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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150,
+March 29, 1916, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: September 20, 2007 [EBook #22688]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH,
+
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 150.
+
+
+
+March 29, 1916
+
+[Illustration:
+_Fond Mother._ "Anything in the paper, dear?"
+_Wage-earner (not unkindly)._ "No, Ma--nothing you could understand."]
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+"His seventy-one years sit lightly on Mr. GIBSON BOWLES," says the
+Special Correspondent of _The Evening News_. No doubt Mr. BOWLES has
+some good reason for permitting this familiarity, for he is not a man to
+be lightly sat upon.
+
+       ***
+
+"In particular," says a report on the resources of German East Africa,
+"the President of the Silk Association has just directed attention to
+the wild silk of the anaphe worm." The animal the great two-horned
+silkworm discovered by Sir HARRY JOHNSTON, before whose furious charges,
+according to the report of natives, even the elephant will give way.
+
+       ***
+
+A telegram from Rome states that it is generally believed that Admiral
+TIRPITZ resigned because he could not take the German Fleet out. Others
+again maintain that it was because he could no longer take the German
+people in.
+
+       ***
+
+It was recently stated in a Parliamentary Report that verminous uniforms
+had been purchased by the Government for the sum of £2,650 and
+immediately resold for £400. The difference is accounted for by the fact
+that they were sold as going concerns.
+
+       ***
+
+A white rook has been observed at Boston Road, Brentford, and a local
+ornithologist writes to say that the bird is probably an accidental
+straggler from King's Bishop's Fourth.
+
+       ***
+
+"To-day in many English homes," says a patriotic contemporary, "alien
+birds are carolling all unconscious of their countries' doom." One had
+independently noticed how the modulated of the Turkey buzzard had taken
+on a mournful tone.
+
+       ***
+
+"It is not unusual for horses to go to sleep as they walk along," said a
+sagacious coroner last week. How often in the old four-wheeler days,
+when we were going _ventre a terre_ from Buckingham Palace to the
+National Liberal Club, conversation was rendered impossible by the
+snores of the flying steed.
+
+       ***
+
+The price of admission to Kew for perambulators is 3d. on ordinary days,
+1s. on student days. The extra charge has been found necessary because
+of the fact that large numbers of horticulturists, in order to escape
+military service, have taken to travelling in these vehicles.
+
+       ***
+
+According to the author of _In a College Garden_ "it is not advisable to
+encourage any but educated ladies to become gardeners." It is always
+pleasant to note the extent to which a simple thing like a potato will
+recognise and respond to gentility in those who associate with it.
+
+       ***
+
+    "The Italian Ambassador opened the exhibition of the Royal
+    Society of Brush Artists at the society's premises in
+    Suffolk-street."
+
+    _Evening Paper._
+
+Mr. Punch welcomes the implicit admission that there are others.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "What is needed is that we should have on each of the main lines
+    of our overseas communications at least one ship that is faster
+    than anything else afloat."--_Manchester Guardian_.
+
+Is it not extraordinary that the Admiralty should never have thought of
+this simple device?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a theatre programme:--
+
+    "All the Male Members of the above Company are either attested
+    under Lord Derby's Scheme, or are otherwise Ineligible for
+    Service."
+
+The erroneous impression that to be attested is the short road to
+ineligibility has evidently spread from the platform to the stage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOR THEY ARE JOLLY POOR FELLOWS.
+
+    [The fine example of patriotism shown by the Universities of
+    Oxford and Cambridge throws into painful relief the action of
+    some of the obscure remnant, including College Fellows, who have
+    excused themselves from service or adopted an attitude of
+    superior detachment in relation to the War.]
+
+  You Intellectuals of Cam and Isis,
+    Pale phantoms in the dawn of Freedom's light,
+  And you that in this hour of England's crisis
+    Haven't the conscience (or the heart) to fight;
+
+  You cosmopolitans without a country,
+    Who go aloof on philosophic quests,
+  Sucking the fruit of knowledge from the Hun-tree
+    And spiritual milk from alien breasts;
+
+  False to that Brotherhood, who for the splendour
+    Of a great cause, with gallant hearts and gay,
+  Of youth and youth's high promise made surrender,
+    Because their courage knew the nobler way;
+
+  I envy not your chance on their returning;
+    When, scarred with war, they come from overseas,
+  There should be trouble in those Seats of Learning
+    Where you sat tight and took your pedants' ease.
+
+  Short shrift you'll get for your convenient scruples;
+    Conducted thither where the wet stream winds
+  You shall receive as elementary pupils
+    An object-lesson good for little minds.
+
+  Somewhere about the Guts of Cam and Isis,
+    May I be well in front to see you then
+  Taught by immersion what the local price is
+    To pay for being prigs instead of men.
+
+O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PHILOGAMUS.
+
+(_A Socratic Fragment_.)
+
+"... It is plain, therefore," said Socrates, "that the man whose soul is
+afflicted with illness will desire above all things to have it cured as
+quickly as possible, and for this purpose he will submit himself to one
+who understands the curing of souls. So far, I think, we are agreed, are
+we not?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Agathon, "that would appear to be the wisest
+course."
+
+"Then why," said Socrates, "do we find that men who are generally eager
+to be cured of an ague are indisposed to take care of their soul when it
+is manifestly suffering? You yourself have declared that your soul is
+sick within you, yet you consult nobody and take no steps."
+
+"Nay, nay, Socrates, I cannot allow you to catch me like this. Perhaps I
+spoke thoughtlessly when I mentioned my soul just now. Certainly I had
+not intended that you should tie me up with your questions and draw
+conclusions which it was impossible for me to foresee."
+
+"Then I suppose the fault must be mine, for in truth I had not designed
+to catch anyone, least of all yourself, my dear Agathon. But we will
+defer the consideration of the matter to a more favourable time, for I
+see Philogamus approaching and, if we may judge by the outward signs, he
+seems to be, as one might say, in a terrible state."
+
+Hereupon we turned to observe Philogamus, to whom indeed something
+painful and calamitous must have happened, for his garments were
+disarrayed and his hair was unkempt, and anger was seated upon his
+frowning brow, and he was muttering to himself and calling the gods to
+witness that he was unjustly treated and that no such misfortune had
+ever before happened to any other man; and he was beating his hands
+wildly together and was forgetting to salute his friends. Seeing him
+thus distraught Socrates plucked him by the sleeve as he passed and
+addressed him.
+
+"Hail, Philogamus," he said, "what great misfortune do you announce to
+us? Have the Barbarians at last seized upon the Piræus, and are they
+even now marching irresistibly on the Acropolis? Are you sent out to
+summon us to arms? Here are a few of us who will join with you, laying
+aside even their most pressing private business, and will help to defend
+the State and themselves to the last gasp. Only do you deliver your
+message and let us know."
+
+"This," said Philogamus, "is no moment for laughing, though in laughter,
+O Socrates, you are always easily first, as they say, and the rest
+nowhere. But have you not heard what has happened?"
+
+"No," said Socrates, "and we much desire to know. I can speak
+confidently for myself, and Agathon here is, I am sure, in a fever of
+impatience."
+
+"Listen, then, and, by the gods, you shall be made aware of an injustice
+that calls for immediate redress. They are even now on the point of
+calling up the married men to go to the War."
+
+"That is very interesting; and what do the married men say to it?"
+
+"What do they say?" shouted Philogamus. "They say they will not go
+unless, according to the promises of Darbius and Ascuthius, all the
+unmarried men are taken first;" and he began once more beating his
+breast and glaring with his eyes like a dog who has been for long
+without water.
+
+"Softly, my good friend," said Socrates, "softly. As to the promise, I
+know it is being rigidly kept. All the willing single men are gone or
+going, and the unwilling are being compelled to join as quickly as is
+possible. What more can be done?"
+
+"Something ought to be done."
+
+"That is very true," said Socrates; "something ought always to be
+getting itself done, and the something at this moment is that the
+Barbarians ought to be beaten. But tell me, with regard to the married
+men, are they not concerned in the safety and welfare of the State?"
+
+"That, indeed, they are," said Philogamus; "none more so."
+
+"In that case why do they hang back and complain when the State declares
+that its safety and welfare demand that they should be ready to go?
+Because one here and there has concealed himself, is it for you, a
+married man, to retire when by going you might help to thrust back the
+Barbarians? Are you one of those that are called the attested ones?"
+
+"Yes, that I am," said Philogamus, proudly displaying his brown armlet
+with the red crown.
+
+"Then it is you, as it appears to me, who have given a pledge and made a
+promise, and that promise, I am sure, you will fulfil to the best of
+your ability. When the time comes it is for you to go at once and not to
+weary the market-place with empty noise and murmurs of complaint. For
+remember this: the man who has taken a wife and has brought up children
+under the State's protection owes more, if it be possible...."
+
+(_Here the fragment ends._)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a description of the German Crown Prince:--
+
+    "Before the war he liked to imitate the English, and posed as a
+    German megalomaniac."
+
+    _Daily News_.
+
+Yes, we believe there were some English like that--before the War.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MARKS OF THE BEAST.
+
+[Illustration: _Imperial Beggar_. "PITY A POOR WAR-LORD WHO HAS LOST
+HALF HIS MEN, AND MUST HAVE MORE MONEY IN ORDER TO LOSE THE OTHER
+HALF."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Voice through telephone (to officer dragged up from the
+first sleep he's had for two days)_. "Thought I'd better report,
+Sir.--we've just got the consignment of footballs up."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SCOTTISH REEL THING AT LAST.
+
+Now that Sir J. M. BARRIE has shown us the Transatlantic kinema man's
+idea of the perfect _Macbeth_, it is up to the purveyor of American
+films to retaliate by presenting one of his plots for ordinary stage
+performance in the Kirriemuir manner. Here and there an inadvertent
+touch of Western colour may be anticipated.
+
+Scene.--_Kensington Gardens. The_ Heroine--_oh, the little love!--is
+taking a dander round the "Keep off the Grass" boards. Her feet are
+bare, and this is probably the reason why from time to time she dances
+among the trees. In the background the Hero, wearing a divided kilt,
+rides about on a horse. Having thus given the audience time to settle,
+the play starts._
+
+_Heroine_ (_perceiving_ Hero). Gee! there's that rube I met up North.
+Sic a bonny lad too! (_sighing sadly_). But he hasna much siller, I'm
+sair misdootin'. Guess there's no twelve-pound look about him.
+
+_Hero_ (_dashing up and dismounting_). Wal, I wanter know. Say, ain't
+you the peach I useter see from my window in Thrums?
+
+_Heroine_ (_coyly_). Havers!
+
+_Hero_ (_not to be outdone_), Dagont!
+
+[_She strolls away with her chin in the air, her shoes and stockings in
+her hands, and the famous red light in her eye. She goes behind a tree,
+and the_ Hero, _thinking she has retired there to greet sadly, follows
+to console her. However, he discovers that she is merely resuming her
+footgear, and he retreats modestly._]
+
+_Hero_ (_rolling his eyes wildly to denote love_). A snod bit lassie,
+that. I mean to say--I--ay! Juist so! Ay, ou ay!
+
+_Heroine_ (_returning with her shoes on_). For the love of Mike--I mean
+Losh keep's!--are you still here?
+
+_Hero._ That's so. I wanter put you wise about me. I ain't no boob, as
+you seemter think. You can bet your rubbers on that. Maybe you're
+thinkin' that I'm but a puir laddie. Wal, let _me_ tell _you_ you're
+guessin' wrong. I'm an author--I do writin' stunts. And if I don't swell
+around in new pants all afternoon it's only because I have to keep all
+my cheques among the crumbs in my tobacco pouch. I _have_ to do it. All
+the best Scots writers do it. We call it Arcadian Mixture.
+
+_Heroine._ Guess that rollers out the course of true love some. But let
+_me_ tell _you_ there's another feller after me--a puir feckless body of
+a villain. And, Losh preserve us, here he comes!
+
+[_The_ Villain _enters. He looks rather like a revue-producer who has
+seen better nights. The_ Hero, _overcome by bashfulness at being
+discovered in conversation with a female, conceals himself behind his
+accent._]
+
+_Villain._ See here, gal, you just gotter marry me.
+
+_Heroine._ Shucks! I should say, Dinna blether, ma mannie.
+
+[_The_ Hero _creeps cautiously out of ambush._]
+
+_Villain_ (_caressingly_). I have always loved my little Mary.
+
+_Hero_ (_subtly ironic_). Imphm! Imphm! Ou ay, imphm!
+
+_Villain_ (_surprised but finding a way_). Oh, the dears! oh, the
+darlings!
+
+_Hero_ (_bewildered_). What's all that blatherskite, any old way?
+
+_Villain_ (_privily drawing bludgeon_). It was Sneeky Hobart who never
+went to kirk again after they substituted tin plates for the usual cloth
+collecting-bags.
+
+_Hero_ (_perplexed and off his guard_). Guess you've gone bughouse,
+sonny. I mean, I'm no quick in the uptak'----
+
+_Villain._ Are ye no? (_brandishing bludgeon_). Well, I am! (_He fells
+the_ Hero _senseless to the ground._) And noo, lassie, I can sorter
+concentrate on you.
+
+_Heroine_ (_in the most ladylike way_). Help! oh, help!
+
+_Villain._ Say, you don't seemter freeze on to me, somehow. But you must
+and shall be mine! Come awa', lassie.
+
+[_He seizes her and she resists. Meanwhile the_ Hero, _who fell on to a
+clump of genuine thistles, makes a superbly-rapid recovery from his
+unconsciousness._]
+
+_Villain_ (_pausing to mop his brow_). Say, you'll got my goat for sure
+if you kick up like this, lassie.
+
+_Heroine._ Gee! That's a great idea. If only Peter Pan's goat----
+
+[_The_ Hero, _inspired, crawls away unnoticed._]
+
+_Villain_ (_preparing to renew the struggle_). Lassie, I'm quite sweered
+o' you. There's an awesome look in your eye. And can ye no be more
+ladylike in your fechting? Remember whose heroine you are.
+
+[_He again strives to bear her off. The_ Hero, _having broken off a
+couple of branches and affixed them to his head--a little trick he
+learned from the Admirable Crichton--now returns disguised as a goat. He
+rushes at Villain, who flees and scales the park railings. But his
+overcoat collar catches in the spikes, and he hangs suspended and
+helpless. In that position he slowly starves, and dies inconspicuously
+as the_ Hero _and_ Heroine _finish the play._]
+
+_Hero_ (_extending his arms_). Say, is it a deal? I mean, will ye ha'e
+us, lassie?
