>
+<p>Still farther be fined,</p>
+<p>Should he pull up the blind</p>
+<p>Out of mere curiosity: had he not looked</p>
+<p>He might miss the station for which he had booked!'</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>"Well," he concluded, "that is my case. But I can
+never put it before the public myself. My pride would not
+permit me. Though, if someone&mdash;yourself, for instance&mdash;would
+present my claims to redress&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't help thinking that he had been hardly treated,
+and so I undertook to do what I could for him. He gave
+me his verses, also his name, which latter I have unfortunately
+forgotten. However, I hope I have redeemed my
+promise here in other respects.</p>
+
+<p>There are times when I wonder uneasily whether he may
+not have been pulling my leg. But, after all, he could have
+had no possible object in doing that. Besides, if, the next
+time you travel by the L. &amp; N.-W., you will study the
+printed instructions in your compartment, I fancy you will
+agree with me that they corroborate his statements to a
+rather remarkable extent.</p>
+
+<p>F. A.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>A Christmas Trifle.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Some stale sponge cake is cut in slices less than an inch thick,
+and these are spread generously with jam and arranged on a crystal
+dish, blanched and chopped with Clara and Jo and all their young
+cousins."&mdash;<i>The Bulletin.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page3" id="page3"></a>[pg 3]</span>
+
+<h3>THE RUSH TO SALONIKA.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"><a href="images/003.png"><img width="100%" src="images/003.png" alt=""/></a>
+  <p><span class="sc">Wilhelm and Franz Joseph.</span> "FERDIE, THE POST OF HONOUR IS YOURS."</p>
+  <p><span class="sc">Ferdie.</span> "YOU CAN HAVE IT."</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page5" id="page5"></a>[pg 5]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/005.png"><img width="100%" src="images/005.png" alt=""/></a>
+  <p><i>Fair Hostess</i> (<i>entertaining wounded soldier</i>). <span class="sc">"And so one Jack Johnson buried you, and the next dug you up again and
+landed you on the top of a barn!  Now, what were your feelings?"</span></p>
+  <p><i>Tommy.</i> <span class="sc">"If you'll believe me, Ma'am, I was never more surprised in all my life."</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.</h2>
+
+<p>It has come as an immense relief to
+all true lovers of peace to learn that
+such German soldiers as have been
+taking part in the war on the Italian
+frontier have previously resigned their
+positions in the <span class="sc">Kaiser's</span> army and
+been re-enrolled under the Austrian
+flag, so that no untoward incident
+may disturb the profound peace which
+exists between Germany and Italy.
+All the same there are elements of
+possible danger in the situation which
+should be carefully watched. We look
+forward to a time when our gallant
+ally may be confidently expected to
+advance on to German soil, and we
+think it would be well for the authorities
+at Rome (unless the invading host
+is provided with Montenegrin uniforms)
+to serve out beforehand a large number
+of tourist coupons, available over a
+wide choice of different routes. This
+might avert the terrible consequences
+that are likely to follow a breach of
+relations.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it must be remembered
+that Italy has now signed on not to
+enter into a separate peace, and no
+doubt the only true economy is to
+make the present one go as far as
+possible, as it cannot be replaced.
+Still, since the sinking of the <i>Ancona</i>
+by a German crew (partially whitewashed
+so as to look like Austrians),
+Italy's neutrality has become of an
+extremely virulent order.</p>
+
+<p>We need hardly say that President
+<span class="sc">Wilson</span> even on his honeymoon is
+closely watching the situation and
+thinking over it very deeply, very
+slowly and very calmly, hoping to discover
+hints for his own future guidance.
+It is said that he feels himself being
+drawn more and more into the vortex,
+and his attitude of passive belligerency
+may be followed by one of aggressive
+non-interference. It is common knowledge
+in Washington that if he can get
+no satisfaction on the <i>Ancona</i> question
+he will either despatch a new note
+(which will be <i>almost</i> an ultimatum)
+or simply pass on and declare war on
+Albania.</p>
+
+<p>Portugal (as the ancient ally of
+Great Britain), who has already been
+involved in a scrap with German troops
+in Angola, is naturally deeply exercised
+as to what are her present relations
+with Turkey. The matter is an urgent
+one and might become crucial in the
+event of a Turkish Zeppelin drifting in
+a fog over Portuguese territory.</p>
+
+<p>The King of <span class="sc">Greece</span> is said to have
+found a happy solution of his difficulty
+about a Bulgarian invasion of Greece.
+The incoming forces are to be provided
+with return tickets to Salonika and
+back, available only for forty-five days,
+and containing a stipulation that the
+traveller may not break his journey at
+any other point.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>"FOR THIS RELIEF&mdash;"</h2>
+
+<p>(<i>Suggested by the poster commending a
+recent Revue as "the last word in
+syncopation."</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>The days of our mourning are ended,</p>
+<p class="i2">The lean years of famine are fled,</p>
+<p>When, sick for a spoonful of aught that was tuneful,</p>
+<p class="i2">We've sorrowed as over the dead</p>
+<p>For Music, forlorn and unfriended,</p>
+<p class="i2">Gone down into glimmerless gloom,</p>
+<p>While rude "rag-time" revels were dancing a devils'</p>
+<p class="i4">Tattoo on her tomb.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>A new dawn of promise doth redden</p>
+<p class="i2">The rim of our Stygian night;</p>
+<p>Our bondage is breaking&mdash;O blessed awaking</p>
+<p class="i2">To melody merry and bright!</p>
+<p>My heart, long o'erloaded and leaden,</p>
+<p class="i2">Now bounds to the blue like a bird;</p>
+<p>The shadow has shifted; with paean uplifted</p>
+<p class="i4">I hail that "last word"!</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6" id="page6"></a>[pg 6]</span>
+
+<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+
+<p>Leap Year Anticipations.&mdash;A fine
+spring is expected in France, Flanders
+and Poland. If the weather is propitious
+a total eclipse will be visible
+in Berlin and Vienna.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Asked by some American journalists
+where the Peace Conference would be
+held, Dr. <span class="sc">Sven Hedin</span> is reported to
+have said, "Peace will be dictated from
+Berlin." And so say all of us!</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Relations between Potsdam and Sofia
+are said to be badly strained.
+Three days after the <span class="sc">Kaiser</span> had
+issued his celebrated manifesto,
+"To my noble and heroic Serbian
+people," <span class="sc">Ferdinand</span> in the Sobranje
+was publicly denouncing
+the Serbians as obstinate, treacherous,
+and tyrannical. The <span class="sc">Kaiser</span>
+considers this conduct extremely
+tactless, and threatens, if it continues,
+to spell Bulgarian with a
+"V."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>All hitherto-published explanations
+of the threatened German
+attack on the Suez Canal are
+hereby cancelled. The fact is that
+the <span class="sc">Kaiser's</span> fleet is increasing so
+rapidly that it has outgrown its
+present accommodation.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>During the visit of Mr. <span class="sc">Ford's</span>
+Ark to Bergen the following
+notice was posted up at the
+Grand Hotel:&mdash;"All members of
+the Henry Ford Peace Expedition
+are requested to call for their
+laundry at the Grand Hotel,
+Room 408, Tuesday evening after
+supper. This notice supersedes
+the original plan to have the
+laundry delivered to each individual
+hotel." It may also explain
+why the members of the expedition
+have since washed their dirty
+linen in public.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Some of the pilgrims on the <i>Oscar II.</i>
+were much annoyed at the prohibition
+of card-playing on board. "What is
+the use," they asked, "of crying <i>Pax</i>
+when there are none?"</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Some strait-laced Conservatives, who
+were a little shocked to see the announcement
+of "Mr. Balfour on the
+Film," were comforted on its being
+pointed out to them that Mr. <span class="sc">Chaplin</span>
+set him the example.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A ten-year-old girl's essay on "Patriotism":&mdash;"Patriotism
+is composed of
+patriots, and they are people who live
+in Ireland and want Mr. Redmond or
+other people to be King of Ireland.
+They are very brave, some of them,
+and are so called after St. Patrick,
+who is Ireland's private saint. The
+patriots who are brave make splendid
+soldiers. The patriots who are not
+brave go to America."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Lord <span class="sc">Kitchener</span>, who has a choice
+collection of old china, has lately added
+to it several fine specimens of Crown
+Derby.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>So many Parliamentarians have
+recently requested the Treasury to stop
+sending them their &pound;400 a year that
+a slight change in the designation of
+the others is suggested&mdash;P.M. (Paid
+Member) instead of M.P.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A soldier's letter: "<span class="sc">Dear Sis</span>,&mdash;You
+ask what I want&mdash;well, for Heaven's
+sake send us a barber! You never saw
+such heads in your life as we've got.</p>
+
+<p>Lovingly,  <span class="sc">Bob.</span></p>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Failing a barber send us a box
+of hair-pins."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Is it true that while the Cliff Hotel
+at Gorleston was blazing furiously
+during the gale last week a zealous
+official went up to the unfortunate
+proprietor and threatened him with
+pains and penalties for allowing a
+naked light to be seen far out at sea?</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>We understand that since the
+entrance-fee was suspended and the
+subscription reduced, the Automobile
+Club has increased its membership so
+largely that the Committee are thinking
+of re-naming it the Omnibus.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A conversation in the trenches:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Private Dougal McTavish</i> (<i>late of the
+Alberta Police</i>): "Mon, in ma section
+'tis aften fafty degrees below zero. But,
+bless ye, 'tis dry cold, ye'll never feel it."</p>
+
+<p><i>L.C. Owen Tyrrell</i> (<i>late of Carpentaria
+Telegraphs</i>): "Down-under it is
+usually 125 in the shade. But thin it
+is dry heat, you are niver sinsible
+of ut."</p>
+
+<p><i>Corpl. James Brown</i> (<i>late Tram
+Conductor, Vancouver</i>): "In B.C.
+we stake upon 312 to 314 rainy
+days in the year.  But it is dry
+rain, it don't wet you."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>In an article on the employment
+of women as dentists, the writer
+says: "A new charm has been
+added to the delights of dentistry."
+Optimist!</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>He also says that one lady
+"extracted 38 teeth from nine
+patients, and showed little signs
+of fatigue from it, either." But
+what about the nine?</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>We observe that Mr. <span class="sc">Pearce</span>,
+the Commonwealth Minister of
+Defence, fell while in his garden
+and broke two of his ribs, but are
+glad to learn that his condition
+is not serious. The conjunction
+of a rib, a garden, and a fall has
+in at least one previous case resulted
+in permanent injury.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A martyr to insomnia threatens,
+unless the Government stops the
+whistling for taxis, to let Mr.
+<span class="sc">McKenna</span> whistle for his.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Our men in the trenches are beginning
+to welcome the German gas-attacks.
+They say there is nothing
+like them for keeping down the rats.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Suggested motto for the controversy
+between the headmasters as to the
+publication of Public School Rolls of
+Honour&mdash;"Quot dominies tot santenti&aelig;."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>THE NEW LEAF.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:40%;"><a href="images/006.png"><img width="100%" src="images/006.png" alt=""/></a>
+  <p><span class="sc">Fancy portrait of Prussian poet preparing to
+write a Hymn of Love&mdash;in case it should be
+wanted</span>.</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Note.</h3>
+
+<p>The "Wingfield House" mentioned
+in the article "Cases," which appeared
+in <i>Punch</i> a fortnight ago, was a purely
+imaginary name and had nothing to do
+with the Wingfield House, near Trowbridge,
+where a hospital has for some
+time been established.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page7" id="page7"></a>[pg 7]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/007.png"><img width="100%" src="images/007.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Juvenile War Lord.</i>. "<span class="sc">'Ere! Someone else 'ave a
+go&mdash;I'm sick o' war. It ain't in reason ter expect a bloke ter be the
+Kaiser three days running</span>!"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE VINDICATION OF JIMMY.</h2>
+
+<p>In one corner of the school play-ground
+stood a small boy in deep
+dejection, with his hands in his pockets,
+his lower lip trembling slightly, whilst
+he strove to kick a hole in the ground
+with his right toe. It was Jimmy&mdash;Jimmy
+in his hour of trial.</p>
+
+<p>He wasn't going to blub, he wasn't
+going to do anything.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he stopped kicking at the
+ground, as he remembered that his
+mother had told him he must be
+careful of his boots now that the War
+was on.</p>
+
+<p>He took out of his pocket a match-box,
+the temporary home of a large
+beetle&mdash;a buzzer, Jimmy called it&mdash;which
+had hitherto refused to eat
+either grass or bran or Indian corn.
+His gaze then wandered to a hole in
+his stockings, which he had mended
+by applying ink to the exposed part
+of his skin.</p>
+
+<p>From the opposite side of the playground
+came the tumultuous noise of
+the calm deliberations of Form II.</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy knew perfectly well that
+they were discussing him, and that in
+time one of their number would be
+sent to inform him of the verdict and
+sentence.</p>
+
+<p>He expected that he would have to
+fight them all, one by one, and he
+wondered how many blows he would
+be able to stand without returning
+them, for to hit back was out of the
+question under the unfortunate circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy wished they would get it
+over, for he was quite willing to undergo
+any form of punishment they might
+decide upon, if only they would let him
+know quickly. He hoped they wouldn't
+make the Biffer fight him, not that
+he was afraid of the Biffer, but because
+it would be so hard to keep himself
+from hitting back, and that he had
+decided not to do. You see the Biffer
+was a new boy, and, for another thing,
+he wore a leather strap round his
+wrist. On his very first day at school
+the Biffer had volunteered the information
+that he once gave a boy such a
+biff on the nose that he had sprained
+his wrist, and that ever since he had
+worn a wrist strap, lest it should happen
+again. It was Jimmy who had nick-named
+him the Biffer, and from that
+time the Biffer had sought Jimmy's
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>But Jimmy was not easy to quarrel
+with.</p>
+
+<p>He was the acknowledged champion
+of Form II., and you had to commit
+three offences before Jimmy would
+seriously consider you. At the first
+offence you got a note with the one
+word "Beware!" written upon it; at
+the second, another note with the word
+"Blood" written underneath a skull
+and crossbones; and at the third you
+received a note with the word "Deth,"
+and underneath was the drawing of a
+coffin.</p>
+
+<p>The Biffer had so far arrived at the
+second note.</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy did hope they wouldn't choose
+the Biffer, for he could hear even now
+the Biffer's yell when he had made that
+awful mistake which had brought
+about the present deplorable situation.</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy couldn't think how he had
+come to say what he did say; he could
+have bitten off his tongue when he
+realised it; but it was too late&mdash;he had
+said it.</p>
+
+<p>He tried to think how it had all
+occurred, and the scene flashed again
+before his mind. There was the master
+with his pointer resting upon the
+Dogger Bank on the map of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can tell me the name of this
+sea?" he had said, and Jimmy had
+snapped his fingers and waved his
+arm about in his anxiety to catch the
+master's eye. You see, it was so
+seldom, so very seldom, that Jimmy
+felt he knew the right answer to any
+question, and the new experience was
+intoxicating. The master too seemed
+to find it unusual, and he at once
+turned to Jimmy and said, "Well, what
+is this sea called, then?" Jimmy, full
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8" id="page8"></a>[pg 8]</span>
+of the pride of knowledge, burst out
+with "The North Sea, Sir." Oh! if he
+had only stopped at that; but in his
+desire to show how much he knew he
+added without thinking the fatal words,
+"or German Ocean!"</p>
+
+<p>In the shout of derision which had
+followed, Jimmy realised what he had
+said, and felt himself falling, falling,
+falling....</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy became aware that the noise
+on the opposite side of the playground
+was ceasing, and soon, from the corner
+of his eye, he saw Jones minimus detach
+himself from the crowd. "Half a
+mo'," he heard Jones minimus say;
+"I want to get a knotted handkerchief,"
+and he saw him hurry into the school.
+As he emerged he flourished the knotted
+handkerchief, but when delivering the
+verdict to Jimmy that he would have
+to run the gauntlet three times to the
+tune of the knotted handkerchiefs of
+Form II., he tried to smuggle into
+Jimmy's hands an exercise-book which
+he said Jimmy could stuff up his back;
+it would stick there if Jimmy buttoned
+his jacket, he said, and it would take
+the sting off a bit. Jimmy had to bite
+his lip as he refused the exercise-book,
+and then with head erect and lips no
+longer trembling he went forth to face
+the ordeal.</p>
+
+<p>Form II. had arranged themselves
+in two ranks, facing one another, and
+the knots in the handkerchiefs were
+firm and hard. "You have got to
+bunk through and back again and
+then down again," said Jones minimus
+in a hoarse whisper.</p>
+
+<p>The Biffer was at the head of one
+rank, and had got his handkerchief
+slung over his shoulder in happy readiness
+for the first blow.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready? Go!" shouted
+Form II. in one voice.</p>
+
+<p>At the word "Go!" Jimmy pulled
+his hands out of his pockets&mdash;he was
+glad his mother wasn't there to see
+him&mdash;and with head still up and eyes
+to the front he walked slowly up the
+double lines and as slowly down them.