+
+_Heroine_ (_with little wells of gladness in her eyes_). It's a cinch.
+Guess you're Mr. Smart from Smartville. Ay, I'm thinkin' I'll tak' you.
+But you men are fickle callants--that's what every woman knows. Come
+awa' and let's find a little meenister at once.
+
+_Hero._ Oh, joy! oh, rapture! oh, rosy rapture! [_They embrace and
+exeunt_.]
+
+_The Audience_. Hoots!
+
+Curtain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOURNALISTIC ANTICIPATION.
+
+"THE COMING GREAT SEA BATTLE.
+
+EXCLUSIVE PICTURES."
+
+_"Sunday Herald" Poster._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE KAISER AND THE DECLINING MARK.
+
+A now version has recently been discovered of the old Pickwickian
+inscription:--
+
+         +
+     B I L S T
+       U M
+     P S H I
+      S. M.
+      A R K
+
+It runs as follows:--
+
+    H I S M A
+      R K S
+      T U M
+       P S
+      B I L
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Vicar._ "These Salonikans, Mrs. Stubbs, are of
+course the Thessalonians to whom St. Paul wrote his celebrated letters."
+
+_Mrs. Stubbs._ "Well, I 'ope 'e'd better luck with 'is than I 'ave. I
+sent my boy out there three letters and two parcels, and I ain't got no
+answer to 'em yet."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE FRONT.
+
+The subtlety of the Military mind beats and will beat me to the end.
+Yesterday we lived in a row of earthen dwellings in a depression in the
+ground, which anyone might be excused for referring to, if not as
+trenches, at least as dugouts. These alone of all the marvels of
+military engineering I have observed during the War admitted of being
+shelled with equal exactitude from due in front and due in rear; and
+water seemed to have been laid on throughout. Taking all these things
+into consideration some Authority labelled them, once for all,
+"Billets."
+
+Last night we moved into a commodious cellar of a house which still
+leans against the next. It is only five minutes from town, and tramlines
+pass the door. Nay more, they stop abruptly at the door--such are the
+improvements effected by R.E. Inside the cellar are three bits of
+chairs, a table-top on boxes, and an inimitable ancestral smell that no
+deodorizer known to modern warfare can cope with. And all this is called
+"Trenches!" Our servants do their best to support the official illusion
+by neglecting to clean our boots and regarding with surprise and some
+little sadness any tendency on our part to wash.
+
+But you must not imagine that life here is all honey. Even here we do a
+bit for our eight-and-sixpence. Every evening there comes down from the
+front line a report that our men there want more food. A stricter or
+less beneficent C.O. than ours might at once institute a court of
+inquiry into what has happened to all the food we gave them last night.
+But not so with us. "The boys want food," he says to the Adjutant, "and,
+by Heaven, the boys shall have it."
+
+No sooner said than handed on to someone else to do. The Adjutant works
+off a little bit of his strong personal dislike for me in a note,
+couched, if you please, in the most friendly terms, intimating that he
+has raised heaven and earth to get me off, but the C.O. insists that I
+(as the only competent officer for the task) shall supervise the conduct
+of our rations to the front, middle and back lines to-night. He adds
+that the Intelligence Corps report that information received from
+deserters leads us to suppose that Fritz intends to strafe all roads and
+communication trenches in our sector to-night.
+
+The carrying party is supplied by a sister battalion, and makes the
+night thoroughly well acquainted with its views about a unit that can't
+supply blanks to carry their blanked rations for their blanked selves.
+Sometimes a second or a third trip may be necessary, and then the
+carriers' patriotic fervour expresses itself in terms almost potent
+enough to do the carrying for them. For some reason or other the R.E.,
+who design material for our porterage, consider its end and not its
+portability. Their special line of ready-made wire entanglements would
+entangle a hippopotamus; and when it comes to carrying one a
+mile-and-a-half you find it has no wheels, no handles, and simply won't
+fold up into the pocket. The usual procedure is for a man or two to roll
+on one of these barbed-wire death-traps until they are well stuck on
+them and then crawl to the point of delivery.
+
+Sometimes, of course, we have accidents. Last night, for instance, two
+men were proceeding (by the way the great point about being a soldier is
+that you never walk, run or otherwise ambulate--you proceed, or proceed
+at the double, which of course is much nicer for you)--yes, were
+proceeding, one at each end of an entanglement, along the top of a
+slope, when the leader missed his footing altogether and rolled down to
+the morass below. The second, after a brief struggle, followed with the
+entanglement. This movement involved not only the man behind, who was
+bearing a footboard, but also the remainder of the section. The entire
+avalanche was precipitated on to the leaders, and remained there
+struggling like the population of a fly-paper until a squad arrived with
+wire-cutters. When the R.E. heard of it they wanted the episode
+published in Corps Orders as a testimonial. But what the men wanted done
+about the R.E. I dare not tell you.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE TRUTH ABOUT CINEMALAND.
+
+A DISTINGUISHED neutral observer, who has just returned from a visit to
+Cinemaland, has furnished our representative with the following
+interesting account of his experiences and conclusions.
+
+One of the first things (he says) that impressed me was that in the
+great cities of Cinemaland there is, outwardly at least, little or no
+sign of scarcity. On the contrary, at the various hotels and
+restaurants, as well as several private entertainments that came under
+my observation, a note of almost wanton luxury appeared to be aimed at.
+Evening dress is worn whenever possible, and the costumes of the ladies
+are invariably the last word in ultra-fashionable extravagance. Food is
+as yet obviously plentiful; what is not consumed being frequently flung
+about, especially by the humorous elements of the population, and wasted
+with reckless prodigality.
+
+In spite however of this ostentation signs are not wanting that the true
+condition of the country is increasingly precarious. Crime of all sorts
+is rampant. Judging even by what I myself witnessed within a short
+period, the detectives of Cinemaland must all be working overtime. Quite
+recently a gang, under the leadership of a ruffian who elected to be
+known as The Clutching Hand, made large sums of money by working upon
+the terrors of its victims.
+
+Another significant symptom is that respect for law and authority as
+such appears to be almost non-existent. The police force of Cinemaland
+is a body of men who are most of them of conspicuously full habit. I can
+vouch for it that the appearance of these officials is almost invariably
+greeted with derision; and should they (as frequently happens) incur
+physical maltreatment or other misfortune in the exercise of their
+duties popular sympathy is almost always on the side of their opponents.
+
+A notable exception to this feeling is found in the attitude of the
+populace towards their chosen ruler, the Emperor, or Film-Lord,
+Charlemagne-Chaplin. It is only fair to record that recent spectacular
+(and carefully stage-managed) appearances of the monarch have been
+greeted with every demonstration of unswerving loyalty and affection.
+
+More significant perhaps to an outside spectator is the undeniable fact
+that the Wild Western portions of Cinemaland are to-day in a state of
+turbulence bordering upon anarchy. The Cowboys, who are its chief
+denizens, would seem, so far as my experience goes, to spend their
+entire time in exploits of murderous violence; though here (as elsewhere
+among this remarkable people) the influence of sentiment is often
+unexpectedly potent. It can hardly be doubted that a populace so
+emotional and ill-balanced as that of Cinemaland will have little power
+to withstand the strain of disaster.
+
+Despite my apparent freedom from restraint I am persuaded that I was
+kept under the observation of a number of uniformed officials during the
+whole course of my stay in Cinemaland; and I am bound to confess that my
+departure, which was made under cover of darkness, was not unattended
+with a sense of personal relief.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PARABLES FOR BOSCHES.
+
+Once upon a time there was a Father who was devoted to his child. He fed
+it and nursed it and watched it grow and gave it toys to play with--both
+soldiers and boats. Also he made it promises that some day he would
+extend their house and garden until no house and garden were bigger.
+Every year he took it to the top of a high precipice and showed it
+beautiful lands and water which should some day be theirs.
+
+The child had heard this promise so often that it used to ask, "When?
+when?" And always the answer was, "Some day, some day."
+
+And then at last the day came, and the Father took the child to the high
+precipice yet once more, but behold it chanced that they both fell over
+and were smashed, the Father hopelessly and the child very, very badly,
+so that it would for long years or perhaps for evermore be a cripple.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ONE OF OUR ALLIES.
+
+Somewhere in France--no, let me be bold and say in Paris--there is a
+young French soldier named Charles. Less than two years ago he was a
+plumber and whole; to-day he has but one arm, his left; the other and a
+piece of his shoulder with it having gone in saving his country from the
+foe.
+
+Charles is shy and very modest, and no bigger than so many French
+youths--he is only twenty-two--with dark-brown hair and blue eyes with
+very black centres, and a moustache that never succeeds in looking more
+than three weeks old. Being, however, brave, he does not let his maimed
+condition unduly trouble him, but runs his errands (all that he can now
+do) and whistles as he runs, and is glad to be alive at all, instead of
+dead, as so many of his comrades are and as his Colonel is, as I shall
+tell.
+
+At the Front Charles's duties were these. A despatch--a _pli_, as they
+call it--would be given him either back of the lines to deliver in the
+trenches, or in the trenches to deliver back of the lines, and in order
+to get there, if fighting was in progress, it was necessary for him to
+crawl for perhaps one or two kilometres on his stomach. On a certain day
+of intense activity, Charles in his trench was handed one of these
+critical missives for the commanding officer, who was a kilometre or so
+behind, and this he placed in his satchel and then began the hazardous
+journey.
+
+No one ever knows when the supreme moment of his life is coming; nor did
+Charles, but it was then.
+
+This being a terrific day--as a matter of fact it was during the famous
+battle for the Maison du Passeur, when the French and Germans were
+losing and retaking trenches for hours--he had to crawl all the way,
+only to come suddenly upon the body of the commanding officer himself
+stretched dead in a carrot field.
+
+To Charles's mind there was then but one thing to do, and that was, as
+he had been unable to deliver the message, to take it back to the
+sender. He therefore started on the return journey, and was only a few
+yards from his trench, and still un-hit, when he found a wounded officer
+on the ground. Here was a new problem, but necessarily having to stand
+up and throw aside all precautions, Charles got him as well as he could
+on his back and, still un-hit, half carried, half supported, him to the
+trench, and was at once away again with his despatch. It was at this
+moment that an exploding shell hurled the satchel from big hands and
+flung it on the open ground between the French trenches and the enemy's,
+which were here separated only by a few yards. At any cost the despatch
+must not fall into German hands, and Charles, who miraculously had not
+been injured by the explosion, began instantly to climb out of the
+trench to recover it, and this in spite of a sergeant, who called to him
+to keep under cover. But Charles, having one idea and one only, and that
+was to save from the foe the despatch that had been entrusted to him,
+succeeded in reaching it and securing it; and then came another shell
+that shattered his arm.
+
+That is all he remembers; but he must have rolled back to the bottom of
+the trench, where he was found, two days later, still clutching the
+satchel. And after that, although he remembers the coffee he was given
+to drink, all is a haze until he came fully to himself in hospital and
+found that no longer had he a right arm.
+
+Such is the story of Charles's effort for his country.
+
+Now I do not claim for Charles that he is any braver or has a finer
+sense of duty than many another French soldier; but this I know, that
+when he recovered he was summoned to the Invalides to receive not only
+the _Croix de Guerre_ but the _Médaille Militaire_ with the palm, which
+corresponds to our Victoria Cross, and that now, although, having left
+the Army, he no longer wears uniform but merely such poor civilian
+clothes as he can afford as a messenger, when he walks along the
+Boulevards--which he does as seldom as he can, so shy is he--there is
+not an officer, seeing the ribbons on his coat, who does not salute this
+little plumber with as much punctilio as though he were General JOFFRE
+himself; and, blushing crimson, Charles returns the salute.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Patriotic Scots Lady_ (_patrolling Victoria main-line
+station to assist any of her stranded countrymen arriving from the
+Front_). "Can I help you in any way?"
+
+_Perplexed Scot._ "Thank you, Mam. Is the toon far frae the station?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Mrs. Humphry Ward seems to have gone for inspiration to
+    contemporary characters, and now in 'Tasker Jevons' it is
+    difficult not to find the lineaments of a well-known writer."
+
+    _Evening Standard._
+
+Quite so: and Miss MAY SINCLAIR made _A Great Success_ of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.
+
+II.--King's Cross.
+
+  King's Cross!
+    What shall we do?
+  His purple robe
+    Is rent in two!
+  Out of his crown
+    He's torn the gems!
+  He's thrown his sceptre
+    Into the Thames!
+  The Court is shaking
+    In every shoe--
+  King's Cross!
+    _What_ shall we do?
+  _Leave him alone
+    For a minute or two._
+
+III.--Bishopsgate.
+
+  Bishopsgate Without,
+    Bishopsgate Within!
+  What a clamour at the gate,
+    O what a din!
+  Inside and outside
+  The Bishops bang and shout,
+  Outside crying, "Let me in!"
+  Inside, "Let me out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "Look here, confound you! What do you mean by your
+'disclosures'? There's nothing here that wasn't in the morning papers."
+
+"I'm sorry you're disappointed, Sir. At the same time I must point out
+to you that my connection with the paper gives me abserlootly no
+influence with the editorial department."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ADJUTANT.
+
+  In that great Room which military error
+    Has miscalled Orderly (for it is not,
+  But full of tumult and debate and terror,
+    And worried writers growing rather hot,
+      For ever floundering in seas of chits
+      And forms and counterfoils and wrathful writs),
+      Alone unfevered mid the storm he sits
+    And tells them all exactly what is what.
+
+  Who so alert to solve the frequent riddle,
+    To judge if Jones should have his train-fare free,
+  Whether the band requires another fiddle,
+    And which is senior, Robinson or me?
+      Who shall indite such circulars as his
+      To Officers Commanding Companies
+      About their musketry, or why it is
+    So many men take sugar in their tea?
+
+  And when at times he shuns the sacred table
+    And like some eagle swoops upon parade,
+  Men mark his coming and there bursts a babel
+    As with new zeal the subalterns upbraid,
+      Lecture and illustrate, and on the right
+      Form sullen squads, and hope they're being bright--
+      Save those white-livered ones who at the sight
+    Hide their commands in some convenient glade.
+
+  For he is terrible; and few folk relish
+    The words of doom which shake his diaphragm;
+  Yet is the heart of him not wholly hellish,
+    But in his playing-hours he's like a lamb;
+      And who'd have said that one so skilled to strafe
+      And, when I err, too truculent by half,
+      Could own so rich, so rollicking a laugh,
+    Would see so well how humorous I am?