+The Biffer got in a good one, he got in
+two before Jimmy was out of reach,
+and he then changed the handkerchief
+to his left hand in readiness for the
+return journey. Arrived at the end of
+the lines, Jimmy turned on his heel
+and began to walk even more slowly
+than at first.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no sting in the blows
+this time; all the zest seemed to have
+gone out of the affair; and, but for the
+whack the Biffer gave, Jimmy never
+felt anything. The third time down
+was a farce, for, after Jimmy had deliberately
+stopped opposite the Biffer in
+order to let him have as many as his
+injured soul required, no one touched
+him. In fact they were all shaking
+hands with Jimmy, who was now his
+smiling self once more and ready to
+play with the best of them, when suddenly
+the Biffer took it into his head
+to make a joke.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he <i>is</i> a German," said the
+Biffer, and waited for the general
+laugh to follow his sally.</p>
+
+<p>But the laugh didn't come; instead
+there was a dead silence.</p>
+
+<p>Who was the Biffer&mdash;a new boy at
+that&mdash;to call anyone a German? Instinctively
+a ring was formed and the
+Biffer found himself in the middle of it.</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy took off his coat and gave it
+to Jones minimus, who danced for sheer
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy had only one regret: the
+butcher-boy was not there to see him&mdash;the
+butcher-boy who had expended so
+much time over him, had taught him
+the upper cut, the under cut, every cut
+that the heart of a butcher-boy delights
+in. The Biffer was very busy biffing the
+air with a rapid circular motion of the
+arms, for Jimmy's fixed scowl and set
+of jaw troubled him.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, why wasn't the butcher-boy there
+to see that tremendous smack on the
+nose the Biffer got? He would have
+felt amply rewarded.</p>
+
+<p>No one had ever seen Jimmy fight
+like this, and Jones minimus shouted
+in his joy, for the Biffer was outbiffed
+in every direction.</p>
+
+<p>In vain did he cry "<i>Pax</i>," for Jimmy
+had not half relieved his feelings, and
+there was no end to the dodges the
+butcher-boy had taught him, each of
+which, he had said, meant sudden death.</p>
+
+<p>"He's had enough, Jimmy," whispered
+Jones minimus. "I'm satisfied,"
+he added as the Biffer, who was lying
+on the ground, refused to get up and
+have any more.</p>
+
+<p>As the boys entered the class-room
+the next day there was the map of
+Europe still hanging up in front of the
+class, and the very first question that
+was asked by the master was, "Well,
+Jimmy, what is this sea?"</p>
+
+<p>"The North Sea or British Ocean,
+Sir!" said Jimmy, a reply that was
+greeted with a rousing cheer by the
+whole of Form II.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>A SECOND HELPING!</h3>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Our Bagdad force fell in a rut</p>
+<p class="i2">At Ctesiphon; Turks made things hum.</p>
+<p>We found that we had got to Kut,</p>
+<p>Whilst Russians found a way to Kum!</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Our men know not the word "defeat,"</p>
+<p class="i2">They'll make it clear on Tigris plain</p>
+<p>That, Russian-like, when they retreat,</p>
+<p class="i2">'Tis but to cut and come again.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>A TURKISH TROPHY.</h2>
+
+<p>(<i>A belated letter from Gallipoli.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>My dear &mdash;&mdash;, By this week's post
+I trust you will receive the long promised
+trophy, to wit one Turkish
+headpiece procured by my own personal
+exertions. As the story of its
+capture, though somewhat out of the
+ordinary, has been passed over in stony
+silence both by the official <i>communiqu&eacute;s</i>
+and "Our Special Correspondent" I shall
+endeavour to give you a brief impression
+of the difficulties overcome as truthfully
+as my sense of imagination will
+allow me. First of all I must draw a
+map:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"><a href="images/008.png"><img width="100%" src="images/008.png" alt="" /></a>
+  <p>A B British trench, with traverses.</p>
+  <p>C D Turkish trench, without.</p>
+  <p>E F Ditch</p>
+  <p>G British barricade.</p>
+  <p>H Turkish barricade.</p></div>
+
+<p>This should give you an idea of the
+English and Turkish lines at a point
+where they are about eighty yards
+apart. Without going into details you
+will see the English trench is of the
+superior pattern, as it has traverses.
+I had to work in that technical term to
+show I know all about it; I know
+another, "the berm," but I am not too
+sure about what that is, and also I
+don't suppose I could draw a "berm" if
+I saw one. Anyway, I know it's quite
+a good term connected with trenches,
+as I heard a G.O.C. fairly strafe a
+subaltern, the other day, because he
+hadn't got a "berm." Well, to refer
+to the map, you will observe that there
+is an old ditch running between the
+two lines of trenches, and both sides
+have advanced a certain distance along
+this ditch and have built barricades
+about ten yards apart. Every day it
+is part of my job to take a constitutional
+along our trenches, and after
+discussing the European situation and
+the latest Budget with the various
+battalion commanders to ask them
+whether there is any particularly obnoxious
+part of the opposition line they
+would like me to salute with my battery.
+Usually they say, "No, there's
+nothing in particular, but let's have a
+shoot all the same; for example, there's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" id="page9"></a>[pg 9]</span>
+a dog that barks abominably every
+night opposite L 57. Couldn't you
+abolish him?" Incidentally we no
+longer give our trenches names, such
+as Piccadilly, Rotten Row, but mere
+letters and numbers; the reason being
+that one of the staff was picked up in
+a fainting condition, having strolled
+down Park Lane and then found himself,
+to his horror, in Peckham High
+Street. The shock&mdash;his own home
+being in Baling Broadway&mdash;had proved
+too much for his constitution. However,
+to refer back to the map once
+more, our barricade across the ditch
+is a most convenient spot for observing
+artillery fire and as such is frequently
+used by me. Unfortunately my view
+was always hasty and badly interrupted
+by the attentions of a Turkish sniper
+behind their barricade. This man's
+name was Ibrahim, and he was a
+Constantinople cab-driver, married,
+with two children, both boys. You
+may be surprised that we know so
+much about the enemy, but we live in
+such close proximity that opposite the
+Lancashire Fusiliers a Turk named
+Mahomet, who lives at No. 3, Golden
+Horn Terrace, told the reporter of <i>The
+Worpington Headlight</i> that for three
+years he had been suffering from pains
+in the back&mdash;but that's another story.
+Incidentally Mahomet at present inhabits
+a sniper's post surrounded by a
+perfect thicket of barbed-wire, and I
+had a bright scheme for its removal. I
+got hold of a trench catapult, an ingenious
+contrivance of elastic that
+hurls a bomb some hundreds of yards,
+and placed in it a harpoon attached to
+a long coil of rope. The idea was that
+on release of the catapult the harpoon
+would be hurled in the air, the rope
+would neatly pay out, and then, as soon
+as the harpoon had grappled Mahomet,
+all we would have to do would be to
+haul on the rope and over would come
+the whole bag of tricks. Unfortunately
+something went wrong, and the rope,
+instead of neatly uncoiling, flailed round
+the trench like a young anaconda, and,
+catching a harmless spectator by the
+leg, hurled him twenty feet in the air.
+Immediately the opposition lines resounded
+like a rifle-booth at a country
+fair. However our spectator descended
+unpunctured, and the only damage done
+was to our vanity, when Mahomet
+threw over a message attached to a
+stone to ask whether we would repeat
+the performance as he and a pal had
+a bet on as to who was the best
+shot and wanted a human aeroplane
+to judge.</p>
+
+<p>But we have got a long way from
+Ibrahim. Ibrahim possessed the headpiece
+I am sending you. I could not
+think of a method for obtaining it, as
+his vigilance was deadly. However a
+bright thought struck me, and I assiduously
+saved up my rum ration for a
+month. Then one bitter cold night I
+tossed over the accumulation in a bottle
+wrapped up in an old sock. Presently
+there resounded in the still air a
+pleasant bubbling sound indicative of
+liquid being poured out of a glass
+receptacle, then a deep sigh, followed
+by a profound silence. Inch by inch I
+crawled over our barricade and slowly
+wormed my way along the ditch. At
+last I reached the Turkish barricade
+and cautiously slid my hand over the
+top until my fingers encountered
+Ibrahim's toque. Then I gave a gentle
+tug. Horror! he had the flap down
+under his chin. Unmanned for a
+moment I recovered, and I slowly slid
+my fingers down his hirsute neck and
+with a gentle titillation slid the flap
+clear. Ibrahim merely stirred in his
+sleep and resumed his slumbers.
+Triumphantly hugging the trophy to
+my bosom I crawled back to our
+barricade.</p>
+
+<p>The saddest part of the tale is yet to
+come. I had promised to procure you
+a trophy unstained by association with
+human slaughter, but when the day
+dawned there lay poor Ibrahim stiff
+and stark behind his barricade, killed
+by a cold in his head.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/009.png"><img width="100%" src="images/009.png" alt=""/></a><p>PANTOMIME ANNOUNCEMENTS.</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Message Boy Wanted for Butchery."</p>
+
+<p class="i10">  <i>Brechin Advertiser.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A lot of people are after that boy.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Taxi driver who laid down Fare at Royal
+Hotel at 2.45 p.m. on Christmas Day, would
+oblige by returning Gent's Umbrella to Hotel."</p>
+
+<p class="i10"><i>Aberdeen Journal.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We gather that it had been a wet
+morning.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" id="page10"></a>[pg 10]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/010.png"><img width="100%" src="images/010.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Cyril</i> (<i>eating his bread-and-jam&mdash;with not too
+much jam</i>). "<span class="sc">This is prepostrous&mdash;this war economy</span>."</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>HUNTIN' WEATHER.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>There's a dog-fox down in Lannigan's spinney</p>
+<p class="i2">(And Lannigan's wife has hens to mourn);</p>
+<p>The hunters stamp in their stalls an' whinny,</p>
+<p class="i2">Soft with leisure an' fat with corn.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The colts are pasturin', bold an' lusty,</p>
+<p class="i2">Sleek they are with their coats aglow,</p>
+<p>Ripe to break, but the bits grow rusty</p>
+<p class="i2">And the saddles sit in a dusty row.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Old O'Dwyer was here a-Monday</p>
+<p class="i2">With a few grey gran'fathers out for a field</p>
+<p>(Like the ghostly hunt of a dead an'-*done day),</p>
+<p class="i2">They&mdash;an' some lassies that giggled an' squealed.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The houn's they rioted like the devil</p>
+<p class="i2">(They ran a hare an' they killed a goose);</p>
+<p>I cursed Caubeen, but he looked me level:</p>
+<p class="i2">"The boys are away&mdash;so what's the use?"</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The mists lie clingin' on bog an' heather,</p>
+<p class="i2">Haws hang red on the silver thorn;</p>
+<p>It's huntin' weather, ay, huntin' weather,</p>
+<p class="i2">But trumpets an' bugles have beat the horn!</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>A Debt of Honour.</h3>
+
+<p>Mr. Punch ventures to plead on behalf
+of the nine hundred men of the
+Royal Naval Division who were taken
+prisoners by the enemy in the retirement
+from Antwerp. Less fortunate
+than those of the same Division who
+were interned in Holland (for want of
+official information most people imagine
+that all the missing were so interned),
+they lack the necessities of life. Parcels
+of food are sent to them, fortnightly
+to each man, as well as clothing and
+tobacco; and it is known that they
+receive all that is sent. Mr. Punch
+begs his readers to help the fund from
+which these simple comforts are provided,
+and to address their gifts to
+Lady <span class="sc">Gwendolen Guinness</span>, at 11,
+St. James's Square, S.W.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From a report of Mr. <span class="sc">Lloyd George's</span>
+speech:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"The works of Ireland have been extremely
+helpful, and I am glad to acknowledge that I
+have been extremely helpful."</p>
+
+<p><i>Manchester Guardian.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>On this occasion the <span class="sc">Minister of
+Munitions</span> appears to have allowed himself
+the privilege of "thinking aloud."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<i>The Daily Mail</i> will not be published to-morrow,
+and for that reason we seize the occasion
+to-day of bidding our readers a merry
+Christmas,"&mdash;<i>Daily Mail of December 24th.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And a very good reason too.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Seasonable.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"The Canadian Government has granted to
+Canadian troops oversea and in training at
+home a Christmas allowance of one chilling."</p>
+
+<p><i>Provincial Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"He much regretted that it was not possible
+to-day to communicate the results of the Derby
+Report in any detail, or, indeed, at all. The
+task had been one of stupendous bagnitude."</p>
+
+<p><i>Evening Standard.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Yes, but how big was the bag?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Two descriptions of the new Chief of
+the Imperial General Staff:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Of Scottish descent, and familiarly known
+to the Army as 'Jock,' he is one of the most
+remarkable soldiers of the time."</p>
+
+<p><i>Glasgow Evening Times.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"That he is known throughout the whole
+Army simply as 'Wullie' is a sure token that
+the private soldier has taken him to his heart."</p>
+
+<p><i>Glasgow Evening Citizen.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Won't the Germans be puzzled?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Eddie Harvey (Fleetwood) and Ike Whitehouse
+(Barrow) went through 15 rounds contest
+for &pound;5 a side and a nurse, and Harvey won
+on points."&mdash;<i>The People.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The stakes, we presume, were divided.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"A kid was born with monkey face and
+human skull at Saidapet on the 13th instant."</p>
+
+<p><i>New India.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This is headed "A Curious Phenomenon."
+But is it? Some of our neighbours'
+kids are just like that.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/011.png"><img width="100%" src="images/011.png" alt=""/></a><h3>THE NEW EDGE.</h3></div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" id="page13"></a>[pg 13]</span>
+
+<h2>LONDON AS USUAL.</h2>
+
+<p>("<i>Kelly's London Directory</i>" for 1916,
+a contemporary remarks, is very much
+the same as the volume for 1915.)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Where, where are the signs of the raider</p>
+<p class="i2">Who swam to our ken like a kite,</p>
+<p>Who swore he had played the invader</p>
+<p class="i2">And knocked us to bits in the night;</p>
+<p>Who pounded these parts into jelly</p>
+<p class="i2">From Mile End, he said, to the Mall?</p>
+<p>For the man who should know (J. J. <span class="sc">Kelly</span>)</p>
+<p class="i6">Can't spot 'em at all.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>You may turn up the street that is Vigo</p>
+<p class="i2">Or alight on the Lane that is Mark;</p>
+<p>You may let your incredulous eye go</p>
+<p class="i2">O'er each Crescent and Corner and Park;</p>
+<p>You may hunt through the humblest of alleys</p>
+<p class="i2">Or the giddiest haunts of the town,</p>
+<p>And Kelly's, who're "safe" as the Palace,</p>
+<p class="i6">Have got 'em all down.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>So I sing to those equals in wonder,</p>
+<p class="i2">Of <span class="sc">Bradshaw</span> (the expert on trains),</p>
+<p>Who have torn the Hun's fiction asunder&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">That our City's a mass of remains;</p>
+<p>Here's our proof that we're plainly not undone,</p>
+<p class="i2">That, although every night she lies hid,</p>
+<p>Our stolid undaunted old London</p>
+<p class="i6">Still stands where she did.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/013.png"><img width="100%" src="images/013.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Porter</i> (<i>dug-out</i>). "<span class="sc">Shall I put yer
+'ockey-knockers in the van, Sir</span>?"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>STUDIES IN FRUSTRATION.</h2>
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<p>The scene was the comfortable spacious
+breakfast-room in the Bishop's
+Palace. His lordship sat nearest to
+the fire; the bishop's wife presided
+over the fragrant coffee-pot, and the
+curate, their dine-and-sleep guest, sat
+opposite the bishop and farthest from
+the warmth. As a curate this position
+was his due. Some day he also would
+be a bishop, and then he too would
+know what it was to intercept the
+glow.</p>
+
+<p>The curate was looking dubiously
+into the recesses of an egg. His fine
+Anglican features underwent a series
+of contortions.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," said the bishop, "that
+that egg is not a good one."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, my lord," said the
+curate. " It is not only bad, it's alive.
+I think it's the worst egg that was
+ever offered me."</p>
+
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<p>The wounded soldier lay in his deck-chair
+placidly smoking his hundredth
+cigarette that day. He was not naturally
+a smoker, but cigarettes arrived in
+enormous numbers and something had
+to be done with them.</p>
+
+<p>His visitor sat beside him, note-book
+in hand. "Yes?" he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"And then," said the soldier, "came
+the order to charge. We fixed bayonets
+and rushed at the Bosches like mad.