+
+  Yet if with leave unasked I quit the barrack,
+    Ever behind I dread that he will call,
+  Speed up the street in some avenging Darracq
+    Or on the Underground retrieve his thrall;
+      Nor in my home can quite escape the spell
+      But freeze with horror at the front-door bell,
+      For fear the parlour-maid may speak my knell,
+    May knock and say that _he_ is in the hall.
+
+  And, sleeping, still I have to brook his blusters;
+    A monstrous Adjutant is always nigh
+  At dream-reviews and endless dreamy musters,
+    Laden with lists and schemes and syllabi;
+      And, though he find no failing anywhere,
+      But all are present and correct and fair,
+      _I_ never fail to make the fellow swear,
+    _I_ always seem to catch his horrid eye.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO THE GLORY OF FRANCE.
+
+[Illustration: VERDUN, FEBRUARY-MARCH, 1916.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+[Illustration: FUNK-HOLES FOR MINISTERS.
+
+Designed for protection against raids by our air-experts.]
+
+_Tuesday, March 21st._--Returning from Westminster this afternoon I
+stumbled in Whitehall upon a Member whom I had not seen in his place
+this Session. "Going down to the House?" I asked. "What, is it sitting?"
+he replied; and then it appeared that he was just home on short leave
+after working hard "somewhere on the Continent," and had no present
+interest in political controversy. As I reflected on a speech I had just
+listened to, it occurred to me that the attitude of some of the
+stay-at-home Members towards the War is much the same as that of my hon.
+friend towards the House. "What, is it still going on?"
+
+If the Germans were in occupation of the Black Country, if Oxford were
+being daily shelled, as Rheims is, and if with a favouring breeze London
+could hear the dull rumble of the bombardment, as Paris can, I wonder if
+Members would still be encumbering the Order-paper with the sort of
+trivialities that now find place there.
+
+An exception may be made in favour of Mr. JOE KING. He has discovered a
+little late in the day that a war is going on in Europe, and that it
+affects a little country called Belgium, whose neutrality was guaranteed
+by the Powers. He was anxious to know whether Belgium had formally
+renounced her neutrality, and was no doubt greatly surprised to learn
+from Sir EDWARD GREY that, owing to one of the guaranteeing Powers
+having invaded her, Belgium had become a belligerent.
+
+I do not know whether Mr. PRINGLE was in the House when this
+announcement was made. But if so it evidently created no impression on
+his mind. In the debate on the Army Estimates he followed Captain TRYON,
+who had delivered an urgent appeal to the Government from the text, "A
+strong Army and a shorter War." Mr. PRINGLE'S ideal is just the reverse.
+In his view the Army is too big already, and is taking too great a toll
+from our industrial and commercial population. The great men who won the
+Napoleonic War--after twenty-three years--had not a big army; and the
+consequence was that, while it was going on, British trade expanded by
+leaps and bounds. To-day, owing to our disastrous military policy the
+demands upon our tonnage were so heavy that people had to go short of
+sugar and tobacco. Let us conserve our resources and be ready to dictate
+terms when Germany has been financially ruined. When Mr. PRINGLE at last
+sat down after three-quarters of an hour of this sort of thing I longed
+for ten minutes of Mr. BALFOUR at his best. But he was not present, and
+Mr. LONG was so much occupied in defending the Government against the
+charge of having broken faith with the married men that Mr. PRINGLE
+never got the trouncing he deserved.
+
+_Wednesday, March 22nd._--One of the most cherished beliefs of the House
+of Commons is that upon the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill
+anything under the sun may be discussed. Colonel YATE was justly
+surprised, therefore, when the SPEAKER ruled that he was out of order in
+criticising the Indian Government for its conduct of the Mesopotamian
+Expedition, and advised him to reserve his remarks for the Indian Budget
+discussion--equivalent in these times to the Greek Kalends.
+
+Mr. CHAMBERLAIN was surprised too, but, regardless of the ruling,
+proceeded to make a carefully-prepared reply to the speech which the
+Hon. and gallant Member had not been allowed to deliver. He frankly
+admitted that there had been a lamentable breakdown of the hospital
+arrangements, but steps had been taken to improve them, and a telegram
+from General LAKE showed that the treatment of the men wounded in the
+recent engagement was satisfactory.
+
+Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING essayed another and a longer flight to-day, but
+had a good deal of engine trouble. His Parliamentary friends ought to
+have warned him that the House does not care to listen to a man reading
+extracts from his own leading articles, however prophetic they may have
+been; that the constant reiteration of a phrase such as "I would like to
+suggest, Mr. SPEAKER," soon becomes tiresome, and that to call somebody
+else "the De Rougemont of the air" is to invite the _tu quoque_. Members
+became more and more impatient as the orator became more and more
+dogmatic; and when he rhetorically demanded the name of "one man to whom
+we could turn to solve the problem" they derisively chorused, "BILLING!"
+Mr. TENNANT, recognising the feeling of the House, did not spend much
+time in refuting Mr. BILLING's wild assertions, but devoted most of his
+speech to replying to Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS, who had pleaded that the
+East-Coast towns should be more promptly warned of approaching
+air-raids. He had personally investigated the arrangements and was
+positively "staggered" at "the wonderful network that had been set up,"
+and he invited Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS to come with him privately and share
+his amazement. Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH was not convinced. He thought that
+there were still too many strands of red tape in the network, and
+reiterated the hope that the DERBY Committee would soon develop into a
+Ministry of the Air.
+
+_Thursday, March 23rd._--A distressing report in the papers this
+morning, that the _Galloper_ had been blown up by the Germans, made the
+friends of Sir FREDERICK SMITH anxious. Had he, on one of his periodical
+visits to the trenches to see Friend WINSTON, stumbled across an enemy
+mine? Happily the report was grossly exaggerated. The _Galloper_ was
+only a light-ship, and had not been destroyed by the enemy but merely
+withdrawn by the Trinity House; and on the Treasury Bench this afternoon
+there was the ATTORNEY-GENERAL very much alive.
+
+Mr. TREVELYAN had a motion on the paper condemning the administration of
+the Defence of the Realm Act, and in support of it produced a sheaf of
+cases, in which he said the Government had abused its powers. Among
+other acts of vile oppression they had ravished from her home, on
+September 1st, while her father was away shooting partridges, and had
+subsequently interned without trial, a young lady against whom no charge
+had been formulated. It sounded very dreadful, and someone called out,
+"Is this a Russian case?"
+
+Then arose Sir F. E. SMITH, and with a few forensic gestures demolished
+the house of cards that Mr. TREVELYAN had so laboriously erected. Most
+of his cases were out of court because they had already been in court,
+the decisions he impugned being those of the magistrates. As for the
+daughter of the partridge-slayer she was an associate of a notorious
+German spy, and had come back from Switzerland with a message for one of
+his agents. As her case had been fully considered by the late HOME
+SECRETARY he suggested that Mr. TREVELYAN should talk to him about it.
+
+This was the most pungent speech of the afternoon. The most amusing was
+that of Mr. GINNELL, who kept the House in fits of laughter for ten
+minutes while in his most rasping tones he jerked out epigrams against
+"this thing calling itself a Government." The Coalition was described as
+"two poisons blended, which could not make a wholesome drink." Never
+before has he had such a success. I only hope it will not turn his head
+and encourage him to attempt conscious humour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Veteran_ (_instructing "Bantam" in his duties as
+sentry_). "You look over there--there's the Germans. Don't you worry
+about them--_they_ won't 'urt you. But you watch those blinking rats.
+_They'll_ get you by the back of the leg and pull you off the bloomin'
+fire-step in no time!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The World at War at ---- Theatre Only."
+
+    _Advt. in Evening Paper._
+
+We are relieved to find that the area of conflict has been so much
+restricted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FROM SOMEWHERE IN AFRICA.
+
+We have just returned from another of those little expeditions which are
+becoming almost a habit with the ---- Frontier Force when in search of
+an enemy whose discretion is only rivalled by that of the German High
+Seas Fleet. We moved out four days ago with all the pomp of war--horse,
+foot and guns, ambulances and long trains of transport waggons, the
+fierce vivid fighting of the desert before us. We rode seventeen miles
+that day and camped at some wells. As we rolled ourselves in our
+blankets round the camp-fires to rest for the glorious contest of the
+morrow our hearts should have been filled with dreams of undying fame.
+But we were really wondering when the squadron transport would arrive
+with our porridge and sausages for breakfast.
+
+Next morning we were in the saddle by 3 A.M., and after some ten or
+twelve hours of unbroken and undisputed progress we captured two Arab
+shepherds in charge of as many as eight sheep. This _succès fou_ was the
+cause of justifiable satisfaction.
+
+In the first place we scented liver and bacon for breakfast. In the
+second place it seemed to promise a settlement of the long-standing
+dispute between me and the General. The General has a preposterous
+theory about the existence and hostility of a vast number of mythical
+Arabs in our immediate neighbourhood. Now this is obviously absurd. With
+the exception of three palm-trees, which belong to us, there is nothing
+but sand for about two hundred miles in all directions, and even an Arab
+cannot subsist entirely on sand. Of course, if there were any Arabs near
+us, they would be so enraged at finding themselves at a spot two hundred
+miles from anything except sand that they would be violently hostile to
+anyone, especially to the people who had engaged the only three
+palm-trees in the neighbourhood. But it is their existence that I
+dispute with the General. It is true he took a most unfair dialectical
+advantage, about a fortnight ago, by having a large battle. But my
+contention is that the enemy on this occasion were merely orange-sellers
+from the nearest town, hired by the General for the purpose of argument.
+
+These two shepherds, however, did seem to support his theory of the
+existence of Arabs, but as to their hostility there was still room for
+doubt. They were both extraordinarily old and unbelievably dirty. Also
+they were, as was very natural, extremely frightened. Seeing that they
+knew themselves to be the only living people for quite a number of miles
+round, it must have appeared to them that the entire ---- Frontier Force
+had come out solely for the purpose of capturing them, and that, as it
+had ridden some forty miles to do it, it would not be in a good temper.
+It was therefore rather hard to judge of their hostility, because as
+soon as they were confronted with the General and the interpreter they
+gave one yell of "Allah!" and fell flat, face downwards, in the sand,
+from which position they refused to move. They would not even budge when
+the interpreter took all their clothes off with a view to searching
+them. They probably thought this was merely a preliminary to skinning
+them. When they were finally induced to speak, I believe they were
+understood to say that we were the first men they'd seen for eight
+years. I don't wonder they were frightened. If you have lived all your
+life all alone in the middle of a howling desert with Grandfather it's a
+very frightening thing when a complete Frontier Force marches forty
+miles for the sole purpose of capturing you.
+
+But the day's excitement was not over yet. Towards evening I took my
+troop off at a gallop in person and captured a camel. It was a very
+young camel, hardly bigger than a sheep on stilts, and it cried like a
+child at the sight of me. This, I hope, was not so much due to my
+frightful appearance in my red moustaches as to the fact that it had
+probably never seen a man at all (not being eight years old), let alone
+an army.
+
+The curious aversion which it conceived for my moustache threatened to
+hold up the entire Frontier Force for the rest of the day, for it would
+neither be led nor driven. Fortunately, however, we had a very black
+Soudanese camel-driver with us as guide, and he came and spat at it,
+which soothed it considerably, and it followed him like a lamb. We got
+it back to camp next day and it is tied up near my tent. It has
+apparently made up its mind to waive the moustache question, and we now
+spit at one another in the friendliest fashion whenever I pass. I hope
+in time to train it to bring up my bath water in the morning from the
+three palm-trees.
+
+_Later._--The camel was the last episode of the campaign, and we
+returned to ---- yesterday. The total bag of a four days' expedition
+was--sheep, 8; shepherds, 2; camel, 1. The human section was
+subsequently released on the grounds that their political views were
+satisfactory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A well-known octopus family, having heard of the undersea
+photography, decides to pose.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ON THE MENACE OF HOME-BAKERY.
+
+    ["Women _can_ bake bread if they will. It is much easier than
+    trimming hats."--_"Housewife," in "The Daily News."_]
+
+  Aminta, be not led away
+  By words that sanguine women say;
+  Though simpler be the baking bread
+  Than trimming gear for your fair head,
+  Let your concern remain, I ask,
+  The sterner and the nobler task.
+
+  The nobler task: I'll tell you why.
+  Shall Bloggs, our baker, wilt and die
+  For loss of trade, his brood of eight
+  Left destitute and desolate?
+  And must _I_ perish 'neath the stress
+  Of culinary frightfulness?
+
+  No, dear. The millinery art
+  Is where I'd have you play your part;
+  For, though your hats may work intense
+  Despite on my aesthetic sense,
+  Whatever pain their crudeness brings
+  At least I needn't eat the things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.
+
+    "You never know your luck when you get our FRUIT."--_Advt. in
+   Irish Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "_Mr. Hayes._ Certainty is defined in Webster as the maximum of
+    our expectations. (Loud laughter.)
+
+    _The Judge_ (_laughing_). Let us get on. This is more like
+    _Punch_ than anything else. (Laughter.)"--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+It will now have to be called the Supreme Court of Punch and Judicature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Dear Old Lady._ "It must be a great strain for the man
+up the periscope."
+
+_Nephew._ "Yes, he has a thin time."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PULP FAMINE NOTICES.
+
+(_A Hint to Reviewers._)
+
+A WRITER in a recent issue of _The Daily Chronicle_ prefaces a column of
+novel notices with the following remarks: "The smaller papers consequent
+upon the famine in 'pulp' have made the reviewing of the new novels
+rather a job, but at least it is possible to give news of them."
+
+But the writer tackles his job in a half-hearted manner, using such
+ponderous polysyllables as "international" and "acquisition." Now Mr.
+Punch, always ready to lend a hand in a good cause, has instructed one
+of his young men to rewrite two of _The Chronicle_ reviews in words of
+one syllable, and presents them to his contemporary as models for
+imitation in the future.
+
+I.--Mrs. Ward.
+
+A GREAT HIT. By Mrs. Hump. Ward. Lond., Smith, Eld., _3s. 6d._ net.