+It was glorious&mdash;like the best kind of
+football match."</p>
+
+<p>The visitor took it all down, and
+more.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember bayonetting two men,"
+said the soldier, "and then I remember
+nothing else. And that's six months
+ago. Still, I'm getting well, and then
+there's only one thing on earth that
+I really want with a passionate desire ..."</p>
+
+<p>"I know! I know!" said the visitor,
+moistening his pencil.</p>
+
+<p>"Never to see any more war as long
+as I live," the soldier continued.</p>
+
+
+<h3>III.</h3>
+
+<p>The aged artist sat in his luxurious
+studio surrounded by his masterpieces&mdash;that
+is, by the pictures he had never
+been able to sell.</p>
+
+<p>The gem of the collection stood on
+an easel in the middle of the room;
+while a connoisseur, hat in hand, inspected
+it closely, enthusiastically,
+breathlessly. Then, coming over to
+where the artist was resting, he sat
+down opposite to him and in a voice
+trembling with emotion asked, "Tell
+me, how <i>do</i> you mix your colours?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a deep silence, almost
+painful in its intensity. A drawing-pin
+fell with a deafening crash.</p>
+
+<p>The venerable painter stood up with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" id="page14"></a>[pg 14]</span>
+a calm and leonine expression. "I use
+an ivory palette knife," he said.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IV.</h3>
+
+<p>The shadows were lengthening in
+the beautiful garden. It was a warm
+spring evening. The old sun-dial had
+just struck seven.</p>
+
+<p>The poet threw aside his book and
+called his Airedale terrier; the dog, responding
+in time, eventually reached
+his master's knee.</p>
+
+<p>Seizing his opportunity, the representative
+of the Press observed, "You
+are, I see, fond of dogs."</p>
+
+<p>"Fond of dogs?" replied the poet.
+"I? I detest them;" and so saying he
+kicked the Airedale a distance of several
+feet into the air, so that, falling immediately
+on the sun-dial, it was transfixed
+by the gnomon.</p>
+
+<p>As he watched its struggles, thus
+impaled, the poet laughed the hearty
+resonant laugh for which he was
+famous.</p>
+
+
+<h3>V.</h3>
+
+<p>The Civil Service clerk so famous for
+his drollery was entering the office
+doors at half-past ten in the morning,
+or exactly sixty minutes past the
+appointed time. By an unfortunate
+chance his principal met him, as, alas!
+he had too often done, at the same tardy
+hour. "Late again," said the great
+man, consulting his watch. "I believe
+that you get here later every day."
+"Yes," said the clerk, "I do. But then
+I always stay on and work overtime."</p>
+
+
+<h3>VI.</h3>
+
+<p>The eminent publicist replaced his
+glass on the table and turned to the
+lady who sat beside him. "My business,"
+he said, "is the manufacture of
+mustard. I have made a vast fortune
+out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"How very interesting," the lady
+replied absently; but the next moment,
+inspired by a hidden thought, she added
+with quickened interest, "Please don't
+think me inquisitive, but how can a
+fortune be made out of a thing like
+mustard? People take so little of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," answered the mustard
+magnate deliberately, "we do not
+make our fortunes from the mustard
+that people eat"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes?" cried the lady eagerly.&mdash;"but,"
+he continued, "from what
+they spill in mixing poultices."</p>
+
+
+<h3>VII.</h3>
+
+<p>The famous money-lender one evening
+arrived as usual at the Casino,
+but this time only to bid his friends
+good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>"Not leaving Monte?" they asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am," he replied; "I'm going
+to Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"Rome?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, why not? I'm told it's wonderful.
+I shall be there a month;"
+and so saying he hurried to his hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Three days later he walked into the
+Casino again.</p>
+
+<p>"What," cried his friends&mdash;"you
+here? We thought you were going to
+be in Rome a month."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am," said the money-lender,
+"and more. I came back for my things,
+most of which I left here, as it had
+occurred to me I might not like it.
+But I adore it. Rome is beautiful,
+august, sublime. The simple severe
+beauty of the Vatican, the vast solemnity
+of the Campagna! It is indeed the
+eternal city. Let me keep Rome!"</p>
+
+<p>And again he hurried away.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/014.png"><img width="100%" src="images/014.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Excited individual</i> (<i>who has picked up umbrella
+left in bar, to despatch rider just leaving</i>). "<span class="sc">Hi!
+Mister. Is this your umbrella?</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>A Long Turn.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"To-morrow evening Miss Phyllis Bedells
+makes her final appearance at the London
+Empire, where she has danced without interruption
+for nine and a half years."</p>
+
+<p><i>Bristol Times and Mirror.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>De Mortuis....</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Tired of this much worn physical life Chief
+George Moshesh bursted the bands of morality
+as under Tuesday, November 2nd."</p>
+
+<p><i>South African Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Tenders invited for alterations and additions
+to the late Mr. Waata W. Hipango, Pitiki,
+are hereby cancelled."&mdash;<i>New Zealand Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15"></a>[pg 15]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/015.png"><img width="100%" src="images/015.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Neighbour.</i> "<span class="sc">And how does your son like his
+training</span>?"</p>
+<p><i>Proud Mother of Recruit.</i> "<span class="sc">Oh, he's very happy. But he says
+they do take him very long walks</span>."</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE XMAS ADVENTURES OF A DRAWING.</h2>
+
+<p><i>From Robert Simpson, Edinburgh, to
+Joan Dalgleish, London.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>December</i> 15.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Miss Dalgleish,&mdash;I send you
+as promised, when we parted in Skye,
+one of my little drawings. I am sorry
+I have had no time to get it framed. I
+am off in ten days to India to resume
+my work. If you have no room for
+this little picture on your walls it will
+do for a Red Cross Bazaar.</p>
+
+<p>Hoping to meet you some other
+summer,</p>
+
+<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">R. Simpson.</span></p>
+
+<p><i>From Joan Dalgleish to Robert
+Simpson.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>London, December</i> 17.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Mr. Simpson,&mdash;So many
+thanks for the drawing of the bay. It
+will always remind me of our delightful
+holiday in the North, and in the
+murky days of December it will make
+me feel again in the fresh air of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>With best wishes for a pleasant
+journey,</p>
+
+<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Joan Dalgleish</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>From Joan Dalgleish to Mary Morris,
+Manchester.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>December</i> 23.</p>
+
+<p>Dearest Mary,&mdash;I am sending you
+a little Christmas card, in the shape
+of a water-colour drawing with a
+calendar attached, which can be removed
+each year. It will remind you
+of the fine time we spent bathing and
+boating on the Welsh Coast, which I
+know you people in the North adore.
+I have long wanted to send you some
+token of our days together in that
+pleasant land, and, after much searching,
+here at last it is.</p>
+
+<p>Your affectionate Friend,</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Joan Dalgleish</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>From Mary Morris to Joan Dalgleish.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>December</i> 24.</p>
+
+<p>Dearest Joan,&mdash;What a treat to see
+that glorious Welsh Coast, that heaving
+sea and those sunny cliffs, when I am
+barely existing in this gloomy city!
+<i>Always</i> will this <i>dear</i> scene be in my
+sight morning and evening, to remind
+me of my friend whom I miss <i>so much</i>,
+and of those grand aspects of nature
+which we enjoyed together.</p>
+
+<p>With dear love,</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Mary</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>From Mary Morris to Miss Eleanor
+Mendip, Writers' Club, London.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>December</i> 30.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Miss Mendip,&mdash;It seems ages
+since we met after your <i>great</i> visit to
+Manchester and after that <i>splendid</i>
+lecture on "Some Aspects of Nature."
+I cannot let the New Year pass without
+sending you a little picture of our
+Northern coast as a humble token of
+my <i>immense</i> admiration for your charming
+work&mdash;the poor offering of a constant
+admirer.</p>
+
+<p>Hoping to see you again in our city
+and that you will again stay at our
+home,</p>
+
+<p>Your affectionate admirer,</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Mary Morris</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>From Miss Mendip to Miss Morris.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>January</i> 2.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Miss Morris,&mdash;Forgive me for
+not acknowledging before the graceful
+tribute of your admiration for my
+work. I do indeed regard you as a
+friend&mdash;few girls of my acquaintance
+have so real a sense of literary perfection
+as my dear young friend in Manchester.
+Always will I cherish your
+appreciative gift as a remembrance of
+my sweet young friend.</p>
+
+<p>Yours affectionately,</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Eleanor Mendip</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>From Miss Mendip to the Editor,
+"Women's Welfare," London.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>January</i> 4.</p>
+
+
+<p>Dear Mr. Scrimbles,&mdash;You said
+you intended to obtain an illustration
+to my paper on "Cottage Homes by
+Western Waters." I can save you
+trouble and some expense. I have
+succeeded in obtaining just the picture
+you want. I accordingly enclose it.
+You can add the fee of 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to my
+cheque for the article. I hope it will
+come out in February.</p>
+
+<p>Yours truly,</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Eleanor Mendip</span>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="sc">Wanted.</span> Good School-Master, in exchange
+for Blue Pom dog, 3 months, splendid
+coat, or sell &pound;1. Approval both ways."</p>
+
+<p><i>Welsh Paper</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Lest our scholastic readers should be
+incensed at this cynical estimate of
+their value we hasten to inform them
+that this "School-Master" is a pigeon
+and not a pedagogue.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" id="page16"></a>[pg 16]</span>
+
+<h2>AT THE PLAY.</h2>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">Puss in Boots.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>If Messrs. <span class="sc">Sims, Dix</span> and <span class="sc">Collins</span>
+did in fact, as they claim, make the
+book of this year's pantomime at the
+Lane, Mr. <span class="sc">George Graves</span> gagged and
+bound it. This popular annual festival
+indeed tends to become more and more
+of a <span class="sc">Graves</span> solo (with of course the
+innumerable customary <i>da capos</i>) and
+a bright sketchy <span class="sc">Evans</span> <i>obbligato</i>. As
+a Grand Duchess and Duke respectively
+the genial twain present themselves.
+Mr. <span class="sc">George Graves</span>, in a flounced skirt
+of green tartan check, copper curls
+and mahogany features, is a delectable
+creation; says some strangely unlady-like
+things (as is expected of him);
+is still oddly preoccupied with "gear-boxes"
+and other anatomical detail; and
+generally indulges in a fine careless
+rapture of reminiscence and improvisation&mdash;zealously
+assisted by Mr. <span class="sc">Will
+Evans</span>' familiar tip-tilted nose and
+bland refusal to be perturbed by entirely
+unrehearsed effects and obviously
+irregular cues. A jovial and irreverent
+pair of potentates, crowned by public
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>There is, of course, a sort of background
+to all this audacious fooling,
+more definitely directed <i>virginibus
+puerisque</i>. The new principal boy,
+Mr. <span class="sc">Eric Marshall</span>, woos his princess
+with a romantic air and a mellow
+tenor, in which emotion somewhat
+overshadows tone. Miss <span class="sc">Florence
+Smithson</span>, an accepted Drury Lane
+favourite, looks very charming, makes
+love in pretty kitten wise and still
+indulges in those queer harmonics of
+hers&mdash;virtuosity rather than artistry,
+shall we call it?&mdash;but is altogether quite
+a nice princess of pantomime. Little
+<span class="sc">Ren&eacute;e Mayer</span> is the Puss. Nothing
+could well be daintier. But I hope
+she will let me tell her (in a whisper,
+so that the others won't hear), that she
+doesn't <i>quite</i> realise what a jolly part
+she has got. I would implore her to
+spend an hour or two at serious play
+with any decent young cat and study
+the grace and variety of its beautiful,
+imitable gestures. Then she will assuredly
+pounce on her magician turned
+mouse, and fawn on her master and
+friends, with a greater air of conviction.
+And she will mightily please all the
+other nice children in the house.</p>
+
+<p>Of the great <i>ensemble</i> scenes unquestionably
+the finest was the Fairy
+Garden, with a quite beautiful back-cloth
+by <span class="sc">R. McCleery</span> and a bewildering
+(and, to tell truth, largely bewildered)
+bevy of butterflies, decked by <span class="sc">Comelli,</span>
+fluttering in a flowery pleasaunce. And
+there was also a clever variation on
+the now inevitable staircase <i>motif</i> as
+a <i>finale</i>. But the Harlequinade of
+happy memory has deplorably declined
+to something like a mere display of
+advertisements&mdash;a sad business.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">The Starlight Express.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>It would be uncandid to pretend
+that Mr. <span class="sc">Algernon Blackwood</span> gets
+everything he has to say in <i>The
+Starlight Express</i> safely across the
+footlights&mdash;those fateful barriers that
+trap so many excellent intentions. But
+he so evidently <i>has</i> something to say,
+and the saying is so gallantly attempted,
+that he must emphatically be credited
+with something done&mdash;something
+rather well done really. The little
+play has beautiful moments&mdash;and that
+is to say a great deal.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"><a href="images/016.png"><img width="100%" src="images/016.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Princess Rosabel</i> ... Miss <span class="sc">Florence
+Smithson</span></p>
+<p><i>Florian</i> ... Mr. <span class="sc">Eric Marshall</span>.</p>
+<p><i>Princess Rosabel</i> and <i>Florian</i>, a young man&mdash;though only a
+miller's son&mdash;of considerable polish, especially about the hair and
+feet.</p></div>
+
+<p>This novelist turned playwright
+wishes to make you see that "the
+Earth's forgotten it's a Star." In
+plainer words he wants to present you
+with a cure for "wumbledness." People
+who look at the black side of things,
+who think chiefly of themselves&mdash;these
+are the wumbled. The cure is star-dust&mdash;which
+is sympathy. The treatment
+was discovered by the children
+of a poor author in a cheap Swiss <i>pension</i>
+and by "Cousinenry," a successful
+business man of a quite unusual sort.
+You have to get out into the cave
+where the starlight is stored, gather it&mdash;with
+the help of the Organ Grinder,
+who loves all children and sings his
+cheery way to the stars; and the
+Gardener, who makes good things grow
+and plucks up all weeds; and the
+Lamplighter, who lights up heads and
+hearts and stars impartially; and the
+Sweep, who sweeps away all blacks
+and blues over the edge of the world,
+and the Dustman, with his sack of
+Dream-dust that is Star-dust (or isn't
+it?), and so forth. Then you sprinkle
+the precious stuff on people, and they
+become miracles of content and unselfishness.
+(The fact that life isn't in
+the very least like that is a thing you
+have just got to make yourself forget
+for three hours or so.)</p>
+
+<p>The author was well served by his
+associates. Sir <span class="sc">Edward Elgar</span> wove
+a delightfully patterned music of
+mysterious import through the queer
+tangle of the scenes and gave us
+an atmosphere loaded with the finest
+star-dust. Lighting and setting
+were admirably contrived; and the
+grouping of the little prologue scenes,
+where that kindly handsome giant of
+an organ-grinder (Mr. <span class="sc">Charles Mott</span>),
+with the superbly cut corduroys, sang
+so tunefully to as sweet a flock of little
+maids as one could wish to see, was
+particularly effective.</p>
+
+<p>Of the players I would especially
+commend the delicately sensitive performance
+of Miss <span class="sc">Mercia Cameron</span> (a
+name and talent quite new to me) as
+<i>Jane Anne</i>, the chief opponent of wumbledom.
+She was, I think, responsible
+more than any other for getting some
+of the mystery of the authentic Black-woodcraft
+across to the audience. The
+jolly spontaneity of <span class="sc">Ronald Hammond</span>
+as young <i>Bimbo</i> was a pleasant thing,
+and <span class="sc">Elise Hall</span>, concealing less successfully
+her careful training in the
+part, prettily co-operated as his sister
+<i>Monkey</i>. The part of <i>Daddy</i>, the congested
+author who was either "going
+to light the world or burst," was in
+<span class="sc">O. B. Clarence's</span> clever sympathetic
+hands. Mr. <span class="sc">Owen Roughwood</span> gave
+you a sense of his belief in the efficacy
+of star-dust. On what a difficult rail
+our author was occasionally driving
+his express you may judge when he
+makes this excellent but not particularly
+fragile British type exclaim,
+"I am melting down in dew." The
+flippant hearer had always to be inhibiting
+irreverent speculations occasioned
+by such speeches.</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't guess if the children in
+the audience liked it. I hope they
+didn't feel they had been spoofed, as
+<span class="sc">Maeterlinck</span> so basely spoofed them
+in <i>The Blue Bird</i>, by offering them a
+grown-ups' play "sicklied o'er with the
+pale cast of thought." But the bigger
+children gave the piece a good welcome,
+and called and acclaimed the shrinking
+author. T.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"36 <span class="sc">Magnificent, Acclimatised, Well-bred
+Dairy Cows, &amp;c.</span> Many of these were
+bred on the Premises, and others were purchased
+from a renowned Breeder of Friesland
+Cattle, and they need no comment from the
+Auctioneers, but will speak for themselves."</p>
+
+<p><i>Natal Mercury.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Blowing their own horns, so to speak.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/017.png"><img width="100%" src="images/017.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Irish Sergeant.</i> "<span class="sc">Keep yer head down there!
+Don't ye know that's the very place that Mike Rooney was shot through
+the fut?</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THEY.</h2>
+
+<p>Just lately I have been thinking
+often of Them. But Their image has
+never been more vividly in my mind
+than now, when I sit here among the
+aftermath of festival. I wonder, for
+example, are the homes in which They
+live pervaded with this same <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of
+Christmas (or, as They themselves are
+so fond of calling it, Yuletide)? Does
+dismembered turkey coldly furnish forth
+Their meals? Are there too many
+calendars, and a litter of crumpled
+paper? And cards&mdash;do They send each
+other cards? Stupendous thought!</p>
+
+<p>Most of all is my fancy busy with
+Them to-morrow, Tuesday, December
+the twenty-eighth. I see Them rising,
+a little wearily, perhaps, and heavy-eyed.
+Breakfast They snatch, and so
+out into the winter morning towards
+that place where, unknown and unrecognised,
+They pursue throughout the
+year Their changeless toil. I imagine
+Them gathering with mutual greetings
+in the workroom&mdash;a little company
+about whose features I have so often
+speculated. Poets are there, and artists;
+probably some among the men may
+wear their hair a trifle longer than the
+military fashion of to-day; but the
+greater part of the crowd are almost
+certainly women. Now the talk dies
+down; presently They are all once
+more bending in silence over Their
+appointed tasks.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, here at one desk is the artist to
+whose genius we owe the obese robin
+perched upon a horse-shoe, or the
+churchyard by moonlight after (apparently)
+a severe spangle-storm. Here
+again a poet, whose eye in a fine frenzy
+rolling proclaims an inspiration, or at
+least some subtle variant upon a
+familiar theme. He stoops and, even
+as I watch, has traced swiftly, with
+vibrant pen, this couplet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>"The old, old wish I send to thee,</p>
+<p>Jocund may thy Xmas be!"</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>Then, with a little sigh, he leans
+back, satisfied that for him the holiday
+intermission had not rusted the
+fine edge of originality. "Jocund"
+proved that.</p>
+
+<p>Behind him perhaps sits a maiden
+like Fate, who with abhorred shears
+fashions strange shapes and borderings
+of foliage unknown to mere nature.
+And further still, in yonder obscure
+and shadowy corner, is one who by
+her art can penetrate the future and
+outstrip the foot of Time himself. For
+see, upon her cards, there is already
+written&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>"With every blessing good and true</p>
+<p>May the New Year be packed,</p>
+<p>And 1917 bring to you</p>
+<p>What 1916 lacked."</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>I wonder&mdash;how does their work seem
+to Them upon this morning after
+Boxing-day?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>What to do with our Boys.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Bun-Prover wanted, 20-25 Trays Capacity."
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Portsmouth Evening News.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Not from the Cocoa Press.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"At a concert given in the sick bay, H.M.S.
+Crystal Palace, 34 large boxes of chocolates
+were distributed among the patients. Mr.
+Balfour sent a telegram wishing the men a
+speedy recovery."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The following advertisement appeared
+on Dec. 23:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Lady recommends her Companion-Hosekeeper."&mdash;<i>Morning
+Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>She was not going to risk her own
+Christmas stocking.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"It is no easy thing to replace an artist of
+the quality of Miss Lily Elsie, who, in spite
+of the warmth of her reception at His
+Majesty's Theatre, recently took so severe a
+chill that the doctor would not hear of her
+playing again for some time."&mdash;<i>Daily Mail.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The figurative has no chance with the
+actual.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span>
+
+
+<h2>AT THE SOURCE.</h2>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Francesca, coming into the library, "I see
+you're busy with your papers. Don't let me disturb you."</p>
+
+<p>"If," I said, "it depended on me I wouldn't. I'd take
+you at your word and have you out of the room in two-twos.
+But you wouldn't like that, now, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I should have to enter a protest. That's
+right, isn't it? Protests <i>are</i> things that have to be entered,
+aren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "they're like candidates for examinations,
+or rooms, only some rooms oughtn't to be entered,
+but are."</p>
+
+<p>"Jocose?" said Francesca.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said; "I was thinking of Blue Beard. I daresay
+you remember about him. He was a very uxorious
+man, you know, and most domestic. Something of a
+traveller, and when"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We won't worry about Blue Beard," she said. "I
+think I know the outlines of his family history."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," I said, "why can't you leave me alone?
+You see I'm busy and yet you insist on staying here and
+interrupting me. Do you call that being a helpmeet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "I call it joining myself unto you, and
+that's what we were told to do to one another in the
+marriage service."</p>
+
+<p>"You're wrong," I said. "I was told to do that unto
+you, but you were told to submit yourself unto me and to
+reverence me."</p>
+
+<p>"It's all the same," she said. "All I'm doing is to help
+you to obey the Prayer-Book."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," I said, "you've sat down and you mean to
+stay here. Is that what it comes to?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is," she said. "You're in tremendous guessing form
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"All I know," I said gloomily, "is that if my return for
+Income Tax contains many mistakes it'll be your fault, not
+mine; and I shall take care so to inform the <span class="sc">Chancellor
+of the Exchequer</span>. I shall put down in the Exemptions
+and Abatements, 'Interrupted by wife. Abatement claimed,
+&pound;100.' The <span class="sc">Chancellor</span> will understand. He's a married
+man himself."</p>
+
+<p>"So you're doing your Income Tax," she said dreamily.
+"I've often wondered how that was done. Do you
+like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Francesca," I said, "I do not like it. To be quite
+frank with you I detest it."</p>
+
+<p>"But you're helping the War," she said. "That ought
+to buck you up like anything. Every extra penny you pay
+is a smack in the eye for the <span class="sc">Kaiser</span>, so cheer up and make
+a good big return."</p>
+
+<p>"I will do," I said, "what is strictly fair between myself
+and the Government. I can afford to be just to the
+<span class="sc">Chancellor</span>, but, by Heaven, I cannot afford to be
+generous. Generosity has no place in an Income Tax
+return."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead with it then," she said. "I don't know
+what's stopping you."</p>
+
+<p>"You," I said, "are stopping me&mdash;you and that part of
+my income from which the tax is not deducted at the
+source."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds quite poetical," she said. "It runs into
+metre directly. Listen:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>No man can well be rude or even coarse</p>
+<p>Who has his tax deducted at the source.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>But I wish you'd tell me what it means."</p>
+
+<p>"Francesca," I said bitterly, "you are pleased to be a
+rhymer. You are, in fact, rhyming while the exchequer is
+burning; and then you add insult to injury by asking me
+the meaning of an elementary financial phrase."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what <i>does</i> it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It means," I said, "that if your money is invested in
+public companies or things of that nature, then when your
+half-yearly dividend&mdash;You know what a dividend is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," she said. "It comes in on blue paper or pink,
+and you say, 'That's something to be thankful for;' and
+you write your name on one half of it and you send
+that half to the bank, and you tear off the other half and
+lose it in the next spring-cleaning. I know what a dividend
+is all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Francesca," I said, "your knowledge is very wonderful.
+But if you suppose that that is the whole dividend, you are
+much mistaken. It is the dividend minus the tax. The
+company saves you trouble by deducting the tax and pays
+it to the <span class="sc">Chancellor</span> for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo the company!" said Francesca.</p>
+
+<p>"And so say I. You see you never get that part of your
+money, so there's no temptation to spend it&mdash;in fact you
+don't spend it."</p>
+
+<p>"That," she said, "sounds highly plausible."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but listen. Suppose you've got some little job at,
+say, two hundred and fifty pounds a year"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Like the little job you were so pleased to get a few
+years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "more or less like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so honourable, of course," said Francesca.</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not, but similar as to emoluments. Well,
+in that case you get the whole amount, and you spend it in
+perfectly useless things and forget all about it after you've
+put it down in your return; and then suddenly some
+Surveyor of Taxes writes and demands Income Tax on
+those two hundred and fifty pounds, actually demands
+something like forty pounds. I tell you, it goes through
+you like a knife."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you any remedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I could chuck the job," I said, "or do it for
+nothing. Yes, I think I'll chuck it. It'll be a lesson
+to them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, "it would probably make the Government
+sit up&mdash;but, on the whole, I don't think I should go
+so far if I were you. You see"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," I said, for she was hesitating. "Let us strip
+ourselves of everything at once and throw ourselves on
+the charity of our neighbours."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "I'd go on for a bit. A job's a job
+even if it does make you pay. You've had &pound;210 on balance,
+and you ought to be thankful to have been allowed to pay
+forty pounds for munitions."</p>
+
+<p>"And now," I said, "perhaps you'll let me get on with
+my work."</p>
+
+<p>R. C. L.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>The Pull-Through:</h3>
+
+<p><i>Being a paraphrase of an answer in an O.T.C. examination.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Just one long pull, a straight strong pull&mdash;no other pull will do;</p>
+<p>A man must never take two pulls to pull the pull-through through.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Village Amenities.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"The hearty congregational stinging was a feature of church life
+to be proud of."&mdash;<i>Parish Magazine.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="sc">Wanted.</span>&mdash;Comfortable Home with private family for Gentleman
+who is not strong in Brighton, Eastbourne, or St. Leonards."</p>
+
+<p><i>The Times.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The poor fellow should try Bournemouth or Torquay.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span>
+
+<h3>GETTING EVEN.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/019.png"><img width="100%" src="images/019.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Outraged victim of "Confidential Report" (being
+put to bed prematurely</i>). "<span class="sc">Please, God, Nurse <i>sewed</i> for
+her soldier on SUNDAY</span>!"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+
+<p>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>If it should ever be your lot, which pray Heaven forbid,
+to be stranded on the coast of Panama, seek out Miss
+<span class="sc">Winifred James</span> as your hostess, for she can teach you
+how to tolerate, and even in a way enjoy, an existence one
+might have thought unendurable. She lives, I gather,
+some two hundred miles or so from the Canal, in a town
+that is going to be built some fine day on a site that has
+to be prepared by filling up a marsh with clay and sand.
+In the meantime, until the day and the town arrive, she
+rightly describes herself as <i>A Woman in the Wilderness</i>
+(<span class="sc">Chapman and Hall</span>). Civilisation is turned back to front
+out there, for although such comforts as refrigerators and
+electric light are a matter of course, there is still lacking
+to <i>Mrs. Henry de Jan</i> and her rather shadowy <i>William</i>
+anything, for instance, in the nature of a road on which to
+walk, or indeed any approach to their own verandah except,
+floating on the clay, a narrow plank gangway that has to
+serve as a hustling high-road for a mixed and dusky
+populace. Under the circumstances she has done nobly
+well to arm herself with the twin defences of cheerfulness
+and humour; and if the cheerfulness comes at times near
+to being that of a martyr on the rack, while the fun is
+perilously apt to swing from themes that are nice for a
+lady's wit to others that are not so nice, and back to sheer
+triviality, what, in the name of a population of sand-flies
+and negroes, can you expect? It is much that so lifelike
+a picture of a region so desolate should be presented on
+the whole with sweetness and charm, when no better
+material is available than the myriad misdeeds of her
+coloured servants, the antics of her puppies and an occasional
+reminiscence of home.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Certainly <span class="sc">Violet Hunt</span> and <span class="sc">Ford Madox Hueffer</span> have
+one achievement to their credit. They have evolved an
+entirely new and original setting in which to bring together
+a number of short stories. What is supposed to happen is
+that sundry persons who did not feel exactly drawn towards
+bed before 2 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> on those summer nights when Zeppelins
+were about, meet for bridge and sandwiches and incidentally
+to listen to certain stories read aloud by their author.
+In this way they are able to forget their apprehensions of
+the gas-bags (dare I put it that they lose Count?) and spend
+a pleasant series of evenings with history. For the stories
+in <i>Zeppelin Nights</i> (<span class="sc">Lane</span>) are all historical of a kind.
+Mostly they deal with the byways of history, or rather with
+the emotions of ordinary people who are just on the outer
+edge of historical happenings. For example, the central
+figure of the first is a slave whose basket of figs is upset by
+<span class="sc">Pheidippides</span> running from Marathon; while the last concerns
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span>
+an insignificant little anti-militarist who finds himself
+cheering for the army on the outbreak of the Boer War.
+That is the kind of tales they are, slight and momentary
+things, with no plot but plenty of atmosphere, and in
+their style remarkably well done. Whether they would
+actually keep the nerve-ridden oblivious of bombs for the
+thousand-and-one nights that might have seen raids and
+didn't is a matter that need not concern us. For my part,
+I liked as much as any the pages in which Miss <span class="sc">Hunt</span> or
+Mr. <span class="sc">Hueffer</span> folded up her or his manuscript and allowed
+the other (whichever it was) to tell us about the very
+pleasant and human audience. I had only one disappointment,
+but that was acute. I did want just once for them
+to hear a distant bang, and see what happened. I rather
+doubt whether the placid and literary charm of the tales
+would have sufficed to keep them within doors had there
+been anything to see outside.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>"In his hot indignation his yellowish face had in places
+turned blackish: literally,
+black streaks ran from the
+corners of his lips upwards
+and downwards, and from
+the inner corners of his
+eyes." If you read that
+sentence in a novel with
+Mr. <span class="sc">Edgar Jepson's</span> name
+on the cover, and found
+that the passage was a description
+of a man named
+<i>Shadrach Penny</i>, would you
+not, as I did, settle down
+comfortably in your armchair
+and wait with perfect
+confidence for the human
+zebra to murder somebody
+in the most fascinatingly
+brutal manner? But he did
+not do anything of the
+kind. I think that the fact
+that I was disappointed in,
+and even seriously bored
+by, <i>The Man Who Came
+Back</i> (<span class="sc">Hutchinson</span>) was
+largely due to the mild, dull
+way in which the story developed. And yet I think I could
+have forgiven the absence of lurid sensationalism if the
+book had been a good book of its kind. It is not. It is so
+crude and amateurish that it is difficult to believe that a
+professional writer could have written it. Mr. <span class="sc">Jepson</span>, like
+most other authors, has had the idea of modernising the
+story of the Prodigal Son. He adheres to the original story
+closely in one respect, for <i>Roland Penny's</i> first meal in his
+old home consists of roast veal, but he departs from it in
+making <i>Roland</i>, so far from wasting his substance, amass
+a large fortune among the husks and swine. I do not
+know how to classify <i>The Man Who Came Back</i>. It is not
+a novel of incident, for nothing happens in it. It is not a
+novel of character, for there is no attempt at any but the
+crudest character-drawing. It is just a six-shilling novel,
+and I do not see what else one can say of it. Mr. <span class="sc">Jepson</span>
+must do one of two things. He must either brace up and
+make his style less irritatingly slipshod, or he must give us
+a few more murders. If we cannot have literary elegance
+he must give us blood.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Lieutenant <span class="sc">L. B. Rundall</span>, of the 1st Gurkha Rifles,
+author of <i>The Ilex of Stra-Ping</i> (<span class="sc">Macmillan</span>), was not only
+a soldier and a sportsman, but a writer with a most
+keen sense of the beauty of nature and the beauty of
+words. Children should love these Himalayan sketches,
+for Mr. <span class="sc">Rundall</span>, from material which in some cases was
+admittedly slight, could weave a tale full of magic and
+charm. The story of the old brown bear in "The Scape-goat"
+may not greatly stir the heart with the thrill of
+adventure, but the hero has attractions that no child and
+no man that has not forgotten his childhood could resist.
+An inconspicuous notice in the book tells us that the
+author fell in action towards the close of 1914. I salute
+his memory. Rich as we are to-day in authors who can
+write enchantingly of birds and animals, I feel a sense of
+personal sorrow in the loss of one whose work gave so fair
+a promise of high achievement.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When you take up <i>Russian Folk-Tales</i> (<span class="sc">Kegan, Paul</span>),
+don't allow yourself to be subdued by the deplorably learned
+preface of the translator, Mr. <span class="sc">Leonard Magnus, LL.B.</span>,
+because it is not the proper attitude really. Forget how
+little business a Bachelor
+of Law has to lay his
+sceptical hands on such
+inappropriate material, and
+plunge into a jolly, bewildering
+tangle of tales
+of magic and adventure,
+bloodthirstiness and treachery,
+simple charity, <i>vodka</i>
+and genial superstition.
+You will be led from one
+to the other, puzzled but,
+I dare conjecture, highly
+entertained. I think you
+may take it, too, that a
+certain healthy sort of
+children will like to have
+these queer stories read
+aloud. The villainies of
+the <i>B&aacute;ba Yag&aacute;</i>, an old
+witch of terrific resourcefulness,
+and the oddly inconsequent
+animal stories
+should make particular appeal.