+
+For the most part Mrs. WARD writes long yarns, and those who read her
+books look to her for more than five score thou. words. Here she gives
+us a short tale in which the three chief _rôles_ are filled by a man who
+earns lots of dibs by his pen, his wife, and their, or his, friend--a
+peer's wife, who takes him up for her own ends. She tries in her hard
+bright way to shape his course as she views it, which means a place in
+the sun for _her_. The wife, who has brains as well as a warm heart,
+will not be robbed of her man like this, puts up a good fight, and in
+the end has the best of the bout with the pale witch with dark eyes who
+had waved her wand o'er the knight of the pen. It is not poss. to deal
+with all the points of Mrs. HUMP. WARD's book in words of one syll., but
+we can at least say here is a good tale to speed the flight of the hours
+of eve.
+
+II.-The Bills.
+
+THE SHOP GIRL. By C. N. and A. M. Sons o' Bill. Lond., Meth., _6s._
+
+_Miss Child_ is a nice sweet girl with lots of sense who goes to the
+land of the Yanks and makes things hum a bit in a nice sweet way. She
+meets her fate on board the big ship on the way out; but a long and
+bright yarn has to be read ere she makes the Port of Joy. We see a Yank
+store in full swing, learn much of the way it is worked, and the folk
+who run it are well drawn. To be frank one could scarce think that so
+_chic_ a tale could be made out of the prose of New York. But to the
+Bills--if I may so call them--all the world is a stage, and they see
+through the heart of the New Eve with a gaze that is quite weird. In
+fine this is a tale in which the Bills, while they take new ground,
+write with all their old _flair_ and charm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FORAIN.
+
+When M. RAEMAEKERS went to Paris the other day to receive his decoration
+and be fêted for his fine pro-Ally spirit, it was M. FORAIN, as the head
+of living French cartoonists, who received him in the name of France and
+conferred the Order. M. FORAIN'S public appearances are nowadays few and
+far between, but he still wields--and none more searchingly--a pencil
+keen and swift as a sword, and he never takes it in hand but to create
+something memorable. A selection of his recent work is now on view in
+London at 22, Montagu Square, the residence of Mr. CAMPBELL DODGSON, the
+Keeper of the Prints at the British Museum, the proceeds of the entrance
+fees being intended for a hospital for French wounded soldiers at
+Arc-en-Barrois. The little exhibition, which should be seen by all who
+love great draughtsmanship and France, remains open until April 1.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"The Barton Mystery."
+
+One of the most difficult feats of juggling is, I understand, the deft
+tossing up and catching of a heavy weight (say a dumb-bell), a very
+light weight, such as a champagne cork, together with any old thing of
+irregular shape, a bedroom candlestick, for instance. Mr. WALTER
+HACKETT'S _The Barton Mystery_ is a most ingenious turn of this sort.
+
+The _fiancé_ of the sister of the wife of _Richard Standish, M.P._, is
+under sentence of death for the murder of _Mr. Barton_. He happens to be
+innocent, though he admits at the trial that he quarrelled violently
+with and even threatened _Barton_ on the night of the murder, and his
+revolver has been found by the dead man's side. That vindictive relict,
+_Mrs. Barton_, is holding back some material evidence which could save
+the condemned man, or so _Standish_ thinks, and she is adamant. Now
+_Barton_ was unquestionably a bad egg, but the widow doesn't want the
+whole world to know it--at least not till she finds the woman. Some
+woman, who had incidentally written some, shall we say, very impetuous
+love letters, is being shielded. Who is she? Is it _Standish's_ wife,
+for instance? Ah!... This is the dumb-bell.
+
+A _Lady Marshall_, the wife of a _Sir Everard Marshall_, a comic
+scientist in perpetual flight from his overwhelming spouse, is one of
+the sort that finds a new religion every few months and is now in the
+first fast furious throes of her latest, which is some form of
+psychomania, whereof the high priest is one _Beverley_, a plausible
+ringletted charlatan of alcoholic tendencies (_Sludge the Medium_,
+without his cringe and snarl), who ekes out his spasmodic visitations of
+genuine psychic illumination with the most shameless spoof. This is the
+cork.
+
+The candlestick is the dream _motif_, always a ticklish business to
+handle, and in this particular case--well, no, I won't be such a
+spoil-sport as to go into that, for the chief pleasure of this kind of
+an entertainment is the succession of pleasant unexpected shocks which
+are deftly administered to the audience by the author.
+
+There were times indeed when the latter nearly dropped his
+dumb-bell--times when it was in imminent peril of barging into the cork;
+and most certainly the candlestick very nearly slipped out of his hand.
+But it just didn't, so you will see that it was really a most
+exceptional piece of jugglery. Of course I will admit you have to
+swallow the robust assumption that into a household over which the
+shadow of death in its ugliest form hovers so threateningly two fatuous
+people, to wit the scientist and his wife, can come and babble about
+their own trivial domestic troubles or their latest philosophy of life.
+But then mystery plays always are like that, and this is a jolly good
+one of its kind--a kind which it pains me, as a superior person, to
+confess that I liked enormously.
+
+[Illustration: THE MEDIUM AND THE PALMIST.
+
+_Beverley_ ... Mr. H. B. Irving.
+
+_Sir Everard Marshall_ ... Mr. Holman Clark.]
+
+Mr. H. B. IRVING as the preposterous _Beverley_ was in his very best
+form. _Beverley_ is really a creation. How much the author's and how
+much the player's it would be an impertinence to inquire. This
+imperturbable trickster with his thin streak of genuine sensitiveness to
+psychic influence; his grotesquely florid style--the man certainly has
+style; his frank reliance on apt alcohol's artful aid; his cadging
+epicureanism; his keen eye for supplementary data for his inductions and
+prophecies; his cynical candour when detected, is presented to us with
+Mr. IRVING'S rich-flavoured and most whimsical sense of comedy, with all
+his exuberant abundance of gracious or fantastic gesture and resourceful
+business. In the trances, sometimes real, sometimes simulated, he gives
+you a plausible sketch of how a modicum of psychic power (whatever that
+may be), laced with whisky neat, might colour a séance. Mr. _Hackett_,
+by way of showing that he has not ignored the literature of his subject,
+has adapted from the admirable, but, I regret to say, entirely
+untrustworthy, because incurably original, MAETERLINCK an entirely new
+definition of psychometry. But we certainly will not go into that.
+
+Mr. HOLMAN CLARK as the sceptical _Sir Everard_, completely spoofed by
+_Beverley_ in the end, with an elaborate make-up ruthlessly reminding us
+of our simian ancestry, potters cleverly about the stage with that
+admirable and amiable craft which he has at such easy command. Miss
+MARIE ILLINGTON as _Lady Marshall_, the seeker after light, kept the
+burlesquerie of her part skilfully within bounds--indeed this matter of
+key was extraordinarily well handled by the three players entrusted with
+what I have ventured to call the cork _motif_.
+
+As to the more serious business, Mr. H. V. ESMOND seemed to behave very
+much as one would imagine a decent M.P. behaving in such embarrassing
+circumstances. He suspected his wife with all the ardour which public
+men on the stage always exhibit. His little turn of desperate tragedy
+carried conviction--almost too much conviction, as you will find--but I
+won't explain.
+
+Miss JESSIE WINTER, as his wife, very adroitly contrived an ambiguous
+effect of likely guilt but possible innocence. She more than fulfils the
+promise of her last performance in this theatre, but she must (may I
+tell her?) arrest the development of "the Fatal Cæsura," that
+exasperating histrionic device whereby every salient phrase is broken up
+for no conceivable reason into two halves. In the secondary stages there
+is but slender hope of a cure; in the tertiary there is none.
+
+Miss DARRAGH was, as required, the vindictive widow to the life (this
+kind of life, you understand), and Miss HILDA BAYLEY played very
+charmingly the little wilful _fiancée_ who--but no, I must keep my
+promise.
+
+With much less evidence than the applause and generally keyed-up
+attitude of the Savoy audience afforded me, I could risk a psychic
+communication in the authentic manner of a Beverley séance. "All is
+dark.... It is getting light.... I see a man.... He leans eagerly to a
+telephone.... He thrusts something into envelopes. He goes on thrusting
+things into envelopes. The telephone keeps ringing.... It is.... Can it
+be? Yes, it _is_ a Box Office." An institution which at the Savoy should
+be busy for many months to come.
+
+T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A MISNOMER.
+
+    "In memory of the name of the late Dr. F. C. Batchelor it is
+    proposed that the name of the Forth Street Maternity Hospital
+    (Dunedin) be altered to that of the Batchelor
+    Hospital."--_Southland Times_ (_N.Z._)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration] _Mother._ "Did you remember to pray for everybody, dear?"
+
+_Daughter._ "Well, Mummy, I prayed for you, but Jack prayed for Daddy.
+He's looking after him just now."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MUSIC IN WAR TIME.
+
+The Converted Collector.
+
+(_An Order in Council prohibits the importation of all musical
+instruments._)
+
+  In ancient, peaceful _ante-bellum_ days--
+  Now far remote as HANNIBAL'S or HANNO'S--
+  I had a weakness, possibly a craze,
+  For buying Hun pianos.
+
+  I let no patriotic sentiment
+  My honest inclination curb or fetter;
+  On foreign articles my cash I spent,
+  Because I liked them better.
+
+  Nor would I now proscribe Germanic Art,
+  Their one surviving claim to lasting glory,
+  Or bar BEETHOVEN, WAGNER, BACH, MOZART--
+  STRAUSS is another story.
+
+  But while our enemy unshattered stands
+  In any single theatre or sector,
+  I take no interest in German "grands,"
+  As player or collector.
+
+  I will not have them broken up or burned,
+  Although they cease to give me delectation,
+  That mean to keep them suitably interned
+  Throughout the War's duration.
+
+  But now the Board of Trade, those lynx-eyed gents,
+  Our economic needs severely scanning,
+  The importation of all instruments
+  Have just resolved on banning.
+
+  No matter; I possess a set of pipes
+  Made in the land whose emblem is the Thistle;
+  Three Indian tom-toms of peculiar types
+  And a Bolivian whistle.
+
+  I've a Peruvian nose-flute, made of bone,
+  A war-conch brought me from the South Pacific,
+  Which, by a leather-lunged performer blown,
+  Is really quite horrific.
+
+  I have some balalaikas, few though fit,
+  Whose strings I have acquired some skill in tweaking;
+  And several pifferi, whose tubes emit
+  A most unearthly squeaking.
+
+  I am, alas! too old and weak to fight,
+  But on these non-Teutonic pipes and tabors
+  I hope a martial spirit to incite
+  In "conscientious" neighbours.
+
+  And when my time, as soon it must, shall come,
+  My epitaph perhaps might thus begin well:
+  "He 'did his bit' upon the Indian drum;
+  He played the mandolin well.
+
+  Others who stayed at home to criticize
+  More vocal proved; he, on a falling rental,
+  In furthering the cause of the Allies
+  Was always instrumental."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In an account of a BURNS' celebration given by the _North Battleford
+News_ (Saskatchewan), it is remarked that "the absence of any kind of
+spirituous liquors around the festive board and the fact that the ladies
+were present" were unique features of the entertainment. But, according
+to the same report, there was yet another: "'The Immoral Memory' was
+given by Rev. D. Munro."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
+
+It is a tragic coincidence that, just as RUPERT BROOKE'S now famous
+sonnets were published in volume form after his own death, the
+appearance of his _Letters from America_ (SIDGWICK AND JACKSON) follows
+immediately upon the death of Mr. HENRY JAMES, who had written the
+preface to them. Thus in one book we have the last work of two writers,
+widely separated in age and circumstance, but united by a very real bond
+of artistic and personal sympathy. How generous was the elder man's
+appreciation of the younger may be seen in this preface; it is at its
+best and simplest in dealing with that charm of personality by which all
+who knew RUPERT BROOKE will most vividly remember him. Elsewhere it must
+be confessed that the preface is by no means easy reading, so that one
+emerges at last a little breathless upon the transparent and sunlit
+stream of the _Letters_ themselves. Many who recall these from their
+publication in _The Westminster Gazette_ will be glad to meet them
+again. Those who knew the writer only as the poet of 1914 will perhaps
+wonder to find him the whimsical and smiling young adventurer who moves
+with such boyish enjoyment through these pages. There is holiday humour
+in them, even in the occasional statistics--holiday tasks, these latter;
+and everywhere the freshness of an unclouded vision. "Only just in
+time," one thinks, sharing the happiness that his _Letters_ reflect, and
+grateful for it as for a beautiful thing snatched so narrowly from fate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES has written a story of the War that has at least the
+distinction of being absolutely fair. She has indeed got so far away
+from the perhaps excusable error of painting Germans uniformly black
+that her Huns in _The Red Cross Barge_ (SMITH, ELDER) are made upon the
+average quite as attractive as their enemies. This by way of warning, so
+that if you are in no mood to look for pearls amid swine you may avoid
+some impatience and a feeling that impartiality can be carried too far.
+Not by any means that _The Red Cross Barge_ is a pro-German book....