+But you will be hard
+put to it to answer the
+questions which will be thrust at you; and (by the way)
+perhaps you will discreetly have to leave out a phrase or
+two for prudence' sake. On no account let the youngsters
+read the preface. I am not really quite sure whether you
+ought to read it yourself.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/020.png"><img width="100%" src="images/020.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Recruit.</i> "<span class="sc">Aw&mdash;I say Sergeant&mdash;I'm afraid this
+horse is a bit too tall for me</span>."</p>
+<p><i>Sergeant</i> (<i>old school</i>). "<span class="sc">Oh! And does the <i>colour</i>
+suit you, Sir</span>?"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>The Charge of the Six Hundred.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Some three-score years or so ago six hundred gallant men</p>
+<p>Made a charge that cost old England dear, they lost four hundred then;</p>
+<p>To-day six hundred make a charge that costs the country dear,</p>
+<p>But now they take four hundred each&mdash;four hundred pounds a year.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Somebody to steal of my cabbage, cauliflower, old potato, new
+potato, and a small rake and hooks, fork. Everything. Somebody
+snatch on Thursday and Saturday night. Perhaps anybody to see the
+steal man to take something from my garden to tell me about that
+is I will reward five pounds truth, &pound;3 for tell-tale.&mdash;<span class="sc">Wong Long.</span>"</p>
+
+<p><i>Poverty Bay Herald.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Wong Long</span> apparently differs from the accepted authorities
+as to the value of hearsay evidence.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pg" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 150, JANUARY 5, 1916***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 22602-h.txt or 22602-h.zip *******</p>
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@@ -0,0 +1,2217 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150,
+January 5, 1916, by Various, Edited by Owen Seaman
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: September 14, 2007  [eBook #22602]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 150, JANUARY 5, 1916***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, David King, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 22602-h.htm or 22602-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/6/0/22602/22602-h/22602-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/6/0/22602/22602-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+VOL. 150
+
+JANUARY 5, 1916.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Whitefriars Press.
+
+
+
+RESOLUTIONS.
+
+  I will not breakfast in my bed
+  With downy cushions at my head;
+  That would be very wrong--and so
+  Away the eggs and bacon go!
+
+  I will not read in bed at night
+  And burn the dear electric light;
+  Nor buy another costly hat;
+  Oh no! I'm much too good for that.
+
+  But I will rise before the dawn
+  And weed and cut and roll the lawn;
+  My border I will plant with veg,
+  Abundantly from hedge to hedge.
+
+  And all the day I'll practise thrift
+  And no more happily will drift
+  In deeper debt, as once, alas!
+  --But what an awful year I'll pass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Art of Sinking.
+
+    "Altogether we sank one gunboat, five steamers (one of 3,000
+    tons), and 17 large sailing ships, three trains, and one railway
+    embankment."--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Very Light Marching Order.
+
+From a notice issued to recruits for the New Zealand Expeditionary
+Force:--
+
+    "You should report wearing a pair of serviceable boots, and
+    bring with you your toilet outfit--no additional clothing is
+    required."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In a conversation with members of the Press Mr. Ford said now
+    was the time for peace on the basis of the _status quo anti
+    bellum_."
+
+    _Scotch Paper._
+
+He always spells it that way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AN ILL-USED AUTHOR.
+
+"I gather, Sir," remarked my fellow-traveller, after I had put away the
+writing-block on which I had been jotting down the outline of an
+article, "that you are a literary man, like myself?"
+
+We were the only occupants of a compartment in a L. & N. W. R. carriage.
+I had been too absorbed till then to notice his appearance, but I now
+observed that he had rather unkempt hair, luminous eyes, and a soft hat.
+"Oh, well," I admitted, "I write."
+
+"But I take it that, whatever you write, it is not _poetry_," he said.
+What led him to this inference I cannot say, but I had to confess that
+it was correct.
+
+"Still, even though you are not a Poet yourself, I hope," he said, "you
+can feel some sympathy for one who has been so infamously treated as I
+have."
+
+I replied that I hoped so too.
+
+"Then, Sir," said he, "I will tell you my unhappy story. At the
+beginning of this War I was approached by certain Railway magnates who
+shall be nameless. It appeared that they had realised, very rightly,
+that their official notices were couched in too cold and formal a style
+to reach the heart of their public. So they commissioned me to supply
+what I may term the human touch. As a poet, I naturally felt that this
+could only be effectively done through the medium of verse. Well, I rose
+to the occasion, Sir; I produced some lines which, printed as they were
+written, must infallibly have placed me at the head of all of my
+contemporaries. But they were _not_ printed as they were written. In
+proof of which I will trouble you to read very carefully the opening
+paragraph of those 'Defence of the Realm Regulations' immediately above
+your head ... Only the opening paragraph at present, please!"
+
+I was somewhat surprised, but, thinking it best to humour him, I read
+the first sentence, which was: "_In view of possible attack by hostile
+aircraft, it is necessary that the blinds of all trains should be kept
+down after sunset_," and gave him my opinion of it.
+
+"Whether," he said, with some acerbity, "it is or is not as lucidly
+expressed as you are pleased to consider, only the beginning of it is
+mine. This is what I actually wrote:--
+
+  "'In view of possible attack
+  By hostile aircraft overhead,
+  'Tis necessary now, alack!
+  Soon as old Sol has sought his bed,
+  That those who next the window sit,
+  Though they'd prefer to watch the gloaming,
+  Should draw the blind, nor leave a slit,
+  Keeping it down until they're homing,
+  Else on the metals will be thrown
+  A glowing trail as from a comet,
+  And Huns to whom a train is shown
+  Will most indubitably bomb it!'
+
+"That," he observed complacently, "is not only verse of the highest
+order, but clearly conveys the reason for such precautions, which the
+official mind chose to cut out. And now let me ask you to read the next
+paragraph." I did so. "_At night-time when the blinds are drawn_" it
+ran, "_passengers are requested before alighting to make sure when the
+train stops that it is at the platform_."
+
+"Which," he cried fiercely, "is their mangled and mutilated version of
+this:--
+
+  "'At night-time when the blinds are drawn
+  (As screens against those devils' spawn,
+  Which love the gloom, but dread the dawn),
+  A train may be at standstill,
+  Then we request 'twill not occur
+  That some impatient passenger,
+  Whose nerves are in a chronic stir,
+  And neither feet nor hands still,
+  Without preliminary peep
+  Will forth incontinently leap,
+  Alighting in a huddled heap
+  To lie, a limp or flat form,
+  In some inhospitable ditch,
+  If not on grittier ballast, which
+  (The darkness far surpassing pitch)
+  He took to be the platform!'
+
+"As to the next paragraph," he continued, "I don't complain so much,
+though, personally, I consider '_Extract from Order made by the
+Secretary of State for the Home Department_' a very poor paraphrase of
+the resounding couplet in which I introduced him:--
+
+  "'Now speaks in genial tones, from heart to heart meant,
+  The Secretary for the Home Department!'
+
+"I could have overlooked that, Sir, if they had retained the lines I had
+written for him. But they've only let him speak the first four
+words--'_Passengers in Railway Carriages_'--and then drivel on thus:
+'_which are provided with blinds must keep the blinds covered so as to
+cover the windows'_--a clumsy tautology, Sir, for which I am sure no
+Home Secretary would care to be held responsible, and from which I had
+been at some pains to save him, as you may judge when I read you the
+original text:--
+
+  "'Passengers in railway carriages
+  Possess a sense which none disparages;
+  So those who are not perverse or froward
+  May be trusted to see that the blinds are lowered,
+  To cover the windows so totally
+  That no one inside can be seen, or see.
+  Mem.--This need not be done, as lately decided,
+  If blinds for the windows have not been provided.'
+
+"But," he went on, "the deadliest injury those infernal officials
+reserved for the last. If you read the concluding sentence, Sir, you
+will observe that it begins: '_The blinds may be lifted in case of
+necessity_!' (That, I need hardly say, is _entirely_ my own. There is a
+sort of inspired swing in it, the true lyrical lilt with which even
+red-tape has not dared to tamper! But mark how they go on): '_when the
+train is at a standstill at a station, but, if lifted, they must be
+lowered again before the train starts_.' And this insufferable bathos,
+forsooth, was substituted for lines like these:--
+
+  "'The blinds may be lifted in case of necessity;
+  Thus, if the train at a station should halt,
+  And the traveller hears not its name, nor can guess it, he
+  Cannot be held to commit any fault,
+  Still farther be fined,
+  Should he pull up the blind
+  Out of mere curiosity: had he not looked
+  He might miss the station for which he had booked!'
+
+"Well," he concluded, "that is my case. But I can never put it before
+the public myself. My pride would not permit me. Though, if
+someone--yourself, for instance--would present my claims to redress--"
+
+I couldn't help thinking that he had been hardly treated, and so I
+undertook to do what I could for him. He gave me his verses, also his
+name, which latter I have unfortunately forgotten. However, I hope I
+have redeemed my promise here in other respects.
+
+There are times when I wonder uneasily whether he may not have been
+pulling my leg. But, after all, he could have had no possible object in
+doing that. Besides, if, the next time you travel by the L. & N.-W., you
+will study the printed instructions in your compartment, I fancy you
+will agree with me that they corroborate his statements to a rather
+remarkable extent.
+
+F. A.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Christmas Trifle.
+
+    "Some stale sponge cake is cut in slices less than an inch
+    thick, and these are spread generously with jam and arranged on
+    a crystal dish, blanched and chopped with Clara and Jo and all
+    their young cousins."--_The Bulletin._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE RUSH TO SALONIKA.
+
+[Illustration: Wilhelm and Franz Joseph. "FERDIE, THE POST OF HONOUR IS
+YOURS."
+
+Ferdie. "YOU CAN HAVE IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Fair Hostess_ (_entertaining wounded soldier_). "And so
+one Jack Johnson buried you, and the next dug you up again and landed
+you on the top of a barn! Now, what were your feelings?"
+
+_Tommy._ "If you'll believe me, Ma'am, I was never more surprised in all
+my life."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.
+
+It has come as an immense relief to all true lovers of peace to learn
+that such German soldiers as have been taking part in the war on the
+Italian frontier have previously resigned their positions in the
+KAISER'S army and been re-enrolled under the Austrian flag, so that no
+untoward incident may disturb the profound peace which exists between
+Germany and Italy. All the same there are elements of possible danger in
+the situation which should be carefully watched. We look forward to a
+time when our gallant ally may be confidently expected to advance on to
+German soil, and we think it would be well for the authorities at Rome
+(unless the invading host is provided with Montenegrin uniforms) to
+serve out beforehand a large number of tourist coupons, available over a
+wide choice of different routes. This might avert the terrible
+consequences that are likely to follow a breach of relations.
+
+Of course it must be remembered that Italy has now signed on not to
+enter into a separate peace, and no doubt the only true economy is to
+make the present one go as far as possible, as it cannot be replaced.
+Still, since the sinking of the _Ancona_ by a German crew (partially
+whitewashed so as to look like Austrians), Italy's neutrality has become
+of an extremely virulent order.
+
+We need hardly say that President WILSON even on his honeymoon is
+closely watching the situation and thinking over it very deeply, very
+slowly and very calmly, hoping to discover hints for his own future
+guidance. It is said that he feels himself being drawn more and more
+into the vortex, and his attitude of passive belligerency may be
+followed by one of aggressive non-interference. It is common knowledge
+in Washington that if he can get no satisfaction on the _Ancona_
+question he will either despatch a new note (which will be _almost_ an
+ultimatum) or simply pass on and declare war on Albania.
+
+Portugal (as the ancient ally of Great Britain), who has already been
+involved in a scrap with German troops in Angola, is naturally deeply
+exercised as to what are her present relations with Turkey. The matter
+is an urgent one and might become crucial in the event of a Turkish
+Zeppelin drifting in a fog over Portuguese territory.
+
+The King of GREECE is said to have found a happy solution of his
+difficulty about a Bulgarian invasion of Greece. The incoming forces are
+to be provided with return tickets to Salonika and back, available only
+for forty-five days, and containing a stipulation that the traveller may
+not break his journey at any other point.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"FOR THIS RELIEF--"
+
+(_Suggested by the poster commending a recent Revue as "the last word in
+syncopation."_)
+
+  The days of our mourning are ended,
+    The lean years of famine are fled,
+  When, sick for a spoonful of aught that was tuneful,
+    We've sorrowed as over the dead
+  For Music, forlorn and unfriended,
+    Gone down into glimmerless gloom,
+  While rude "rag-time" revels were dancing a devils'
+      Tattoo on her tomb.
+
+  A new dawn of promise doth redden
+    The rim of our Stygian night;
+  Our bondage is breaking--O blessed awaking
+    To melody merry and bright!
+  My heart, long o'erloaded and leaden,
+    Now bounds to the blue like a bird;
+  The shadow has shifted; with paean uplifted
+      I hail that "last word"!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+Leap Year Anticipations.--A fine spring is expected in France, Flanders
+and Poland. If the weather is propitious a total eclipse will be visible
+in Berlin and Vienna.
+
+       ***
+
+Asked by some American journalists where the Peace Conference would be
+held, Dr. SVEN HEDIN is reported to have said, "Peace will be dictated
+from Berlin." And so say all of us!
+
+       ***
+
+Relations between Potsdam and Sofia are said to be badly strained. Three
+days after the Kaiser had issued his celebrated manifesto, "To my noble
+and heroic Serbian people," FERDINAND in the Sobranje was publicly
+denouncing the Serbians as obstinate, treacherous, and tyrannical. The
+KAISER considers this conduct extremely tactless, and threatens, if it
+continues, to spell Bulgarian with a "V."
+
+       ***
+
+All hitherto-published explanations of the threatened German attack on
+the Suez Canal are hereby cancelled. The fact is that the KAISER'S fleet
+is increasing so rapidly that it has outgrown its present accommodation.
+
+       ***
+
+During the visit of Mr. FORD'S Ark to Bergen the following notice was
+posted up at the Grand Hotel:--"All members of the Henry Ford Peace
+Expedition are requested to call for their laundry at the Grand Hotel,
+Room 408, Tuesday evening after supper. This notice supersedes the
+original plan to have the laundry delivered to each individual hotel."
+It may also explain why the members of the expedition have since washed
+their dirty linen in public.
+
+       ***
+
+Some of the pilgrims on the _Oscar II._ were much annoyed at the
+prohibition of card-playing on board. "What is the use," they asked, "of
+crying _Pax_ when there are none?"
+
+       ***
+
+Some strait-laced Conservatives, who were a little shocked to see the
+announcement of "Mr. Balfour on the Film," were comforted on its being
+pointed out to them that Mr. CHAPLIN set him the example.
+
+       ***
+
+A ten-year-old girl's essay on "Patriotism":--"Patriotism is composed of
+patriots, and they are people who live in Ireland and want Mr. Redmond
+or other people to be King of Ireland. They are very brave, some of
+them, and are so called after St. Patrick, who is Ireland's private
+saint. The patriots who are brave make splendid soldiers. The patriots
+who are not brave go to America."
+
+       ***
+
+Lord KITCHENER, who has a choice collection of old china, has lately
+added to it several fine specimens of Crown Derby.
+
+       ***
+
+So many Parliamentarians have recently requested the Treasury to stop
+sending them their L400 a year that a slight change in the designation
+of the others is suggested--P.M. (Paid Member) instead of M.P.
+
+       ***
+
+A soldier's letter: "DEAR SIS,--You ask what I want--well, for Heaven's
+sake send us a barber! You never saw such heads in your life as we've
+got.
+
+Lovingly, Bob.
+
+P.S.--Failing a barber send us a box of hair-pins."
+
+       ***
+
+Is it true that while the Cliff Hotel at Gorleston was blazing furiously
+during the gale last week a zealous official went up to the unfortunate
+proprietor and threatened him with pains and penalties for allowing a
+naked light to be seen far out at sea?
+
+       ***
+
+We understand that since the entrance-fee was suspended and the
+subscription reduced, the Automobile Club has increased its membership
+so largely that the Committee are thinking of re-naming it the Omnibus.
+
+       ***
+
+A conversation in the trenches:--
+
+_Private Dougal McTavish_ (_late of the Alberta Police_): "Mon, in ma
+section 'tis aften fafty degrees below zero. But, bless ye, 'tis dry
+cold, ye'll never feel it."
+
+_L.C. Owen Tyrrell_ (_late of Carpentaria Telegraphs_): "Down-under it
+is usually 125 in the shade. But thin it is dry heat, you are niver
+sinsible of ut."
+
+_Corpl. James Brown_ (_late Tram Conductor, Vancouver_): "In B.C. we
+stake upon 312 to 314 rainy days in the year. But it is dry rain, it
+don't wet you."
+
+       ***
+
+In an article on the employment of women as dentists, the writer says:
+"A new charm has been added to the delights of dentistry." Optimist!
+
+       ***
+
+He also says that one lady "extracted 38 teeth from nine patients, and
+showed little signs of fatigue from it, either." But what about the
+nine?
+
+       ***
+
+We observe that Mr. PEARCE, the Commonwealth Minister of Defence, fell
+while in his garden and broke two of his ribs, but are glad to learn
+that his condition is not serious. The conjunction of a rib, a garden,
+and a fall has in at least one previous case resulted in permanent
+injury.
+
+       ***
+
+A martyr to insomnia threatens, unless the Government stops the
+whistling for taxis, to let Mr. MCKENNA whistle for his.
+
+       ***
+
+Our men in the trenches are beginning to welcome the German gas-attacks.
+They say there is nothing like them for keeping down the rats.
+
+       ***
+
+Suggested motto for the controversy between the headmasters as to the
+publication of Public School Rolls of Honour--"Quot dominies tot
+santentiae."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE NEW LEAF.
+
+[Illustration: Fancy portrait of Prussian poet preparing to write a Hymn
+of Love--in case it should be wanted.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Note.
+
+The "Wingfield House" mentioned in the article "Cases," which appeared
+in _Punch_ a fortnight ago, was a purely imaginary name and had nothing
+to do with the Wingfield House, near Trowbridge, where a hospital has
+for some time been established.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Juvenile War Lord._. "'Ere! Someone else 'ave a go--I'm
+sick o' war. It ain't in reason ter expect a bloke ter be the Kaiser
+three days running!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE VINDICATION OF JIMMY.
+
+In one corner of the school play-ground stood a small boy in deep
+dejection, with his hands in his pockets, his lower lip trembling
+slightly, whilst he strove to kick a hole in the ground with his right
+toe. It was Jimmy--Jimmy in his hour of trial.
+
+He wasn't going to blub, he wasn't going to do anything.
+
+Suddenly he stopped kicking at the ground, as he remembered that his
+mother had told him he must be careful of his boots now that the War was
+on.
+
+He took out of his pocket a match-box, the temporary home of a large
+beetle--a buzzer, Jimmy called it--which had hitherto refused to eat
+either grass or bran or Indian corn. His gaze then wandered to a hole in
+his stockings, which he had mended by applying ink to the exposed part
+of his skin.
+
+From the opposite side of the playground came the tumultuous noise of
+the calm deliberations of Form II.
+
+Jimmy knew perfectly well that they were discussing him, and that in
+time one of their number would be sent to inform him of the verdict and
+sentence.
+
+He expected that he would have to fight them all, one by one, and he
+wondered how many blows he would be able to stand without returning
+them, for to hit back was out of the question under the unfortunate
+circumstances.
+
+Jimmy wished they would get it over, for he was quite willing to undergo
+any form of punishment they might decide upon, if only they would let
+him know quickly. He hoped they wouldn't make the Biffer fight him, not
+that he was afraid of the Biffer, but because it would be so hard to
+keep himself from hitting back, and that he had decided not to do. You
+see the Biffer was a new boy, and, for another thing, he wore a leather
+strap round his wrist. On his very first day at school the Biffer had
+volunteered the information that he once gave a boy such a biff on the
+nose that he had sprained his wrist, and that ever since he had worn a
+wrist strap, lest it should happen again. It was Jimmy who had
+nick-named him the Biffer, and from that time the Biffer had sought
+Jimmy's blood.
+
+But Jimmy was not easy to quarrel with.
+
+He was the acknowledged champion of Form II., and you had to commit
+three offences before Jimmy would seriously consider you. At the first
+offence you got a note with the one word "Beware!" written upon it; at
+the second, another note with the word "Blood" written underneath a
+skull and crossbones; and at the third you received a note with the word
+"Deth," and underneath was the drawing of a coffin.
+
+The Biffer had so far arrived at the second note.
+
+Jimmy did hope they wouldn't choose the Biffer, for he could hear even
+now the Biffer's yell when he had made that awful mistake which had
+brought about the present deplorable situation.
+
+Jimmy couldn't think how he had come to say what he did say; he could
+have bitten off his tongue when he realised it; but it was too late--he
+had said it.
+
+He tried to think how it had all occurred, and the scene flashed again
+before his mind. There was the master with his pointer resting upon the
+Dogger Bank on the map of Europe.
+
+"Who can tell me the name of this sea?" he had said, and Jimmy had
+snapped his fingers and waved his arm about in his anxiety to catch the
+master's eye. You see, it was so seldom, so very seldom, that Jimmy felt
+he knew the right answer to any question, and the new experience was
+intoxicating. The master too seemed to find it unusual, and he at once
+turned to Jimmy and said, "Well, what is this sea called, then?" Jimmy,
+full of the pride of knowledge, burst out with "The North Sea, Sir." Oh!
+if he had only stopped at that; but in his desire to show how much he
+knew he added without thinking the fatal words, "or German Ocean!"
+
+In the shout of derision which had followed, Jimmy realised what he had
+said, and felt himself falling, falling, falling....
+
+Jimmy became aware that the noise on the opposite side of the playground
+was ceasing, and soon, from the corner of his eye, he saw Jones minimus
+detach himself from the crowd. "Half a mo'," he heard Jones minimus say;
+"I want to get a knotted handkerchief," and he saw him hurry into the
+school. As he emerged he flourished the knotted handkerchief, but when
+delivering the verdict to Jimmy that he would have to run the gauntlet
+three times to the tune of the knotted handkerchiefs of Form II., he
+tried to smuggle into Jimmy's hands an exercise-book which he said Jimmy
+could stuff up his back; it would stick there if Jimmy buttoned his
+jacket, he said, and it would take the sting off a bit. Jimmy had to
+bite his lip as he refused the exercise-book, and then with head erect
+and lips no longer trembling he went forth to face the ordeal.
+
+Form II. had arranged themselves in two ranks, facing one another, and
+the knots in the handkerchiefs were firm and hard. "You have got to bunk
+through and back again and then down again," said Jones minimus in a
+hoarse whisper.
+
+The Biffer was at the head of one rank, and had got his handkerchief
+slung over his shoulder in happy readiness for the first blow.
+
+"Are you ready? Go!" shouted Form II. in one voice.
+
+At the word "Go!" Jimmy pulled his hands out of his pockets--he was glad
+his mother wasn't there to see him--and with head still up and eyes to
+the front he walked slowly up the double lines and as slowly down them.
+The Biffer got in a good one, he got in two before Jimmy was out of
+reach, and he then changed the handkerchief to his left hand in
+readiness for the return journey. Arrived at the end of the lines, Jimmy
+turned on his heel and began to walk even more slowly than at first.
+
+But there was no sting in the blows this time; all the zest seemed to
+have gone out of the affair; and, but for the whack the Biffer gave,
+Jimmy never felt anything. The third time down was a farce, for, after
+Jimmy had deliberately stopped opposite the Biffer in order to let him
+have as many as his injured soul required, no one touched him. In fact
+they were all shaking hands with Jimmy, who was now his smiling self
+once more and ready to play with the best of them, when suddenly the
+Biffer took it into his head to make a joke.
+
+"Perhaps he _is_ a German," said the Biffer, and waited for the general
+laugh to follow his sally.
+
+But the laugh didn't come; instead there was a dead silence.
+
+Who was the Biffer--a new boy at that--to call anyone a German?
+Instinctively a ring was formed and the Biffer found himself in the
+middle of it.
+
+Jimmy took off his coat and gave it to Jones minimus, who danced for
+sheer delight.
+
+Jimmy had only one regret: the butcher-boy was not there to see him--the
+butcher-boy who had expended so much time over him, had taught him the
+upper cut, the under cut, every cut that the heart of a butcher-boy
+delights in. The Biffer was very busy biffing the air with a rapid
+circular motion of the arms, for Jimmy's fixed scowl and set of jaw
+troubled him.
+
+Oh, why wasn't the butcher-boy there to see that tremendous smack on the
+nose the Biffer got? He would have felt amply rewarded.
+
+No one had ever seen Jimmy fight like this, and Jones minimus shouted in
+his joy, for the Biffer was outbiffed in every direction.
+
+In vain did he cry "_Pax_," for Jimmy had not half relieved his
+feelings, and there was no end to the dodges the butcher-boy had taught
+him, each of which, he had said, meant sudden death.
+
+"He's had enough, Jimmy," whispered Jones minimus. "I'm satisfied," he
+added as the Biffer, who was lying on the ground, refused to get up and
+have any more.
+
+As the boys entered the class-room the next day there was the map of
+Europe still hanging up in front of the class, and the very first
+question that was asked by the master was, "Well, Jimmy, what is this
+sea?"
+
+"The North Sea or British Ocean, Sir!" said Jimmy, a reply that was
+greeted with a rousing cheer by the whole of Form II.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A SECOND HELPING!
+
+  Our Bagdad force fell in a rut
+    At Ctesiphon; Turks made things hum.
+  We found that we had got to Kut,
+  Whilst Russians found a way to Kum!
+
+  Our men know not the word "defeat,"
+    They'll make it clear on Tigris plain
+  That, Russian-like, when they retreat,
+    'Tis but to cut and come again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A TURKISH TROPHY.
+
+(_A belated letter from Gallipoli._)
+
+My dear ----, By this week's post I trust you will receive the long
+promised trophy, to wit one Turkish headpiece procured by my own
+personal exertions. As the story of its capture, though somewhat out of
+the ordinary, has been passed over in stony silence both by the official
+_communiques_ and "Our Special Correspondent" I shall endeavour to give
+you a brief impression of the difficulties overcome as truthfully as my
+sense of imagination will allow me. First of all I must draw a map:--
+
+[Illustration:
+
+A B British trench, with traverses.
+
+C D Turkish trench, without.
+
+E F Ditch
+
+G British barricade.
+
+H Turkish barricade.]
+
+This should give you an idea of the English and Turkish lines at a point
+where they are about eighty yards apart. Without going into details you
+will see the English trench is of the superior pattern, as it has
+traverses. I had to work in that technical term to show I know all about
+it; I know another, "the berm," but I am not too sure about what that
+is, and also I don't suppose I could draw a "berm" if I saw one. Anyway,
+I know it's quite a good term connected with trenches, as I heard a
+G.O.C. fairly strafe a subaltern, the other day, because he hadn't got a
+"berm." Well, to refer to the map, you will observe that there is an old
+ditch running between the two lines of trenches, and both sides have
+advanced a certain distance along this ditch and have built barricades
+about ten yards apart. Every day it is part of my job to take a
+constitutional along our trenches, and after discussing the European
+situation and the latest Budget with the various battalion commanders to
+ask them whether there is any particularly obnoxious part of the
+opposition line they would like me to salute with my battery. Usually
+they say, "No, there's nothing in particular, but let's have a shoot all
+the same; for example, there's a dog that barks abominably every night
+opposite L 57. Couldn't you abolish him?" Incidentally we no longer give
+our trenches names, such as Piccadilly, Rotten Row, but mere letters and
+numbers; the reason being that one of the staff was picked up in a
+fainting condition, having strolled down Park Lane and then found
+himself, to his horror, in Peckham High Street. The shock--his own home
+being in Baling Broadway--had proved too much for his constitution.
+However, to refer back to the map once more, our barricade across the
+ditch is a most convenient spot for observing artillery fire and as such
+is frequently used by me. Unfortunately my view was always hasty and
+badly interrupted by the attentions of a Turkish sniper behind their
+barricade. This man's name was Ibrahim, and he was a Constantinople
+cab-driver, married, with two children, both boys. You may be surprised
+that we know so much about the enemy, but we live in such close
+proximity that opposite the Lancashire Fusiliers a Turk named Mahomet,
+who lives at No. 3, Golden Horn Terrace, told the reporter of _The
+Worpington Headlight_ that for three years he had been suffering from
+pains in the back--but that's another story. Incidentally Mahomet at
+present inhabits a sniper's post surrounded by a perfect thicket of
+barbed-wire, and I had a bright scheme for its removal. I got hold of a
+trench catapult, an ingenious contrivance of elastic that hurls a bomb
+some hundreds of yards, and placed in it a harpoon attached to a long
+coil of rope. The idea was that on release of the catapult the harpoon
+would be hurled in the air, the rope would neatly pay out, and then, as
+soon as the harpoon had grappled Mahomet, all we would have to do would
+be to haul on the rope and over would come the whole bag of tricks.
+Unfortunately something went wrong, and the rope, instead of neatly
+uncoiling, flailed round the trench like a young anaconda, and, catching
+a harmless spectator by the leg, hurled him twenty feet in the air.
+Immediately the opposition lines resounded like a rifle-booth at a
+country fair. However our spectator descended unpunctured, and the only
+damage done was to our vanity, when Mahomet threw over a message
+attached to a stone to ask whether we would repeat the performance as he
+and a pal had a bet on as to who was the best shot and wanted a human
+aeroplane to judge.
+
+But we have got a long way from Ibrahim. Ibrahim possessed the headpiece
+I am sending you. I could not think of a method for obtaining it, as his
+vigilance was deadly. However a bright thought struck me, and I
+assiduously saved up my rum ration for a month. Then one bitter cold
+night I tossed over the accumulation in a bottle wrapped up in an old
+sock. Presently there resounded in the still air a pleasant bubbling
+sound indicative of liquid being poured out of a glass receptacle, then
+a deep sigh, followed by a profound silence. Inch by inch I crawled over
+our barricade and slowly wormed my way along the ditch. At last I
+reached the Turkish barricade and cautiously slid my hand over the top
+until my fingers encountered Ibrahim's toque. Then I gave a gentle tug.
+Horror! he had the flap down under his chin. Unmanned for a moment I
+recovered, and I slowly slid my fingers down his hirsute neck and with a
+gentle titillation slid the flap clear. Ibrahim merely stirred in his
+sleep and resumed his slumbers. Triumphantly hugging the trophy to my
+bosom I crawled back to our barricade.
+
+The saddest part of the tale is yet to come. I had promised to procure
+you a trophy unstained by association with human slaughter, but when the
+day dawned there lay poor Ibrahim stiff and stark behind his barricade,
+killed by a cold in his head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PANTOMIME ANNOUNCEMENTS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Message Boy Wanted for Butchery."
+
+            _Brechin Advertiser._
+
+A lot of people are after that boy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Taxi driver who laid down Fare at Royal Hotel at 2.45 p.m. on
+    Christmas Day, would oblige by returning Gent's Umbrella to
+    Hotel."
+
+          _Aberdeen Journal._
+
+We gather that it had been a wet morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Cyril_ (_eating his bread-and-jam--with not too much
+jam_). "This is prepostrous--this war economy."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HUNTIN' WEATHER.
+
+  There's a dog-fox down in Lannigan's spinney
+    (And Lannigan's wife has hens to mourn);
+  The hunters stamp in their stalls an' whinny,
+    Soft with leisure an' fat with corn.
+
+  The colts are pasturin', bold an' lusty,
+    Sleek they are with their coats aglow,
+  Ripe to break, but the bits grow rusty
+    And the saddles sit in a dusty row.
+
+  Old O'Dwyer was here a-Monday
+    With a few grey gran'fathers out for a field
+  (Like the ghostly hunt of a dead an'-done day),
+    They--an' some lassies that giggled an' squealed.
+
+  The houn's they rioted like the devil
+    (They ran a hare an' they killed a goose);
+  I cursed Caubeen, but he looked me level:
+    "The boys are away--so what's the use?"
+
+  The mists lie clingin' on bog an' heather,
+    Haws hang red on the silver thorn;
+  It's huntin' weather, ay, huntin' weather,
+    But trumpets an' bugles have beat the horn!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Debt of Honour.
+
+Mr. Punch ventures to plead on behalf of the nine hundred men of the
+Royal Naval Division who were taken prisoners by the enemy in the
+retirement from Antwerp. Less fortunate than those of the same Division
+who were interned in Holland (for want of official information most
+people imagine that all the missing were so interned), they lack the
+necessities of life. Parcels of food are sent to them, fortnightly to
+each man, as well as clothing and tobacco; and it is known that they
+receive all that is sent. Mr. Punch begs his readers to help the fund
+from which these simple comforts are provided, and to address their
+gifts to Lady GWENDOLEN GUINNESS, at 11, St. James's Square, S.W.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a report of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S speech:--
+
+    "The works of Ireland have been extremely helpful, and I am glad
+    to acknowledge that I have been extremely helpful."
+
+    _Manchester Guardian._
+
+On this occasion the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS appears to have allowed
+himself the privilege of "thinking aloud."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "_The Daily Mail_ will not be published to-morrow, and for that
+    reason we seize the occasion to-day of bidding our readers a
+    merry Christmas,"--_Daily Mail of December 24th._
+
+And a very good reason too.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seasonable.
+
+    "The Canadian Government has granted to Canadian troops oversea
+    and in training at home a Christmas allowance of one chilling."
+
+    _Provincial Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "He much regretted that it was not possible to-day to
+    communicate the results of the Derby Report in any detail, or,
+    indeed, at all. The task had been one of stupendous bagnitude."
+
+    _Evening Standard._
+
+Yes, but how big was the bag?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two descriptions of the new Chief of the Imperial General Staff:--
+
+    "Of Scottish descent, and familiarly known to the Army as
+    'Jock,' he is one of the most remarkable soldiers of the time."
+
+    _Glasgow Evening Times._
+
+    "That he is known throughout the whole Army simply as 'Wullie'
+    is a sure token that the private soldier has taken him to his
+    heart."
+
+    _Glasgow Evening Citizen._
+
+Won't the Germans be puzzled?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Eddie Harvey (Fleetwood) and Ike Whitehouse (Barrow) went
+    through 15 rounds contest for L5 a side and a nurse, and Harvey
+    won on points."--_The People._
+
+The stakes, we presume, were divided.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A kid was born with monkey face and human skull at Saidapet on
+    the 13th instant."