+There is an attractive sense of atmosphere about Mrs. LOWNDES' picture
+of the little French town in which a group of Germans are left during
+what appears to them the triumphal march to Paris. Here _Herr Doktor Max
+Keller_ meets and falls in love with a French girl who is looking after
+certain wounded of both nations. The peaceful and picturesque air of the
+little place during this quiet occupation is well contrasted with the
+horrors that befall it when the draggled and drink-sodden soldiery come
+surging back in their retreat from the Marne. Eventually, just as the
+Germans are leaving, _Keller_ is fatally wounded, and dies holding the
+hand of the enemy who has become so dear to him. One can hardly call the
+tale anything but sentimental, but it is sentiment of a fragrant and
+wholesome kind. In the years to come such stories will no doubt multiply
+indefinitely, but there will be few more gracefully and gently told.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Corporal (alluding to knock-kneed man)._ "It's no good;
+'e never looks smart. Look at 'im now--the top 'alf of 'is legs standing
+to attention and the bottom 'alf standing at ease!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. RICHARD PRYCE, true to the fashion of describing the childhood of
+heroes at great length, has in _David Penstephen_ (METHUEN)
+out-COMPTONED MACKENZIE. _David_ in fact dallied so persistently in the
+nursery that I began to wonder if he would ever emerge; but, when he
+does get a move on, his story is strangely appealing. His father and
+mother, having ideas of their own, had excused themselves from the
+formalities of wedlock, and before _Mrs. Penstephen_ broke down under
+the strain of this omission _David_ and his sister, _Georgiana_, were
+born. Subsequently the parents were married, and had another son. But
+before this legitimate addition to the family a boating accident had
+deprived the world of two cousins of _Penstephen père_, and in
+consequence he inherited a baronetcy. This change of fortune affected
+his views, and as time passed by he became as orthodox a baronet as any
+you could wish to find in _Burke_. All of which was galling to _David's_
+mother, who loved and was jealous for those children who were born to
+suffer for their parents' original morals. The situation required very
+delicate handling, and Mr. PRYCE is to be congratulated warmly upon the
+manner in which he has developed it. Perhaps a little more humour would
+have added salt to the tale, but however that may be we have a careful
+study of a boy and an exquisitely sympathetic portrait of a mother. The
+latter part of the book is admirable both in what it tells and in what
+it merely suggests. More is the pity that Mr. PRYCE has weighed down
+_David's_ childish back with too heavy a load of detail. My advice to
+you is to skip some of the earlier pages, and so husband your strength
+for the better enjoyment of the remainder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Duel_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) is a study in the GORKY tradition, by
+ALEXANDER KUPRIN, of life in an obscure Russian regiment and an
+out-of-the-way provincial town before the great awakening that followed
+Mukden and Port Arthur purged away much dross and prepared the way for
+these latter days of sacrifice and heroism. It is a mournful document, a
+piece of devil's advocacy, a Russian counterpart of Lieutenant BILSE'S
+_Life in a Garrison Town_, identical in temper and astonishingly similar
+in some of its detail. It is clear that the author, who was for seven
+years an infantry lieutenant and probably little fitted for the military
+life even at its best, endured much unhappiness, for the marks of
+suffering have burnt themselves into the book so savagely that the
+English translation, though characterized by a crudity which might
+reasonably be expected to accomplish much in the way of eliminating the
+personality of the author, cannot quite rob his work of its impression
+of power and intimate tragedy. Those who are not in search of light
+refreshment and who will remember that this last decade of Russian
+national regeneration and reorganisation has rooted up the incompetence,
+the false standards, the irregular discipline and the inhuman barriers
+between officers and men here commented upon, may read these bitter
+chapters with profit. As for the translator, he might do well to study
+one of the GARNETT TURGENIEFFS, and see how this kind of thing should be
+done.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+150, March 29, 1916, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22688-8.txt or 22688-8.zip *****
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+  <title>Punch, March 29, 1916.</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150,
+March 29, 1916, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: September 20, 2007 [EBook #22688]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+ <h1>PUNCH,<br />
+  OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+  <h2>Vol. 150.</h2>
+  <hr class="full" />
+
+  <h2>March 29, 1916.</h2>
+  <hr class="full" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209" id="page209"></a>[pg 209]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/209.png"><img width="100%" src="images/209.png" alt="" /></a>
+<p><i>Fond Mother.</i> "<span class="sc">Anything in the paper, dear</span>?"</p>
+<p><i>Wage-earner (not unkindly).</i> "<span class="sc">No, Ma&mdash;nothing you could understand</span>."</p></div>
+
+
+<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+
+<p>"His seventy-one years sit lightly on
+Mr. <span class="sc">Gibson Bowles</span>," says the Special
+Correspondent of <i>The Evening News</i>.
+No doubt Mr. <span class="sc">Bowles</span> has some good
+reason for permitting this familiarity,
+for he is not a man to be lightly sat
+upon.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"In particular," says a report on the
+resources of German East Africa, "the
+President of the Silk Association has just
+directed attention to the wild silk
+of the anaphe worm." The animal
+the great two-horned silkworm discovered by Sir
+<span class="sc">Harry Johnston</span>, before whose furious
+charges, according to the report of
+natives, even the elephant will give way.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A telegram from Rome states that it
+is generally believed that Admiral
+<span class="sc">Tirpitz</span> resigned because he could not
+take the German Fleet out. Others
+again maintain that it was because
+he could no longer take the German
+people in.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>It was recently stated in a Parliamentary
+Report that verminous uniforms
+had been purchased by the
+Government for the sum of &pound;2,650 and
+immediately resold for &pound;400.  The
+difference is accounted for by the fact
+that they were sold as going concerns.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A white rook has been observed at
+Boston Road, Brentford, and a local
+ornithologist writes to say that the bird
+is probably an accidental straggler from
+King's Bishop's Fourth.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"To-day in many English homes,"
+says a patriotic contemporary, "alien
+birds are carolling all unconscious of
+their countries' doom." One had independently
+noticed how the modulated
+of the Turkey buzzard had
+taken on a mournful tone.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"It is not unusual for horses to go
+to sleep as they walk along," said a
+sagacious coroner last week. How often
+in the old four-wheeler days, when we
+were going <i>ventre a terre</i> from Buckingham
+Palace to the National Liberal
+Club, conversation was rendered impossible
+by the snores of the flying steed.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>The price of admission to Kew for
+perambulators is 3<i>d.</i> on ordinary days,
+1<i>s.</i> on student days. The extra charge
+has been found necessary because of
+the fact that large numbers of horticulturists,
+in order to escape military
+service, have taken to travelling in
+these vehicles.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>According to the author of <i>In a
+College Garden</i> "it is not advisable
+to encourage any but educated ladies
+to become gardeners." It is always
+pleasant to note the extent to which a
+simple thing like a potato will recognise
+and respond to gentility in those
+who associate with it.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"The Italian Ambassador opened the exhibition
+of the Royal Society of Brush Artists at
+the society's premises in Suffolk-street."</p>
+
+<p><i>Evening Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. Punch welcomes the implicit admission
+that there are others.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"What is needed is that we should have on
+each of the main lines of our overseas communications
+at least one ship that is faster
+than anything else afloat."&mdash;<i>Manchester
+Guardian</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Is it not extraordinary that the Admiralty
+should never have thought of
+this simple device?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From a theatre programme:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"All the Male Members of the above Company
+are either attested under Lord Derby's
+Scheme, or are otherwise Ineligible for
+Service."
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The erroneous impression that to be
+attested is the short road to ineligibility
+has evidently spread from the platform
+to the stage.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210" id="page210"></a>[pg 210]</span>
+
+<h2>FOR THEY ARE JOLLY POOR FELLOWS.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+[The fine example of patriotism shown by the Universities of
+Oxford and Cambridge throws into painful relief the action of some
+of the obscure remnant, including College Fellows, who have excused
+themselves from service or adopted an attitude of superior detachment
+in relation to the War.]
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>You Intellectuals of Cam and Isis,</p>
+<p class="i2">Pale phantoms in the dawn of Freedom's light,</p>
+<p>And you that in this hour of England's crisis</p>
+<p class="i2">Haven't the conscience (or the heart) to fight;</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>You cosmopolitans without a country,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who go aloof on philosophic quests,</p>
+<p>Sucking the fruit of knowledge from the Hun-tree</p>
+<p class="i2">And spiritual milk from alien breasts;</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>False to that Brotherhood, who for the splendour</p>
+<p class="i2">Of a great cause, with gallant hearts and gay,</p>
+<p>Of youth and youth's high promise made surrender,</p>
+<p class="i2">Because their courage knew the nobler way;</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I envy not your chance on their returning;</p>
+<p class="i2">When, scarred with war, they come from overseas,</p>
+<p>There should be trouble in those Seats of Learning</p>
+<p class="i2">Where you sat tight and took your pedants' ease.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Short shrift you'll get for your convenient scruples;</p>
+<p class="i2">Conducted thither where the wet stream winds</p>
+<p>You shall receive as elementary pupils</p>
+<p class="i2">An object-lesson good for little minds.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Somewhere about the Guts of Cam and Isis,</p>
+<p class="i2">May I be well in front to see you then</p>
+<p>Taught by immersion what the local price is</p>
+<p class="i2">To pay for being prigs instead of men.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>O. S.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>PHILOGAMUS.</h2>
+
+<h3>(<i>A Socratic Fragment</i>.)</h3>
+
+<p>"... It is plain, therefore," said Socrates, "that the
+man whose soul is afflicted with illness will desire above
+all things to have it cured as quickly as possible, and for
+this purpose he will submit himself to one who understands
+the curing of souls. So far, I think, we are agreed, are
+we not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," said Agathon, "that would appear to be
+the wisest course."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why," said Socrates, "do we find that men who
+are generally eager to be cured of an ague are indisposed to
+take care of their soul when it is manifestly suffering?
+You yourself have declared that your soul is sick within
+you, yet you consult nobody and take no steps."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay, Socrates, I cannot allow you to catch me
+like this. Perhaps I spoke thoughtlessly when I mentioned
+my soul just now. Certainly I had not intended that you
+should tie me up with your questions and draw conclusions
+which it was impossible for me to foresee."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I suppose the fault must be mine, for in truth I
+had not designed to catch anyone, least of all yourself, my
+dear Agathon. But we will defer the consideration of the
+matter to a more favourable time, for I see Philogamus
+approaching and, if we may judge by the outward signs, he
+seems to be, as one might say, in a terrible state."</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon we turned to observe Philogamus, to whom
+indeed something painful and calamitous must have happened,
+for his garments were disarrayed and his hair was
+unkempt, and anger was seated upon his frowning brow,
+and he was muttering to himself and calling the gods to
+witness that he was unjustly treated and that no such misfortune
+had ever before happened to any other man; and
+he was beating his hands wildly together and was forgetting
+to salute his friends. Seeing him thus distraught
+Socrates plucked him by the sleeve as he passed and
+addressed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hail, Philogamus," he said, "what great misfortune
+do you announce to us? Have the Barbarians at last
+seized upon the Pir&aelig;us, and are they even now marching
+irresistibly on the Acropolis? Are you sent out to summon
+us to arms? Here are a few of us who will join with you,
+laying aside even their most pressing private business, and
+will help to defend the State and themselves to the last
+gasp. Only do you deliver your message and let us know."</p>
+
+<p>"This," said Philogamus, "is no moment for laughing,
+though in laughter, O Socrates, you are always easily first,
+as they say, and the rest nowhere. But have you not
+heard what has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Socrates, "and we much desire to know.
+I can speak confidently for myself, and Agathon here is,
+I am sure, in a fever of impatience."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, then, and, by the gods, you shall be made aware
+of an injustice that calls for immediate redress. They are
+even now on the point of calling up the married men to go
+to the War."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very interesting; and what do the married men
+say to it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do they say?" shouted Philogamus. "They
+say they will not go unless, according to the promises of
+Darbius and Ascuthius, all the unmarried men are taken
+first;" and he began once more beating his breast and
+glaring with his eyes like a dog who has been for long
+without water.</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, my good friend," said Socrates, "softly. As to
+the promise, I know it is being rigidly kept. All the willing
+single men are gone or going, and the unwilling are being
+compelled to join as quickly as is possible. What more
+can be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something ought to be done."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very true," said Socrates; "something ought
+always to be getting itself done, and the something at this
+moment is that the Barbarians ought to be beaten. But
+tell me, with regard to the married men, are they not
+concerned in the safety and welfare of the State?"</p>
+
+<p>"That, indeed, they are," said Philogamus; "none more
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case why do they hang back and complain
+when the State declares that its safety and welfare demand
+that they should be ready to go? Because one here and
+there has concealed himself, is it for you, a married man, to
+retire when by going you might help to thrust back the
+Barbarians? Are you one of those that are called the
+attested ones?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that I am," said Philogamus, proudly displaying
+his brown armlet with the red crown.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is you, as it appears to me, who have given a
+pledge and made a promise, and that promise, I am sure,
+you will fulfil to the best of your ability. When the time
+comes it is for you to go at once and not to weary the
+market-place with empty noise and murmurs of complaint.
+For remember this: the man who has taken a wife and has
+brought up children under the State's protection owes more,
+if it be possible...."</p>
+
+<p>(<i>Here the fragment ends.</i>)</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From a description of the German <span class="sc">Crown Prince</span>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Before the war he liked to imitate the English, and posed as
+a German megalomaniac."</p>
+
+<p><i>Daily News</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Yes, we believe there were some English like that&mdash;before
+the War.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id="page211"></a>[pg 211]</span>
+
+<h3>THE MARKS OF THE BEAST.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/211.png"><img width="100%" src="images/211.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Imperial Beggar</i>. "PITY A POOR WAR-LORD WHO HAS LOST HALF HIS MEN, AND
+MUST HAVE MORE MONEY IN ORDER TO LOSE THE OTHER HALF."</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212" id="page212"></a>[pg 212]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/212.png"><img width="100%" src="images/212.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Voice through telephone (to officer dragged up from the first sleep
+he's had for two days)</i>. "<span class="sc">Thought I'd better report, Sir.&mdash;we've
+just got the consignment of footballs up.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE SCOTTISH REEL THING AT LAST.</h2>
+
+<p>Now that Sir J. M. <span class="sc">Barrie</span> has
+shown us the Transatlantic kinema
+man's idea of the perfect <i>Macbeth</i>, it is
+up to the purveyor of American films
+to retaliate by presenting one of his
+plots for ordinary stage performance
+in the Kirriemuir manner. Here and
+there an inadvertent touch of Western
+colour may be anticipated.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Scene.</span>&mdash;<i>Kensington Gardens. The</i>
+Heroine&mdash;<i>oh, the little love!&mdash;is
+taking a dander round the "Keep off
+the Grass" boards. Her feet are bare,
+and this is probably the reason why
+from time to time she dances among
+the trees.  In the background the
+Hero, wearing a divided kilt, rides
+about on a horse. Having
+thus given the audience time
+to settle, the play starts.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Heroine</i> (<i>perceiving</i> Hero).
+Gee! there's that rube I met
+up North.  Sic a bonny lad
+too! (<i>sighing sadly</i>). But he
+hasna much siller, I'm sair
+misdootin'. Guess there's no
+twelve-pound look about him.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero</i> (<i>dashing up and dismounting</i>).
+Wal, I wanter
+know. Say, ain't you the peach
+I useter see from my window
+in Thrums?</p>
+
+<p><i>Heroine</i> (<i>coyly</i>). Havers!</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero</i> (<i>not to be outdone</i>),
+Dagont!</p>
+
+<p>[<i>She strolls away with her
+chin in the air, her shoes
+and stockings in her hands,
+and the famous red light in
+her eye. She goes behind a
+tree, and the</i> Hero, <i>thinking
+she has retired there to
+greet sadly, follows to console her.
+However, he discovers that she is
+merely resuming her footgear, and
+he retreats modestly.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero</i> (<i>rolling his eyes wildly to denote
+love</i>). A snod bit lassie, that. I mean to
+say&mdash;I&mdash;ay! Juist so! Ay, ou ay!</p>
+
+<p><i>Heroine</i> (<i>returning with her shoes on</i>).
+For the love of Mike&mdash;I mean Losh
+keep's!&mdash;are you still here?</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero.</i> That's so. I wanter put you
+wise about me. I ain't no boob, as
+you seemter think. You can bet your
+rubbers on that. Maybe you're thinkin'
+that I'm but a puir laddie. Wal, let <i>me</i>
+tell <i>you</i> you're guessin' wrong. I'm
+an author&mdash;I do writin' stunts. And
+if I don't swell around in new pants all
+afternoon it's only because I have to
+keep all my cheques among the crumbs
+in my tobacco pouch. I <i>have</i> to do it.
+All the best Scots writers do it. We
+call it Arcadian Mixture.</p>
+
+<p><i>Heroine.</i> Guess that rollers out the
+course of true love some. But let <i>me</i>
+tell <i>you</i> there's another feller after me&mdash;a
+puir feckless body of a villain.
+And, Losh preserve us, here he comes!</p>
+
+<p>[<i>The</i> Villain <i>enters. He looks rather
+like a revue-producer who has seen
+better nights. The</i> Hero, <i>overcome
+by bashfulness at being discovered in
+conversation with a female, conceals
+himself behind his accent.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Villain.</i> See here, gal, you just gotter
+marry me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Heroine.</i> Shucks! I should say,
+Dinna blether, ma mannie.</p>
+
+<p>[<i>The</i> Hero <i>creeps cautiously out of
+ambush.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Villain</i> (<i>caressingly</i>). I have always
+loved my little Mary.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero</i> (<i>subtly ironic</i>). Imphm! Imphm!
+Ou ay, imphm!</p>
+
+<p><i>Villain</i> (<i>surprised but finding a way</i>).
+Oh, the dears! oh, the darlings!</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero</i> (<i>bewildered</i>). What's all that
+blatherskite, any old way?</p>
+
+<p><i>Villain</i> (<i>privily drawing bludgeon</i>).
+It was Sneeky Hobart who never went
+to kirk again after they substituted
+tin plates for the usual cloth collecting-bags.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero</i> (<i>perplexed and off his guard</i>).
+Guess you've gone bughouse, sonny.
+I mean, I'm no quick in the uptak'&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Villain.</i> Are ye no? (<i>brandishing
+bludgeon</i>). Well, I am! (<i>He fells the</i>
+Hero <i>senseless to the ground.</i>) And noo,
+lassie, I can sorter concentrate on you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Heroine</i> (<i>in the most ladylike way</i>).
+Help! oh, help!</p>
+
+<p><i>Villain.</i> Say, you don't seemter
+freeze on to me, somehow. But you
+must and shall be mine! Come awa',
+lassie.</p>
+
+<p>[<i>He seizes her and she resists. Meanwhile
+the</i> Hero, <i>who fell on to a
+clump of genuine thistles, makes a
+superbly-rapid recovery from his
+unconsciousness.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Villain</i> (<i>pausing to mop his brow</i>).
+Say, you'll got my goat for sure if you
+kick up like this, lassie.</p>
+
+<p><i>Heroine.</i> Gee! That's a great idea.
+If only Peter Pan's goat&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>[<i>The</i> Hero, <i>inspired, crawls away unnoticed.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Villain</i> (<i>preparing to renew the struggle</i>).
+Lassie, I'm quite sweered o' you.
+There's an awesome look in your eye.
+And can ye no be more ladylike in your
+fechting? Remember whose heroine
+you are.</p>
+
+<p>[<i>He again strives to bear her off. The</i>
+Hero, <i>having broken off a couple of
+branches and affixed them to his
+head&mdash;a little trick he learned from
+the Admirable Crichton&mdash;now
+returns disguised as a
+goat. He rushes at Villain,
+who flees and scales the park
+railings. But his overcoat
+collar catches in the spikes,
+and he hangs suspended
+and helpless. In that position
+he slowly starves, and
+dies inconspicuously as the</i>
+Hero <i>and</i> Heroine <i>finish
+the play.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero</i> (<i>extending his arms</i>).
+Say, is it a deal? I mean, will
+ye ha'e us, lassie?</p>
+
+<p><i>Heroine</i> (<i>with little wells of
+gladness in her eyes</i>). It's a
+cinch. Guess you're Mr.
+Smart from Smartville. Ay,
+I'm thinkin' I'll tak' you.
+But you men are fickle callants&mdash;that's
+what every
+woman knows. Come awa'
+and let's find a little meenister
+at once.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hero.</i> Oh, joy! oh, rapture! oh, rosy
+rapture!  [<i>They embrace and exeunt</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><i>The Audience</i>. Hoots!</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Curtain</span>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Journalistic Anticipation.</h3>
+
+<p>"THE COMING GREAT SEA BATTLE.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Exclusive Pictures.</span>"</p>
+
+<p><i>"Sunday Herald" Poster.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213" id="page213"></a>[pg 213]</span>
+
+<h2>AT THE FRONT.</h2>
+
+<p>The subtlety of the Military mind
+beats and will beat me to the end.
+Yesterday we lived in a row of earthen
+dwellings in a depression in the ground,
+which anyone might be excused for referring
+to, if not as trenches, at least as
+dugouts. These alone of all the marvels
+of military engineering I have observed
+during the War admitted of being
+shelled with equal exactitude from due
+in front and due in rear; and water
+seemed to have been laid on throughout.
+Taking all these things into consideration
+some Authority labelled them, once
+for all, "Billets."</p>
+
+<p>Last night we moved into a commodious
+cellar of a house which still
+leans against the next. It is only
+five minutes from town, and tramlines
+pass the door. Nay more, they stop
+abruptly at the door&mdash;such are the
+improvements effected by R.E. Inside
+the cellar are three bits of chairs, a
+table-top on boxes, and an inimitable
+ancestral smell that no deodorizer
+known to modern warfare can cope
+with. And all this is called "Trenches!"
+Our servants do their best to support
+the official illusion by neglecting to
+clean our boots and regarding with
+surprise and some little sadness any
+tendency on our part to wash.</p>
+
+<p>But you must not imagine that life
+here is all honey. Even here we do a
+bit for our eight-and-sixpence. Every
+evening there comes down from the
+front line a report that our men there
+want more food. A stricter or less
+beneficent C.O. than ours might at once
+institute a court of inquiry into what
+has happened to all the food we gave
+them last night. But not so with us.
+"The boys want food," he says to the
+Adjutant, "and, by Heaven, the boys
+shall have it."</p>
+
+<p>No sooner said than handed on to
+someone else to do. The Adjutant
+works off a little bit of his strong personal
+dislike for me in a note, couched,
+if you please, in the most friendly terms,
+intimating that he has raised heaven
+and earth to get me off, but the C.O.
+insists that I (as the only competent
+officer for the task) shall supervise the
+conduct of our rations to the front,
+middle and back lines to-night.  He
+adds that the Intelligence Corps report
+that information received from deserters
+leads us to suppose that Fritz intends
+to strafe all roads and communication
+trenches in our sector to-night.</p>
+
+<p>The carrying party is supplied by a
+sister battalion, and makes the night
+thoroughly well acquainted with its
+views about a unit that can't supply
+blanks to carry their blanked rations
+for their blanked selves. Sometimes a
+second or a third trip may be necessary,
+and then the carriers' patriotic fervour
+expresses itself in terms almost potent
+enough to do the carrying for them.
+For some reason or other the R.E., who
+design material for our porterage, consider
+its end and not its portability.
+Their special line of ready-made wire
+entanglements would entangle a hippopotamus;
+and when it comes to carrying
+one a mile-and-a-half you find it
+has no wheels, no handles, and simply
+won't fold up into the pocket. The
+usual procedure is for a man or two to
+roll on one of these barbed-wire death-traps
+until they are well stuck on them
+and then crawl to the point of delivery.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, of course, we have accidents.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214" id="page214"></a>[pg 214]</span>
+Last night, for instance, two
+men were proceeding (by the way the
+great point about being a soldier is that
+you never walk, run or otherwise ambulate&mdash;you
+proceed, or proceed at the
+double, which of course is much nicer
+for you)&mdash;yes, were proceeding, one at
+each end of an entanglement, along the
+top of a slope, when the leader missed
+his footing altogether and rolled down
+to the morass below. The second, after
+a brief struggle, followed with the entanglement.
+This movement involved
+not only the man behind, who was
+bearing a footboard, but also the remainder
+of the section. The entire
+avalanche was precipitated on to the
+leaders, and remained there struggling
+like the population of a fly-paper until
+a squad arrived with wire-cutters.
+When the R.E. heard of it they wanted
+the episode published in Corps Orders
+as a testimonial. But what the men
+wanted done about the R.E. I dare not
+tell you.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE TRUTH ABOUT CINEMALAND.</h2>
+
+<p>A <span class="sc">distinguished</span> neutral observer,
+who has just returned from a visit to
+Cinemaland, has furnished our representative
+with the following interesting
+account of his experiences and conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first things (he says)
+that impressed me was that in the
+great cities of Cinemaland there is,
+outwardly at least, little or no sign
+of scarcity. On the contrary, at the
+various hotels and restaurants, as well
+as several private entertainments that
+came under my observation, a note of
+almost wanton luxury appeared to be
+aimed at. Evening dress is worn whenever
+possible, and the costumes of the
+ladies are invariably the last word in
+ultra-fashionable extravagance. Food
+is as yet obviously plentiful; what is
+not consumed being frequently flung
+about, especially by the humorous
+elements of the population, and wasted
+with reckless prodigality.</p>
+
+<p>In spite however of this ostentation
+signs are not wanting that the true
+condition of the country is increasingly
+precarious. Crime of all sorts is
+rampant. Judging even by what I
+myself witnessed within a short period,
+the detectives of Cinemaland must all
+be working overtime. Quite recently
+a gang, under the leadership of a ruffian
+who elected to be known as The Clutching
+Hand, made large sums of money by
+working upon the terrors of its victims.</p>
+
+<p>Another significant symptom is that
+respect for law and authority as such
+appears to be almost non-existent. The
+police force of Cinemaland is a body
+of men who are most of them of conspicuously
+full habit. I can vouch for
+it that the appearance of these officials
+is almost invariably greeted with derision;
+and should they (as frequently
+happens) incur physical maltreatment
+or other misfortune in the exercise
+of their duties popular sympathy is
+almost always on the side of their
+opponents.</p>
+
+<p>A notable exception to this feeling
+is found in the attitude of the populace
+towards their chosen ruler, the Emperor,
+or Film-Lord, Charlemagne-Chaplin. It
+is only fair to record that recent spectacular
+(and carefully stage-managed)
+appearances of the monarch have been
+greeted with every demonstration of
+unswerving loyalty and affection.</p>
+
+<p>More significant perhaps to an outside
+spectator is the undeniable fact
+that the Wild Western portions of
+Cinemaland are to-day in a state of turbulence
+bordering upon anarchy. The
+Cowboys, who are its chief denizens,
+would seem, so far as my experience
+goes, to spend their entire time in exploits
+of murderous violence; though
+here (as elsewhere among this remarkable
+people) the influence of sentiment
+is often unexpectedly potent. It can
+hardly be doubted that a populace so
+emotional and ill-balanced as that of
+Cinemaland will have little power to
+withstand the strain of disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Despite my apparent freedom from
+restraint I am persuaded that I was
+kept under the observation of a number
+of uniformed officials during the whole
+course of my stay in Cinemaland; and
+I am bound to confess that my departure,
+which was made under cover
+of darkness, was not unattended with
+a sense of personal relief.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>PARABLES FOR BOSCHES.</h2>
+
+<p>Once upon a time there was a Father
+who was devoted to his child. He fed
+it and nursed it and watched it grow
+and gave it toys to play with&mdash;both
+soldiers and boats. Also he made it
+promises that some day he would extend
+their house and garden until no
+house and garden were bigger. Every
+year he took it to the top of a high
+precipice and showed it beautiful lands
+and water which should some day be
+theirs.</p>
+
+<p>The child had heard this promise so
+often that it used to ask, "When?
+when?" And always the answer
+was, "Some day, some day."</p>
+
+<p>And then at last the day came, and
+the Father took the child to the high
+precipice yet once more, but behold it
+chanced that they both fell over and
+were smashed, the Father hopelessly
+and the child very, very badly, so that
+it would for long years or perhaps for
+evermore be a cripple.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>ONE OF OUR ALLIES.</h2>
+
+<p>Somewhere in France&mdash;no, let me
+be bold and say in Paris&mdash;there is a
+young French soldier named Charles.
+Less than two years ago he was a
+plumber and whole; to-day he has but
+one arm, his left; the other and a piece
+of his shoulder with it having gone in
+saving his country from the foe.</p>
+
+<p>Charles is shy and very modest, and
+no bigger than so many French youths&mdash;he
+is only twenty-two&mdash;with dark-brown
+hair and blue eyes with very
+black centres, and a moustache that
+never succeeds in looking more than
+three weeks old. Being, however, brave,
+he does not let his maimed condition
+unduly trouble him, but runs his
+errands (all that he can now do) and
+whistles as he runs, and is glad to be
+alive at all, instead of dead, as so many
+of his comrades are and as his Colonel
+is, as I shall tell.</p>
+
+<p>At the Front Charles's duties were
+these. A despatch&mdash;a <i>pli</i>, as they call
+it&mdash;would be given him either back of
+the lines to deliver in the trenches, or
+in the trenches to deliver back of the
+lines, and in order to get there, if fighting
+was in progress, it was necessary
+for him to crawl for perhaps one or two
+kilometres on his stomach. On a certain
+day of intense activity, Charles in
+his trench was handed one of these
+critical missives for the commanding
+officer, who was a kilometre or so
+behind, and this he placed in his satchel
+and then began the hazardous journey.</p>
+
+<p>No one ever knows when the supreme
+moment of his life is coming; nor did
+Charles, but it was then.</p>
+
+<p>This being a terrific day&mdash;as a
+matter of fact it was during the famous
+battle for the Maison du Passeur,
+when the French and Germans were
+losing and retaking trenches for hours&mdash;he
+had to crawl all the way, only to
+come suddenly upon the body of the
+commanding officer himself stretched
+dead in a carrot field.</p>
+
+<p>To Charles's mind there was then
+but one thing to do, and that was, as he
+had been unable to deliver the message,
+to take it back to the sender. He
+therefore started on the return journey,
+and was only a few yards from
+his trench, and still un-hit, when he
+found a wounded officer on the ground.