+
+    _New India._
+
+This is headed "A Curious Phenomenon." But is it? Some of our
+neighbours' kids are just like that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW EDGE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON AS USUAL.
+
+("_Kelly's London Directory_" for 1916, a contemporary remarks, is very
+much the same as the volume for 1915.)
+
+  Where, where are the signs of the raider
+    Who swam to our ken like a kite,
+  Who swore he had played the invader
+    And knocked us to bits in the night;
+  Who pounded these parts into jelly
+    From Mile End, he said, to the Mall?
+  For the man who should know (J. J. KELLY)
+        Can't spot 'em at all.
+
+  You may turn up the street that is Vigo
+    Or alight on the Lane that is Mark;
+  You may let your incredulous eye go
+    O'er each Crescent and Corner and Park;
+  You may hunt through the humblest of alleys
+    Or the giddiest haunts of the town,
+  And Kelly's, who're "safe" as the Palace,
+        Have got 'em all down.
+
+  So I sing to those equals in wonder,
+    Of BRADSHAW (the expert on trains),
+  Who have torn the Hun's fiction asunder--
+    That our City's a mass of remains;
+  Here's our proof that we're plainly not undone,
+    That, although every night she lies hid,
+  Our stolid undaunted old London
+        Still stands where she did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Porter_ (_dug-out_). "Shall I put yer 'ockey-knockers in
+the van, Sir?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+STUDIES IN FRUSTRATION.
+
+I.
+
+The scene was the comfortable spacious breakfast-room in the Bishop's
+Palace. His lordship sat nearest to the fire; the bishop's wife presided
+over the fragrant coffee-pot, and the curate, their dine-and-sleep
+guest, sat opposite the bishop and farthest from the warmth. As a curate
+this position was his due. Some day he also would be a bishop, and then
+he too would know what it was to intercept the glow.
+
+The curate was looking dubiously into the recesses of an egg. His fine
+Anglican features underwent a series of contortions.
+
+"I am afraid," said the bishop, "that that egg is not a good one."
+
+"You are right, my lord," said the curate. "It is not only bad, it's
+alive. I think it's the worst egg that was ever offered me."
+
+
+II.
+
+The wounded soldier lay in his deck-chair placidly smoking his hundredth
+cigarette that day. He was not naturally a smoker, but cigarettes
+arrived in enormous numbers and something had to be done with them.
+
+His visitor sat beside him, note-book in hand. "Yes?" he remarked.
+
+"And then," said the soldier, "came the order to charge. We fixed
+bayonets and rushed at the Bosches like mad. It was glorious--like the
+best kind of football match."
+
+The visitor took it all down, and more.
+
+"I remember bayonetting two men," said the soldier, "and then I remember
+nothing else. And that's six months ago. Still, I'm getting well, and
+then there's only one thing on earth that I really want with a
+passionate desire ..."
+
+"I know! I know!" said the visitor, moistening his pencil.
+
+"Never to see any more war as long as I live," the soldier continued.
+
+
+III.
+
+The aged artist sat in his luxurious studio surrounded by his
+masterpieces--that is, by the pictures he had never been able to sell.
+
+The gem of the collection stood on an easel in the middle of the room;
+while a connoisseur, hat in hand, inspected it closely,
+enthusiastically, breathlessly. Then, coming over to where the artist
+was resting, he sat down opposite to him and in a voice trembling with
+emotion asked, "Tell me, how _do_ you mix your colours?"
+
+There was a deep silence, almost painful in its intensity. A drawing-pin
+fell with a deafening crash.
+
+The venerable painter stood up with a calm and leonine expression. "I
+use an ivory palette knife," he said.
+
+
+IV.
+
+The shadows were lengthening in the beautiful garden. It was a warm
+spring evening. The old sun-dial had just struck seven.
+
+The poet threw aside his book and called his Airedale terrier; the dog,
+responding in time, eventually reached his master's knee.
+
+Seizing his opportunity, the representative of the Press observed, "You
+are, I see, fond of dogs."
+
+"Fond of dogs?" replied the poet. "I? I detest them;" and so saying he
+kicked the Airedale a distance of several feet into the air, so that,
+falling immediately on the sun-dial, it was transfixed by the gnomon.
+
+As he watched its struggles, thus impaled, the poet laughed the hearty
+resonant laugh for which he was famous.
+
+
+V.
+
+The Civil Service clerk so famous for his drollery was entering the
+office doors at half-past ten in the morning, or exactly sixty minutes
+past the appointed time. By an unfortunate chance his principal met him,
+as, alas! he had too often done, at the same tardy hour. "Late again,"
+said the great man, consulting his watch. "I believe that you get here
+later every day." "Yes," said the clerk, "I do. But then I always stay
+on and work overtime."
+
+
+VI.
+
+The eminent publicist replaced his glass on the table and turned to the
+lady who sat beside him. "My business," he said, "is the manufacture of
+mustard. I have made a vast fortune out of it."
+
+"How very interesting," the lady replied absently; but the next moment,
+inspired by a hidden thought, she added with quickened interest, "Please
+don't think me inquisitive, but how can a fortune be made out of a thing
+like mustard? People take so little of it."
+
+"Madam," answered the mustard magnate deliberately, "we do not make our
+fortunes from the mustard that people eat"--
+
+"Yes, yes?" cried the lady eagerly.--"but," he continued, "from what
+they spill in mixing poultices."
+
+
+VII.
+
+The famous money-lender one evening arrived as usual at the Casino, but
+this time only to bid his friends good-bye.
+
+"Not leaving Monte?" they asked.
+
+"Yes, I am," he replied; "I'm going to Rome."
+
+"Rome?"
+
+"Yes, why not? I'm told it's wonderful. I shall be there a month;" and
+so saying he hurried to his hotel.
+
+Three days later he walked into the Casino again.
+
+"What," cried his friends--"you here? We thought you were going to be in
+Rome a month."
+
+"So I am," said the money-lender, "and more. I came back for my things,
+most of which I left here, as it had occurred to me I might not like it.
+But I adore it. Rome is beautiful, august, sublime. The simple severe
+beauty of the Vatican, the vast solemnity of the Campagna! It is indeed
+the eternal city. Let me keep Rome!"
+
+And again he hurried away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Excited individual_ (_who has picked up umbrella left in
+bar, to despatch rider just leaving_). "Hi! Mister. Is this your
+umbrella?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Long Turn.
+
+    "To-morrow evening Miss Phyllis Bedells makes her final
+    appearance at the London Empire, where she has danced without
+    interruption for nine and a half years."
+
+    _Bristol Times and Mirror._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+De Mortuis....
+
+    "Tired of this much worn physical life Chief George Moshesh
+    bursted the bands of morality as under Tuesday, November 2nd."
+
+    _South African Paper._
+
+    "Tenders invited for alterations and additions to the late Mr.
+    Waata W. Hipango, Pitiki, are hereby cancelled."--_New Zealand
+    Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Neighbour._ "And how does your son like his training?"
+
+_Proud Mother of Recruit._ "Oh, he's very happy. But he says they do
+take him very long walks."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE XMAS ADVENTURES OF A DRAWING.
+
+_From Robert Simpson, Edinburgh, to Joan Dalgleish, London._
+
+_December_ 15.
+
+Dear Miss Dalgleish,--I send you as promised, when we parted in Skye,
+one of my little drawings. I am sorry I have had no time to get it
+framed. I am off in ten days to India to resume my work. If you have no
+room for this little picture on your walls it will do for a Red Cross
+Bazaar.
+
+Hoping to meet you some other summer,
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+R. Simpson.
+
+_From Joan Dalgleish to Robert Simpson._
+
+_London, December_ 17.
+
+Dear Mr. Simpson,--So many thanks for the drawing of the bay. It will
+always remind me of our delightful holiday in the North, and in the
+murky days of December it will make me feel again in the fresh air of
+Scotland.
+
+With best wishes for a pleasant
+journey,
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+Joan Dalgleish.
+
+
+_From Joan Dalgleish to Mary Morris, Manchester._
+
+_December_ 23.
+
+Dearest Mary,--I am sending you a little Christmas card, in the shape of
+a water-colour drawing with a calendar attached, which can be removed
+each year. It will remind you of the fine time we spent bathing and
+boating on the Welsh Coast, which I know you people in the North adore.
+I have long wanted to send you some token of our days together in that
+pleasant land, and, after much searching, here at last it is.
+
+Your affectionate Friend,
+
+Joan Dalgleish.
+
+
+_From Mary Morris to Joan Dalgleish._
+
+_December_ 24.
+
+Dearest Joan,--What a treat to see that glorious Welsh Coast, that
+heaving sea and those sunny cliffs, when I am barely existing in this
+gloomy city! _Always_ will this _dear_ scene be in my sight morning and
+evening, to remind me of my friend whom I miss _so much_, and of those
+grand aspects of nature which we enjoyed together.
+
+With dear love,
+
+Mary.
+
+
+_From Mary Morris to Miss Eleanor Mendip, Writers' Club, London._
+
+_December_ 30.
+
+Dear Miss Mendip,--It seems ages since we met after your _great_ visit
+to Manchester and after that _splendid_ lecture on "Some Aspects of
+Nature." I cannot let the New Year pass without sending you a little
+picture of our Northern coast as a humble token of my _immense_
+admiration for your charming work--the poor offering of a constant
+admirer.
+
+Hoping to see you again in our city
+and that you will again stay at our
+home,
+
+Your affectionate admirer,
+
+Mary Morris.
+
+
+_From Miss Mendip to Miss Morris._
+
+_January_ 2.
+
+Dear Miss Morris,--Forgive me for not acknowledging before the graceful
+tribute of your admiration for my work. I do indeed regard you as a
+friend--few girls of my acquaintance have so real a sense of literary
+perfection as my dear young friend in Manchester. Always will I cherish
+your appreciative gift as a remembrance of my sweet young friend.
+
+Yours affectionately,
+
+Eleanor Mendip.
+
+
+_From Miss Mendip to the Editor, "Women's Welfare," London._
+
+_January_ 4.
+
+Dear Mr. Scrimbles,--You said you intended to obtain an illustration to
+my paper on "Cottage Homes by Western Waters." I can save you trouble
+and some expense. I have succeeded in obtaining just the picture you
+want. I accordingly enclose it. You can add the fee of 10s. 6d. to my
+cheque for the article. I hope it will come out in February.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+Eleanor Mendip.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "WANTED. Good School-Master, in exchange for Blue Pom dog, 3
+    months, splendid coat, or sell L1. Approval both ways."
+
+    _Welsh Paper_.
+
+Lest our scholastic readers should be incensed at this cynical estimate
+of their value we hasten to inform them that this "School-Master" is a
+pigeon and not a pedagogue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"Puss in Boots."
+
+If Messrs. SIMS, DIX and COLLINS did in fact, as they claim, make the
+book of this year's pantomime at the Lane, Mr. GEORGE GRAVES gagged and
+bound it. This popular annual festival indeed tends to become more and
+more of a GRAVES solo (with of course the innumerable customary _da
+capos_) and a bright sketchy EVANS _obbligato_. As a Grand Duchess and
+Duke respectively the genial twain present themselves. Mr. GEORGE
+GRAVES, in a flounced skirt of green tartan check, copper curls and
+mahogany features, is a delectable creation; says some strangely
+unlady-like things (as is expected of him); is still oddly preoccupied
+with "gear-boxes" and other anatomical detail; and generally indulges in
+a fine careless rapture of reminiscence and improvisation--zealously
+assisted by Mr. WILL EVANS' familiar tip-tilted nose and bland refusal
+to be perturbed by entirely unrehearsed effects and obviously irregular
+cues. A jovial and irreverent pair of potentates, crowned by public
+laughter.
+
+There is, of course, a sort of background to all this audacious fooling,
+more definitely directed _virginibus puerisque_. The new principal boy,
+Mr. ERIC MARSHALL, woos his princess with a romantic air and a mellow
+tenor, in which emotion somewhat overshadows tone. Miss FLORENCE
+SMITHSON, an accepted Drury Lane favourite, looks very charming, makes
+love in pretty kitten wise and still indulges in those queer harmonics
+of hers--virtuosity rather than artistry, shall we call it?--but is
+altogether quite a nice princess of pantomime. Little RENEE MAYER is the
+Puss. Nothing could well be daintier. But I hope she will let me tell
+her (in a whisper, so that the others won't hear), that she doesn't
+_quite_ realise what a jolly part she has got. I would implore her to
+spend an hour or two at serious play with any decent young cat and study
+the grace and variety of its beautiful, imitable gestures. Then she will
+assuredly pounce on her magician turned mouse, and fawn on her master
+and friends, with a greater air of conviction. And she will mightily
+please all the other nice children in the house.
+
+Of the great _ensemble_ scenes unquestionably the finest was the Fairy
+Garden, with a quite beautiful back-cloth by R. MCCLEERY and a
+bewildering (and, to tell truth, largely bewildered) bevy of
+butterflies, decked by COMELLI, fluttering in a flowery pleasaunce. And
+there was also a clever variation on the now inevitable staircase
+_motif_ as a _finale_. But the Harlequinade of happy memory has
+deplorably declined to something like a mere display of
+advertisements--a sad business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Starlight Express."
+
+It would be uncandid to pretend that Mr. ALGERNON BLACKWOOD gets
+everything he has to say in _The Starlight Express_ safely across the
+footlights--those fateful barriers that trap so many excellent
+intentions. But he so evidently _has_ something to say, and the saying
+is so gallantly attempted, that he must emphatically be credited with
+something done--something rather well done really. The little play has
+beautiful moments--and that is to say a great deal.
+
+This novelist turned playwright wishes to make you see that "the Earth's
+forgotten it's a Star." In plainer words he wants to present you with a
+cure for "wumbledness." People who look at the black side of things, who
+think chiefly of themselves--these are the wumbled. The cure is
+star-dust--which is sympathy. The treatment was discovered by the
+children of a poor author in a cheap Swiss _pension_ and by
+"Cousinenry," a successful business man of a quite unusual sort. You
+have to get out into the cave where the starlight is stored, gather
+it--with the help of the Organ Grinder, who loves all children and sings
+his cheery way to the stars; and the Gardener, who makes good things
+grow and plucks up all weeds; and the Lamplighter, who lights up heads
+and hearts and stars impartially; and the Sweep, who sweeps away all
+blacks and blues over the edge of the world, and the Dustman, with his
+sack of Dream-dust that is Star-dust (or isn't it?), and so forth. Then
+you sprinkle the precious stuff on people, and they become miracles of
+content and unselfishness. (The fact that life isn't in the very least
+like that is a thing you have just got to make yourself forget for three
+hours or so.)
+
+The author was well served by his associates. Sir EDWARD ELGAR wove a
+delightfully patterned music of mysterious import through the queer
+tangle of the scenes and gave us an atmosphere loaded with the finest
+star-dust. Lighting and setting were admirably contrived; and the
+grouping of the little prologue scenes, where that kindly handsome giant
+of an organ-grinder (Mr. CHARLES MOTT), with the superbly cut corduroys,
+sang so tunefully to as sweet a flock of little maids as one could wish
+to see, was particularly effective.
+
+Of the players I would especially commend the delicately sensitive
+performance of Miss MERCIA CAMERON (a name and talent quite new to me)
+as _Jane Anne_, the chief opponent of wumbledom. She was, I think,
+responsible more than any other for getting some of the mystery of the
+authentic Black-woodcraft across to the audience. The jolly spontaneity
+of RONALD HAMMOND as young _Bimbo_ was a pleasant thing, and ELISE HALL,
+concealing less successfully her careful training in the part, prettily
+co-operated as his sister _Monkey_. The part of _Daddy_, the congested
+author who was either "going to light the world or burst," was in O. B.
+CLARENCE'S clever sympathetic hands. Mr. OWEN ROUGHWOOD gave you a sense
+of his belief in the efficacy of star-dust. On what a difficult rail our
+author was occasionally driving his express you may judge when he makes
+this excellent but not particularly fragile British type exclaim, "I am
+melting down in dew." The flippant hearer had always to be inhibiting
+irreverent speculations occasioned by such speeches.
+
+I couldn't guess if the children in the audience liked it. I hope they
+didn't feel they had been spoofed, as MAETERLINCK so basely spoofed them
+in _The Blue Bird_, by offering them a grown-ups' play "sicklied o'er
+with the pale cast of thought." But the bigger children gave the piece a
+good welcome, and called and acclaimed the shrinking author. T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Princess Rosabel_ ... Miss Florence Smithson. _Florian_
+... Mr. Eric Marshall.
+
+_Princess Rosabel_ and _Florian_, a young man--though only a miller's
+son--of considerable polish, especially about the hair and feet.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "36 Magnificent, Acclimatised, Well-bred Dairy Cows, &c. Many of
+    these were bred on the Premises, and others were purchased from
+    a renowned Breeder of Friesland Cattle, and they need no comment
+    from the Auctioneers, but will speak for themselves."