+Here was a new problem, but necessarily
+having to stand up and throw
+aside all precautions, Charles got him
+as well as he could on his back and,
+still un-hit, half carried, half supported,
+him to the trench, and was at once
+away again with his despatch. It
+was at this moment that an exploding
+shell hurled the satchel from big
+hands and flung it on the open ground
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215" id="page215"></a>[pg 215]</span>
+between the French trenches and the
+enemy's, which were here separated
+only by a few yards. At any cost the
+despatch must not fall into German
+hands, and Charles, who miraculously
+had not been injured by the explosion,
+began instantly to climb out of the
+trench to recover it, and this in spite of
+a sergeant, who called to him to keep
+under cover. But Charles, having one
+idea and one only, and that was to save
+from the foe the despatch that had
+been entrusted to him, succeeded in
+reaching it and securing it; and then
+came another shell that shattered his
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>That is all he remembers; but he
+must have rolled back to the bottom of
+the trench, where he was found, two
+days later, still clutching the satchel.
+And after that, although he remembers
+the coffee he was given to drink, all is a
+haze until he came fully to himself in
+hospital and found that no longer had
+he a right arm.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the story of Charles's effort
+for his country.</p>
+
+<p>Now I do not claim for Charles that
+he is any braver or has a finer sense
+of duty than many another French
+soldier; but this I know, that when he
+recovered he was summoned to the
+Invalides to receive not only the <i>Croix
+de Guerre</i> but the <i>M&eacute;daille Militaire</i>
+with the palm, which corresponds to
+our Victoria Cross, and that now,
+although, having left the Army, he no
+longer wears uniform but merely such
+poor civilian clothes as he can afford
+as a messenger, when he walks along
+the Boulevards&mdash;which he does as
+seldom as he can, so shy is he&mdash;there
+is not an officer, seeing the
+ribbons on his coat, who does not
+salute this little plumber with as much
+punctilio as though he were General
+<span class="sc">Joffre</span> himself; and, blushing crimson,
+Charles returns the salute.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/215.png"><img width="100%" src="images/215.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Patriotic Scots Lady</i> (<i>patrolling Victoria
+main-line station to assist any of her stranded countrymen arriving from
+the Front</i>). "<span class="sc">Can I help you in any way</span>?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Perplexed Scot.</i> "<span class="sc">Thank you, Mam. Is the toon far frae the
+station?</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Mrs. Humphry Ward seems to have gone
+for inspiration to contemporary characters,
+and now in 'Tasker Jevons' it is difficult not
+to find the lineaments of a well-known writer."</p>
+
+<p><i>Evening Standard.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Quite so: and Miss <span class="sc">May Sinclair</span> made
+<i>A Great Success</i> of it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.</h2>
+
+<p>II.&mdash;<span class="sc">King's Cross.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>King's Cross!</p>
+<p class="i2">What shall we do?</p>
+<p>His purple robe</p>
+<p class="i2">Is rent in two!</p>
+<p>Out of his crown</p>
+<p class="i2">He's torn the gems!</p>
+<p>He's thrown his sceptre</p>
+<p class="i2">Into the Thames!</p>
+<p>The Court is shaking</p>
+<p class="i2">In every shoe&mdash;</p>
+<p>King's Cross!</p>
+<p class="i2"><i>What</i> shall we do?</p>
+<p><i>Leave him alone</i></p>
+<p class="i2"><i>For a minute or two.</i></p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>III.&mdash;<span class="sc">Bishopsgate</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Bishopsgate Without,</p>
+<p class="i2">Bishopsgate Within!</p>
+<p>What a clamour at the gate,</p>
+<p class="i2">O what a din!</p>
+<p>Inside and outside</p>
+<p>The Bishops bang and shout,</p>
+<p>Outside crying, "Let me in!"</p>
+<p>Inside, "Let me out."</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page216" id="page216"></a>[pg 216]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/216.png"><img width="100%" src="images/216.png" alt=""/></a><p>"<span class="sc">Look here, confound you! What do you mean by your
+'disclosures'? There's nothing here that wasn't in the morning
+papers</span>."</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">"I'm sorry you're disappointed, Sir. At the same time I must point
+out to you that my connection with the paper gives me abserlootly no
+influence with the editorial department."</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE ADJUTANT.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>In that great Room which military error</p>
+<p class="i2">Has miscalled Orderly (for it is not,</p>
+<p>But full of tumult and debate and terror,</p>
+<p class="i2">And worried writers growing rather hot,</p>
+<p class="i4">For ever floundering in seas of chits</p>
+<p class="i4">And forms and counterfoils and wrathful writs),</p>
+<p class="i4">Alone unfevered mid the storm he sits</p>
+<p class="i2">And tells them all exactly what is what.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Who so alert to solve the frequent riddle,</p>
+<p class="i2">To judge if Jones should have his train-fare free,</p>
+<p>Whether the band requires another fiddle,</p>
+<p class="i2">And which is senior, Robinson or me?</p>
+<p class="i4">Who shall indite such circulars as his</p>
+<p class="i4">To Officers Commanding Companies</p>
+<p class="i4">About their musketry, or why it is</p>
+<p class="i2">So many men take sugar in their tea?</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>And when at times he shuns the sacred table</p>
+<p class="i2">And like some eagle swoops upon parade,</p>
+<p>Men mark his coming and there bursts a babel</p>
+<p class="i2">As with new zeal the subalterns upbraid,</p>
+<p class="i4">Lecture and illustrate, and on the right</p>
+<p class="i4">Form sullen squads, and hope they're being bright&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i4">Save those white-livered ones who at the sight</p>
+<p class="i2">Hide their commands in some convenient glade.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>For he is terrible; and few folk relish</p>
+<p class="i2">The words of doom which shake his diaphragm;</p>
+<p>Yet is the heart of him not wholly hellish,</p>
+<p class="i2">But in his playing-hours he's like a lamb;</p>
+<p class="i4">And who'd have said that one so skilled to strafe</p>
+<p class="i4">And, when I err, too truculent by half,</p>
+<p class="i4">Could own so rich, so rollicking a laugh,</p>
+<p class="i2">Would see so well how humorous I am?</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Yet if with leave unasked I quit the barrack,</p>
+<p class="i2">Ever behind I dread that he will call,</p>
+<p>Speed up the street in some avenging Darracq</p>
+<p class="i2">Or on the Underground retrieve his thrall;</p>
+<p class="i4">Nor in my home can quite escape the spell</p>
+<p class="i4">But freeze with horror at the front-door bell,</p>
+<p class="i4">For fear the parlour-maid may speak my knell,</p>
+<p class="i2">May knock and say that <i>he</i> is in the hall.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>And, sleeping, still I have to brook his blusters;</p>
+<p class="i2">A monstrous Adjutant is always nigh</p>
+<p>At dream-reviews and endless dreamy musters,</p>
+<p class="i2">Laden with lists and schemes and syllabi;</p>
+<p class="i4">And, though he find no failing anywhere,</p>
+<p class="i4">But all are present and correct and fair,</p>
+<p class="i4"><i>I</i> never fail to make the fellow swear,</p>
+<p class="i2"><i>I</i> always seem to catch his horrid eye.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id="page217"></a>[pg 217]</span>
+
+<h3>TO THE GLORY OF FRANCE.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/217.png"><img width="100%" src="images/217.png" alt=""/></a><p>VERDUN, FEBRUARY-MARCH, 1916.</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218" id="page218"></a>[pg 218]</span>
+
+<h2>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h2>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width:40%;"><a href="images/218.png"><img width="100%" src="images/218.png" alt=""/></a><p>FUNK-HOLES FOR MINISTERS.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Designed for protection against raids by our air-experts</span>.</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday, March 21st.</i>&mdash;Returning
+from Westminster this afternoon I
+stumbled in Whitehall upon a Member
+whom I had not seen in his place this
+Session. "Going down to the House?"
+I asked. "What, is it sitting?" he
+replied; and then it appeared that he
+was just home on short leave after
+working hard "somewhere on the Continent,"
+and had no present interest in
+political controversy. As I reflected
+on a speech I had just listened to, it
+occurred to me that the attitude of
+some of the stay-at-home Members
+towards the War is much the same as
+that of my hon. friend towards the
+House. "What, is it still going on?"</p>
+
+<p>If the Germans were in occupation
+of the Black Country, if Oxford were
+being daily shelled, as Rheims is, and if
+with a favouring breeze London could
+hear the dull rumble of the bombardment,
+as Paris can, I wonder if Members
+would still be encumbering the
+Order-paper with the sort of trivialities
+that now find place there.</p>
+
+<p>An exception may be made in favour
+of Mr. <span class="sc">Joe King</span>. He has discovered
+a little late in the day that a war
+is going on in Europe, and that it
+affects a little country called Belgium,
+whose neutrality was guaranteed by
+the Powers. He was anxious to know
+whether Belgium had formally renounced
+her neutrality, and was no
+doubt greatly surprised to learn from
+Sir <span class="sc">Edward Grey</span> that, owing to one
+of the guaranteeing Powers having
+invaded her, Belgium had become a
+belligerent.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know whether Mr. <span class="sc">Pringle</span>
+was in the House when this announcement
+was made. But if so it evidently
+created no impression on his mind. In
+the debate on the Army Estimates he
+followed Captain <span class="sc">Tryon</span>, who had delivered
+an urgent appeal to the Government
+from the text, "A strong Army
+and a shorter War." Mr. <span class="sc">Pringle's</span>
+ideal is just the reverse. In his view
+the Army is too big already, and
+is taking too great a toll from our
+industrial and commercial population.
+The great men who won the Napoleonic
+War&mdash;after twenty-three years&mdash;had
+not a big army; and the consequence
+was that, while it was going on, British
+trade expanded by leaps and bounds.
+To-day, owing to our disastrous military
+policy the demands upon our
+tonnage were so heavy that people
+had to go short of sugar and tobacco.
+Let us conserve our resources and be
+ready to dictate terms when Germany
+has been financially ruined. When
+Mr. <span class="sc">Pringle</span> at last sat down after
+three-quarters of an hour of this sort
+of thing I longed for ten minutes of
+Mr. <span class="sc">Balfour</span> at his best. But he was
+not present, and Mr. <span class="sc">Long</span> was so much
+occupied in defending the Government
+against the charge of having broken
+faith with the married men that Mr.
+<span class="sc">Pringle</span> never got the trouncing he
+deserved.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday, March 22nd.</i>&mdash;One of
+the most cherished beliefs of the House
+of Commons is that upon the Second
+Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill
+anything under the sun may be discussed.
+Colonel <span class="sc">Yate</span> was justly surprised,
+therefore, when the <span class="sc">Speaker</span>
+ruled that he was out of order in criticising
+the Indian Government for its
+conduct of the Mesopotamian Expedition,
+and advised him to reserve his
+remarks for the Indian Budget discussion&mdash;equivalent
+in these times to
+the Greek Kalends.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Chamberlain</span> was surprised too,
+but, regardless of the ruling, proceeded
+to make a carefully-prepared reply to
+the speech which the Hon. and gallant
+Member had not been allowed to
+deliver. He frankly admitted that
+there had been a lamentable breakdown
+of the hospital arrangements,
+but steps had been taken to improve
+them, and a telegram from General
+<span class="sc">Lake</span> showed that the treatment of
+the men wounded in the recent engagement
+was satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Pemberton-Billing</span> essayed another
+and a longer flight to-day, but
+had a good deal of engine trouble. His
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219" id="page219"></a>[pg 219]</span>
+Parliamentary friends ought to have
+warned him that the House does not
+care to listen to a man reading extracts
+from his own leading articles, however
+prophetic they may have been; that
+the constant reiteration of a phrase
+such as "I would like to suggest,
+Mr. <span class="sc">Speaker</span>," soon becomes tiresome,
+and that to call somebody else "the
+De Rougemont of the air" is to invite
+the <i>tu quoque</i>. Members became more
+and more impatient as the orator
+became more and more dogmatic;
+and when he rhetorically demanded
+the name of "one man to whom
+we could turn to solve the problem"
+they derisively chorused, "<span class="sc">Billing</span>!"
+Mr. <span class="sc">Tennant</span>, recognising the
+feeling of the House, did not spend
+much time in refuting Mr. <span class="sc">Billing</span>'s
+wild assertions, but devoted most of
+his speech to replying to Mr. <span class="sc">Joynson-Hicks</span>,
+who had pleaded that the East-Coast
+towns should be more promptly
+warned of approaching air-raids. He
+had personally investigated the arrangements
+and was positively "staggered"
+at "the wonderful network that had
+been set up," and he invited Mr.
+<span class="sc">Joynson-Hicks</span> to come with him
+privately and share his amazement.
+Mr. <span class="sc">Ellis Griffith</span> was not convinced.
+He thought that there were still too
+many strands of red tape in the network,
+and reiterated the hope that the
+<span class="sc">Derby</span> Committee would soon develop
+into a Ministry of the Air.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday, March 23rd.</i>&mdash;A distressing
+report in the papers this morning,
+that the <i>Galloper</i> had been blown up
+by the Germans, made the friends of
+Sir <span class="sc">Frederick Smith</span> anxious. Had
+he, on one of his periodical visits to
+the trenches to see Friend <span class="sc">Winston</span>,
+stumbled across an enemy mine?
+Happily the report was grossly exaggerated.
+The <i>Galloper</i> was only a light-ship,
+and had not been destroyed by
+the enemy but merely withdrawn by
+the Trinity House; and on the Treasury
+Bench this afternoon there was the
+<span class="sc">Attorney-General</span> very much alive.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Trevelyan</span> had a motion on the
+paper condemning the administration
+of the Defence of the Realm Act, and
+in support of it produced a sheaf of
+cases, in which he said the Government
+had abused its powers. Among
+other acts of vile oppression they had
+ravished from her home, on September
+1st, while her father was away
+shooting partridges, and had subsequently
+interned without trial, a young
+lady against whom no charge had been
+formulated. It sounded very dreadful,
+and someone called out, "Is this a
+Russian case?"</p>
+
+<p>Then arose Sir F. E. <span class="sc">Smith</span>, and
+with a few forensic gestures demolished
+the house of cards that Mr. <span class="sc">Trevelyan</span>
+had so laboriously erected. Most of his
+cases were out of court because they
+had already been in court, the decisions
+he impugned being those of the
+magistrates. As for the daughter of
+the partridge-slayer she was an associate
+of a notorious German spy, and
+had come back from Switzerland with
+a message for one of his agents. As
+her case had been fully considered by
+the late <span class="sc">Home Secretary</span> he suggested
+that Mr. <span class="sc">Trevelyan</span> should talk to him
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>This was the most pungent speech
+of the afternoon. The most amusing
+was that of Mr. <span class="sc">Ginnell</span>, who kept
+the House in fits of laughter for ten
+minutes while in his most rasping
+tones he jerked out epigrams against
+"this thing calling itself a Government."