+
+    _Natal Mercury._
+
+Blowing their own horns, so to speak.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Irish Sergeant._ "Keep yer head down there! Don't ye
+know that's the very place that Mike Rooney was shot through the fut?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THEY.
+
+Just lately I have been thinking often of Them. But Their image has
+never been more vividly in my mind than now, when I sit here among the
+aftermath of festival. I wonder, for example, are the homes in which
+They live pervaded with this same _debris_ of Christmas (or, as They
+themselves are so fond of calling it, Yuletide)? Does dismembered turkey
+coldly furnish forth Their meals? Are there too many calendars, and a
+litter of crumpled paper? And cards--do They send each other cards?
+Stupendous thought!
+
+Most of all is my fancy busy with Them to-morrow, Tuesday, December the
+twenty-eighth. I see Them rising, a little wearily, perhaps, and
+heavy-eyed. Breakfast They snatch, and so out into the winter morning
+towards that place where, unknown and unrecognised, They pursue
+throughout the year Their changeless toil. I imagine Them gathering with
+mutual greetings in the workroom--a little company about whose features
+I have so often speculated. Poets are there, and artists; probably some
+among the men may wear their hair a trifle longer than the military
+fashion of to-day; but the greater part of the crowd are almost
+certainly women. Now the talk dies down; presently They are all once
+more bending in silence over Their appointed tasks.
+
+Yes, here at one desk is the artist to whose genius we owe the obese
+robin perched upon a horse-shoe, or the churchyard by moonlight after
+(apparently) a severe spangle-storm. Here again a poet, whose eye in a
+fine frenzy rolling proclaims an inspiration, or at least some subtle
+variant upon a familiar theme. He stoops and, even as I watch, has
+traced swiftly, with vibrant pen, this couplet:--
+
+  "The old, old wish I send to thee,
+  Jocund may thy Xmas be!"
+
+Then, with a little sigh, he leans back, satisfied that for him the
+holiday intermission had not rusted the fine edge of originality.
+"Jocund" proved that.
+
+Behind him perhaps sits a maiden like Fate, who with abhorred shears
+fashions strange shapes and borderings of foliage unknown to mere
+nature. And further still, in yonder obscure and shadowy corner, is one
+who by her art can penetrate the future and outstrip the foot of Time
+himself. For see, upon her cards, there is already written--
+
+  "With every blessing good and true
+  May the New Year be packed,
+  And 1917 bring to you
+  What 1916 lacked."
+
+I wonder--how does their work seem to Them upon this morning after
+Boxing-day?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What to do with our Boys.
+
+    "Bun-Prover wanted, 20-25 Trays Capacity."
+
+_Portsmouth Evening News._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not from the Cocoa Press.
+
+    "At a concert given in the sick bay, H.M.S. Crystal Palace, 34
+    large boxes of chocolates were distributed among the patients.
+    Mr. Balfour sent a telegram wishing the men a speedy
+    recovery."--_The Times._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following advertisement appeared on Dec. 23:--
+
+    "Lady recommends her Companion-Hosekeeper."--_Morning Paper._
+
+She was not going to risk her own Christmas stocking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "It is no easy thing to replace an artist of the quality of Miss
+    Lily Elsie, who, in spite of the warmth of her reception at His
+    Majesty's Theatre, recently took so severe a chill that the
+    doctor would not hear of her playing again for some
+    time."--_Daily Mail._
+
+The figurative has no chance with the actual.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE SOURCE.
+
+"Oh," said Francesca, coming into the library, "I see you're busy with
+your papers. Don't let me disturb you."
+
+"If," I said, "it depended on me I wouldn't. I'd take you at your word
+and have you out of the room in two-twos. But you wouldn't like that,
+now, would you?"
+
+"I'm afraid I should have to enter a protest. That's right, isn't it?
+Protests _are_ things that have to be entered, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "they're like candidates for examinations, or rooms, only
+some rooms oughtn't to be entered, but are."
+
+"Jocose?" said Francesca.
+
+"No," I said; "I was thinking of Blue Beard. I daresay you remember
+about him. He was a very uxorious man, you know, and most domestic.
+Something of a traveller, and when"--
+
+"We won't worry about Blue Beard," she said. "I think I know the
+outlines of his family history."
+
+"Well then," I said, "why can't you leave me alone? You see I'm busy and
+yet you insist on staying here and interrupting me. Do you call that
+being a helpmeet?"
+
+"Well," she said, "I call it joining myself unto you, and that's what we
+were told to do to one another in the marriage service."
+
+"You're wrong," I said. "I was told to do that unto you, but you were
+told to submit yourself unto me and to reverence me."
+
+"It's all the same," she said. "All I'm doing is to help you to obey the
+Prayer-Book."
+
+"Anyhow," I said, "you've sat down and you mean to stay here. Is that
+what it comes to?"
+
+"It is," she said. "You're in tremendous guessing form to-day."
+
+"All I know," I said gloomily, "is that if my return for Income Tax
+contains many mistakes it'll be your fault, not mine; and I shall take
+care so to inform the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. I shall put down in
+the Exemptions and Abatements, 'Interrupted by wife. Abatement claimed,
+L100.' The CHANCELLOR will understand. He's a married man himself."
+
+"So you're doing your Income Tax," she said dreamily. "I've often
+wondered how that was done. Do you like it?"
+
+"No, Francesca," I said, "I do not like it. To be quite frank with you I
+detest it."
+
+"But you're helping the War," she said. "That ought to buck you up like
+anything. Every extra penny you pay is a smack in the eye for the
+KAISER, so cheer up and make a good big return."
+
+"I will do," I said, "what is strictly fair between myself and the
+Government. I can afford to be just to the CHANCELLOR, but, by Heaven, I
+cannot afford to be generous. Generosity has no place in an Income Tax
+return."
+
+"Go ahead with it then," she said. "I don't know what's stopping you."
+
+"You," I said, "are stopping me--you and that part of my income from
+which the tax is not deducted at the source."
+
+"That sounds quite poetical," she said. "It runs into metre directly.
+Listen:--
+
+  No man can well be rude or even coarse
+  Who has his tax deducted at the source.
+
+But I wish you'd tell me what it means."
+
+"Francesca," I said bitterly, "you are pleased to be a rhymer. You are,
+in fact, rhyming while the exchequer is burning; and then you add insult
+to injury by asking me the meaning of an elementary financial phrase."
+
+"Well, what _does_ it mean?"
+
+"It means," I said, "that if your money is invested in public companies
+or things of that nature, then when your half-yearly dividend--You know
+what a dividend is?"
+
+"Rather," she said. "It comes in on blue paper or pink, and you say,
+'That's something to be thankful for;' and you write your name on one
+half of it and you send that half to the bank, and you tear off the
+other half and lose it in the next spring-cleaning. I know what a
+dividend is all right."
+
+"Francesca," I said, "your knowledge is very wonderful. But if you
+suppose that that is the whole dividend, you are much mistaken. It is
+the dividend minus the tax. The company saves you trouble by deducting
+the tax and pays it to the CHANCELLOR for you."
+
+"Bravo the company!" said Francesca.
+
+"And so say I. You see you never get that part of your money, so there's
+no temptation to spend it--in fact you don't spend it."
+
+"That," she said, "sounds highly plausible."
+
+"Yes, but listen. Suppose you've got some little job at, say, two
+hundred and fifty pounds a year"--
+
+"Like the little job you were so pleased to get a few years ago."
+
+"Yes," I said, "more or less like that."
+
+"Not so honourable, of course," said Francesca.
+
+"No, of course not, but similar as to emoluments. Well, in that case you
+get the whole amount, and you spend it in perfectly useless things and
+forget all about it after you've put it down in your return; and then
+suddenly some Surveyor of Taxes writes and demands Income Tax on those
+two hundred and fifty pounds, actually demands something like forty
+pounds. I tell you, it goes through you like a knife."
+
+"Haven't you any remedy?"
+
+"Of course I could chuck the job," I said, "or do it for nothing. Yes, I
+think I'll chuck it. It'll be a lesson to them."
+
+"Yes," she said, "it would probably make the Government sit up--but, on
+the whole, I don't think I should go so far if I were you. You see"--
+
+"Go on," I said, for she was hesitating. "Let us strip ourselves of
+everything at once and throw ourselves on the charity of our
+neighbours."
+
+"Well," she said, "I'd go on for a bit. A job's a job even if it does
+make you pay. You've had L210 on balance, and you ought to be thankful
+to have been allowed to pay forty pounds for munitions."
+
+"And now," I said, "perhaps you'll let me get on with my work."
+
+R. C. L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Pull-Through:
+
+_Being a paraphrase of an answer in an O.T.C. examination._
+
+  Just one long pull, a straight strong pull--no other pull will do;
+  A man must never take two pulls to pull the pull-through through.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Village Amenities.
+
+    "The hearty congregational stinging was a feature of church life
+    to be proud of."--_Parish Magazine._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "WANTED.--Comfortable Home with private family for Gentleman who
+    is not strong in Brighton, Eastbourne, or St. Leonards."
+
+    _The Times._
+
+The poor fellow should try Bournemouth or Torquay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GETTING EVEN.
+
+[Illustration: _Outraged victim of "Confidential Report" (being put to
+bed prematurely_). "Please, God, Nurse _sewed_ for her soldier on
+SUNDAY!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+If it should ever be your lot, which pray Heaven forbid, to be stranded
+on the coast of Panama, seek out Miss WINIFRED JAMES as your hostess,
+for she can teach you how to tolerate, and even in a way enjoy, an
+existence one might have thought unendurable. She lives, I gather, some
+two hundred miles or so from the Canal, in a town that is going to be
+built some fine day on a site that has to be prepared by filling up a
+marsh with clay and sand. In the meantime, until the day and the town
+arrive, she rightly describes herself as _A Woman in the Wilderness_
+(CHAPMAN AND HALL). Civilisation is turned back to front out there, for
+although such comforts as refrigerators and electric light are a matter
+of course, there is still lacking to _Mrs. Henry de Jan_ and her rather
+shadowy _William_ anything, for instance, in the nature of a road on
+which to walk, or indeed any approach to their own verandah except,
+floating on the clay, a narrow plank gangway that has to serve as a
+hustling high-road for a mixed and dusky populace. Under the
+circumstances she has done nobly well to arm herself with the twin
+defences of cheerfulness and humour; and if the cheerfulness comes at
+times near to being that of a martyr on the rack, while the fun is
+perilously apt to swing from themes that are nice for a lady's wit to
+others that are not so nice, and back to sheer triviality, what, in the
+name of a population of sand-flies and negroes, can you expect? It is
+much that so lifelike a picture of a region so desolate should be
+presented on the whole with sweetness and charm, when no better material
+is available than the myriad misdeeds of her coloured servants, the
+antics of her puppies and an occasional reminiscence of home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Certainly VIOLET HUNT and FORD MADOX HUEFFER have one achievement to
+their credit. They have evolved an entirely new and original setting in
+which to bring together a number of short stories. What is supposed to
+happen is that sundry persons who did not feel exactly drawn towards bed
+before 2 A.M. on those summer nights when Zeppelins were about, meet for
+bridge and sandwiches and incidentally to listen to certain stories read
+aloud by their author. In this way they are able to forget their
+apprehensions of the gas-bags (dare I put it that they lose Count?) and
+spend a pleasant series of evenings with history. For the stories in
+_Zeppelin Nights_ (LANE) are all historical of a kind. Mostly they deal
+with the byways of history, or rather with the emotions of ordinary
+people who are just on the outer edge of historical happenings. For
+example, the central figure of the first is a slave whose basket of figs
+is upset by PHEIDIPPIDES running from Marathon; while the last concerns
+an insignificant little anti-militarist who finds himself cheering for
+the army on the outbreak of the Boer War. That is the kind of tales they
+are, slight and momentary things, with no plot but plenty of atmosphere,
+and in their style remarkably well done. Whether they would actually
+keep the nerve-ridden oblivious of bombs for the thousand-and-one nights
+that might have seen raids and didn't is a matter that need not concern
+us. For my part, I liked as much as any the pages in which Miss HUNT or
+Mr. HUEFFER folded up her or his manuscript and allowed the other
+(whichever it was) to tell us about the very pleasant and human
+audience. I had only one disappointment, but that was acute. I did want
+just once for them to hear a distant bang, and see what happened. I
+rather doubt whether the placid and literary charm of the tales would
+have sufficed to keep them within doors had there been anything to see
+outside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"In his hot indignation his yellowish face had in places turned
+blackish: literally, black streaks ran from the corners of his lips
+upwards and downwards, and from the inner corners of his eyes." If you
+read that sentence in a novel with Mr. EDGAR JEPSON'S name on the cover,
+and found that the passage was a description of a man named _Shadrach
+Penny_, would you not, as I did, settle down comfortably in your
+armchair and wait with perfect confidence for the human zebra to murder
+somebody in the most fascinatingly brutal manner? But he did not do
+anything of the kind. I think that the fact that I was disappointed in,
+and even seriously bored by, _The Man Who Came Back_ (HUTCHINSON) was
+largely due to the mild, dull way in which the story developed. And yet
+I think I could have forgiven the absence of lurid sensationalism if the
+book had been a good book of its kind. It is not. It is so crude and
+amateurish that it is difficult to believe that a professional writer
+could have written it. Mr. JEPSON, like most other authors, has had the
+idea of modernising the story of the Prodigal Son. He adheres to the
+original story closely in one respect, for _Roland Penny's_ first meal
+in his old home consists of roast veal, but he departs from it in making
+_Roland_, so far from wasting his substance, amass a large fortune among
+the husks and swine. I do not know how to classify _The Man Who Came
+Back_. It is not a novel of incident, for nothing happens in it. It is
+not a novel of character, for there is no attempt at any but the crudest
+character-drawing. It is just a six-shilling novel, and I do not see
+what else one can say of it. Mr. JEPSON must do one of two things. He
+must either brace up and make his style less irritatingly slipshod, or
+he must give us a few more murders. If we cannot have literary elegance
+he must give us blood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lieutenant L. B. RUNDALL, of the 1st Gurkha Rifles, author of _The Ilex
+of Stra-Ping_ (MACMILLAN), was not only a soldier and a sportsman, but a
+writer with a most keen sense of the beauty of nature and the beauty of
+words. Children should love these Himalayan sketches, for Mr. RUNDALL,
+from material which in some cases was admittedly slight, could weave a
+tale full of magic and charm. The story of the old brown bear in "The
+Scape-goat" may not greatly stir the heart with the thrill of adventure,
+but the hero has attractions that no child and no man that has not
+forgotten his childhood could resist. An inconspicuous notice in the
+book tells us that the author fell in action towards the close of 1914.
+I salute his memory. Rich as we are to-day in authors who can write
+enchantingly of birds and animals, I feel a sense of personal sorrow in
+the loss of one whose work gave so fair a promise of high achievement.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When you take up _Russian Folk-Tales_ (KEGAN, PAUL), don't allow
+yourself to be subdued by the deplorably learned preface of the
+translator, Mr. LEONARD MAGNUS, LL.B., because it is not the proper
+attitude really. Forget how little business a Bachelor of Law has to lay
+his sceptical hands on such inappropriate material, and plunge into a
+jolly, bewildering tangle of tales of magic and adventure,
+bloodthirstiness and treachery, simple charity, _vodka_ and genial
+superstition. You will be led from one to the other, puzzled but, I dare
+conjecture, highly entertained. I think you may take it, too, that a
+certain healthy sort of children will like to have these queer stories
+read aloud. The villainies of the _Baba Yaga_, an old witch of terrific
+resourcefulness, and the oddly inconsequent animal stories should make
+particular appeal. But you will be hard put to it to answer the
+questions which will be thrust at you; and (by the way) perhaps you will
+discreetly have to leave out a phrase or two for prudence' sake. On no
+account let the youngsters read the preface. I am not really quite sure
+whether you ought to read it yourself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Recruit._ "Aw--I say Sergeant--I'm afraid this horse is
+a bit too tall for me."
+
+_Sergeant_ (_old school_). "Oh! And does the _colour_ suit you, Sir?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Charge of the Six Hundred.
+
+  Some three-score years or so ago six hundred gallant men
+  Made a charge that cost old England dear, they lost four hundred then;
+  To-day six hundred make a charge that costs the country dear,
+  But now they take four hundred each--four hundred pounds a year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Somebody to steal of my cabbage, cauliflower, old potato, new
+    potato, and a small rake and hooks, fork. Everything. Somebody
+    snatch on Thursday and Saturday night. Perhaps anybody to see
+    the steal man to take something from my garden to tell me about
+    that is I will reward five pounds truth, L3 for tell-tale.--Wong
+    Long."
+
+    _Poverty Bay Herald._
+
+Wong Long apparently differs from the accepted authorities as to the
+value of hearsay evidence.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+150, JANUARY 5, 1916***
+
+
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