+The Coalition was described
+as "two poisons blended, which could
+not make a wholesome drink." Never
+before has he had such a success. I
+only hope it will not turn his head
+and encourage him to attempt conscious
+humour.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/219.png"><img width="100%" src="images/219.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Veteran</i> (<i>instructing "Bantam" in his duties as
+sentry</i>). "<span class="sc">You look over there&mdash;there's the Germans. Don't you
+worry about them&mdash;<i>they</i> won't 'urt you. But you watch those
+blinking rats. <i>They'll</i> get you by the back of the leg and pull
+you off the bloomin' fire-step in no time</span>!"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<span class="sc">The World at War at &mdash;&mdash; Theatre
+Only."</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Advt. in Evening Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We are relieved to find that the area
+of conflict has been so much restricted.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220"></a>[pg 220]</span>
+
+<h2>FROM SOMEWHERE IN AFRICA.</h2>
+
+<p>We have just returned from another
+of those little expeditions which are
+becoming almost a habit with the &mdash;&mdash; Frontier
+Force when in search of an
+enemy whose discretion is only rivalled
+by that of the German High Seas Fleet.
+We moved out four days ago with
+all the pomp of war&mdash;horse, foot and
+guns, ambulances and long trains of
+transport waggons, the fierce vivid
+fighting of the desert before us. We
+rode seventeen miles that day and
+camped at some wells. As we rolled
+ourselves in our blankets round the
+camp-fires to rest for the glorious contest
+of the morrow our hearts should
+have been filled with dreams of undying
+fame. But we were really wondering
+when the squadron transport would
+arrive with our porridge and sausages
+for breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning we were in
+the saddle by 3 <span class="sc">A.M.</span>, and
+after some ten or twelve
+hours of unbroken and undisputed
+progress we captured
+two Arab shepherds
+in charge of as many as
+eight sheep. This <i>succ&egrave;s
+fou</i> was the cause of justifiable
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place we
+scented liver and bacon for
+breakfast. In the second
+place it seemed to promise
+a settlement of the long-standing
+dispute between
+me and the General. The
+General has a preposterous
+theory about the existence
+and hostility of a vast number of
+mythical Arabs in our immediate
+neighbourhood. Now this is obviously
+absurd. With the exception
+of three palm-trees, which belong
+to us, there is nothing but sand for
+about two hundred miles in all directions,
+and even an Arab cannot subsist
+entirely on sand. Of course, if there
+were any Arabs near us, they would be
+so enraged at finding themselves at a
+spot two hundred miles from anything
+except sand that they would be violently
+hostile to anyone, especially to
+the people who had engaged the only
+three palm-trees in the neighbourhood.
+But it is their existence that I dispute
+with the General. It is true he took a
+most unfair dialectical advantage, about
+a fortnight ago, by having a large battle.
+But my contention is that the enemy
+on this occasion were merely orange-sellers
+from the nearest town, hired by
+the General for the purpose of argument.</p>
+
+<p>These two shepherds, however, did
+seem to support his theory of the existence
+of Arabs, but as to their hostility
+there was still room for doubt. They
+were both extraordinarily old and unbelievably
+dirty. Also they were, as
+was very natural, extremely frightened.
+Seeing that they knew themselves to
+be the only living people for quite a
+number of miles round, it must have
+appeared to them that the entire &mdash;&mdash; Frontier
+Force had come out solely
+for the purpose of capturing them, and
+that, as it had ridden some forty miles
+to do it, it would not be in a good
+temper. It was therefore rather hard
+to judge of their hostility, because as
+soon as they were confronted with the
+General and the interpreter they gave
+one yell of "Allah!" and fell flat, face
+downwards, in the sand, from
+which position they refused to move.
+They would not even budge when the interpreter
+took all their clothes off with
+a view to searching them. They probably
+thought this was merely a preliminary
+to skinning them. When
+they were finally induced to speak, I
+believe they were understood to say
+that we were the first men they'd seen
+for eight years. I don't wonder they
+were frightened. If you have lived all
+your life all alone in the middle of a
+howling desert with Grandfather it's a
+very frightening thing when a complete
+Frontier Force marches forty miles for
+the sole purpose of capturing you.</p>
+
+<p>But the day's excitement was not
+over yet. Towards evening I took my
+troop off at a gallop in person and
+captured a camel. It was a very young
+camel, hardly bigger than a sheep on
+stilts, and it cried like a child at the
+sight of me. This, I hope, was not so
+much due to my frightful appearance
+in my red moustaches as to the fact
+that it had probably never seen a man
+at all (not being eight years old), let
+alone an army.</p>
+
+<p>The curious aversion which it conceived
+for my moustache threatened to
+hold up the entire Frontier Force for
+the rest of the day, for it would neither
+be led nor driven. Fortunately, however,
+we had a very black Soudanese
+camel-driver with us as guide, and he
+came and spat at it, which soothed it
+considerably, and it followed him like
+a lamb. We got it back to camp next
+day and it is tied up near my tent. It
+has apparently made up its mind to
+waive the moustache question, and we
+now spit at one another in the friendliest
+fashion whenever I pass. I hope
+in time to train it to bring up my bath
+water in the morning from the three
+palm-trees.</p>
+
+<p><i>Later.</i>&mdash;The camel was the last
+episode of the campaign, and we returned
+to &mdash;&mdash; yesterday. The total
+bag of a four days' expedition was&mdash;sheep,
+8; shepherds, 2; camel, 1. The
+human section was subsequently released
+on the grounds that their
+political views were satisfactory.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/220.png"><img width="100%" src="images/220.png" alt=""/></a><p><span class="sc">A well-known octopus family, having heard of the
+undersea photography, decides to pose.</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>ON THE MENACE OF HOME-BAKERY.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+["Women <i>can</i> bake bread if
+they will. It is much easier than
+trimming hats."&mdash;<i>"Housewife,"
+in "The Daily News."</i>]
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Aminta, be not led away</p>
+<p>By words that sanguine women say;</p>
+<p>Though simpler be the baking bread</p>
+<p>Than trimming gear for your fair head,</p>
+<p>Let your concern remain, I ask,</p>
+<p>The sterner and the nobler task.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>The nobler task: I'll tell you why.</p>
+<p>Shall Bloggs, our baker, wilt and die</p>
+<p>For loss of trade, his brood of eight</p>
+<p>Left destitute and desolate?</p>
+<p>And must <i>I</i> perish 'neath the stress</p>
+<p>Of culinary frightfulness?</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>No, dear. The millinery art</p>
+<p>Is where I'd have you play your part;</p>
+<p>For, though your hats may work intense</p>
+<p>Despite on my aesthetic sense,</p>
+<p>Whatever pain their crudeness brings</p>
+<p>At least I needn't eat the things.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Commercial Candour.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"You never know your luck when you get
+our <span class="sc">FRUIT</span>."&mdash;<i>Advt. in Irish Paper.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"<i>Mr. Hayes.</i> Certainty is defined in Webster
+as the maximum of our expectations.
+(Loud laughter.)</p>
+
+<p><i>The Judge</i> (<i>laughing</i>). Let us get on. This
+is more like <i>Punch</i> than anything else.
+(Laughter.)"&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It will now have to be called the
+Supreme Court of Punch and Judicature.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221"></a>[pg 221]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/221.png"><img width="100%" src="images/221.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Dear Old Lady.</i> <span class="sc">"It must be a great strain for
+the man up the periscope."</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Nephew.</i> <span class="sc">"Yes, he has a thin time."</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>PULP FAMINE NOTICES.</h2>
+
+<h3>(<i>A Hint to Reviewers.</i>)</h3>
+
+<p>A <span class="sc">WRITER</span> in a recent issue of <i>The
+Daily Chronicle</i> prefaces a column of
+novel notices with the following remarks:
+"The smaller papers consequent
+upon the famine in 'pulp' have
+made the reviewing of the new novels
+rather a job, but at least it is possible
+to give news of them."</p>
+
+<p>But the writer tackles his job in a
+half-hearted manner, using such ponderous
+polysyllables as "international"
+and "acquisition." Now Mr. Punch,
+always ready to lend a hand in a good
+cause, has instructed one of his young
+men to rewrite two of <i>The Chronicle</i>
+reviews in words of one syllable, and
+presents them to his contemporary as
+models for imitation in the future.</p>
+
+<p><b>I.&mdash;Mrs. Ward.</b></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">A Great Hit.</span> By Mrs. Hump. Ward.
+Lond., Smith, Eld., <i>3s. 6d.</i> net.</p>
+
+<p>For the most part Mrs. <span class="sc">Ward</span> writes
+long yarns, and those who read her
+books look to her for more than five
+score thou. words. Here she gives us
+a short tale in which the three chief
+<i>r&ocirc;les</i> are filled by a man who earns
+lots of dibs by his pen, his wife, and
+their, or his, friend&mdash;a peer's wife,
+who takes him up for her own ends.
+She tries in her hard bright way to
+shape his course as she views it, which
+means a place in the sun for <i>her</i>. The
+wife, who has brains as well as a warm
+heart, will not be robbed of her man
+like this, puts up a good fight, and in
+the end has the best of the bout with
+the pale witch with dark eyes who had
+waved her wand o'er the knight of the
+pen. It is not poss. to deal with all the
+points of Mrs. <span class="sc">Hump. Ward's</span> book in
+words of one syll., but we can at least
+say here is a good tale to speed the
+flight of the hours of eve.</p>
+
+<p><b>II.-The Bills.</b></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">The Shop Girl.</span> By C. N. and A. M.
+Sons o' Bill. Lond., Meth., <i>6s.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Miss Child</i> is a nice sweet girl with
+lots of sense who goes to the land of
+the Yanks and makes things hum a bit
+in a nice sweet way. She meets her
+fate on board the big ship on the way
+out; but a long and bright yarn has to
+be read ere she makes the Port of Joy.
+We see a Yank store in full swing,
+learn much of the way it is worked,
+and the folk who run it are well drawn.
+To be frank one could scarce think that
+so <i>chic</i> a tale could be made out of the
+prose of New York. But to the Bills&mdash;if
+I may so call them&mdash;all the world is
+a stage, and they see through the heart
+of the New Eve with a gaze that is
+quite weird. In fine this is a tale in
+which the Bills, while they take new
+ground, write with all their old <i>flair</i>
+and charm.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>FORAIN.</h3>
+
+<p>When <span class="sc">M. Raemaekers</span> went to Paris
+the other day to receive his decoration
+and be f&ecirc;ted for his fine pro-Ally spirit,
+it was M. <span class="sc">Forain</span>, as the head of living
+French cartoonists, who received him
+in the name of France and conferred
+the Order. M. <span class="sc">Forain's</span> public appearances
+are nowadays few and far between,
+but he still wields&mdash;and none
+more searchingly&mdash;a pencil keen and
+swift as a sword, and he never takes
+it in hand but to create something
+memorable. A selection of his recent
+work is now on view in London at
+22, Montagu Square, the residence of
+Mr. <span class="sc">Campbell Dodgson</span>, the Keeper of
+the Prints at the British Museum, the
+proceeds of the entrance fees being
+intended for a hospital for French
+wounded soldiers at Arc-en-Barrois.
+The little exhibition, which should be
+seen by all who love great draughtsmanship
+and France, remains open
+until April 1.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id="page222"></a>[pg 222]</span>
+
+<h2>AT THE PLAY.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="sc">"The Barton Mystery."</span></p>
+
+<p>One of the most difficult feats of
+juggling is, I understand, the deft tossing
+up and catching of a heavy weight
+(say a dumb-bell), a very light weight,
+such as a champagne cork, together
+with any old thing of irregular shape,
+a bedroom candlestick, for instance.
+Mr. <span class="sc">Walter Hackett's</span> <i>The Barton
+Mystery</i> is a most ingenious turn of
+this sort.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>fianc&eacute;</i> of the sister of the wife of
+<i>Richard Standish, M.P.</i>, is under sentence
+of death for the murder of <i>Mr.
+Barton</i>. He happens to be innocent,
+though he admits at the trial that he
+quarrelled violently with and even
+threatened <i>Barton</i> on the night of the
+murder, and his revolver has been found
+by the dead man's side. That vindictive
+relict, <i>Mrs. Barton</i>, is holding back some
+material evidence which could save the
+condemned man, or so <i>Standish</i> thinks,
+and she is adamant. Now <i>Barton</i> was
+unquestionably a bad egg, but the
+widow doesn't want the whole world
+to know it&mdash;at least not till she finds
+the woman. Some woman, who had
+incidentally written some, shall we say,
+very impetuous love letters, is being
+shielded. Who is she? Is it <i>Standish's</i>
+wife, for instance? Ah!... This is
+the dumb-bell.</p>
+
+<p>A <i>Lady Marshall</i>, the wife of a <i>Sir
+Everard Marshall</i>, a comic scientist in
+perpetual flight from his overwhelming
+spouse, is one of the sort that finds a
+new religion every few months and is
+now in the first fast furious throes of
+her latest, which is some form of psychomania,
+whereof the high priest is one
+<i>Beverley</i>, a plausible ringletted charlatan
+of alcoholic tendencies (<i>Sludge the
+Medium</i>, without his cringe and snarl),
+who ekes out his spasmodic visitations
+of genuine psychic illumination with
+the most shameless spoof. This is
+the cork.</p>
+
+<p>The candlestick is the dream <i>motif</i>,
+always a ticklish business to handle,
+and in this particular case&mdash;well, no, I
+won't be such a spoil-sport as to go into
+that, for the chief pleasure of this kind
+of an entertainment is the succession
+of pleasant unexpected shocks which
+are deftly administered to the audience
+by the author.</p>
+
+<p>There were times indeed when the
+latter nearly dropped his dumb-bell&mdash;times
+when it was in imminent peril
+of barging into the cork; and most
+certainly the candlestick very nearly
+slipped out of his hand. But it just
+didn't, so you will see that it was really
+a most exceptional piece of jugglery.
+Of course I will admit you have to
+swallow the robust assumption that
+into a household over which the shadow
+of death in its ugliest form hovers so
+threateningly two fatuous people, to
+wit the scientist and his wife, can
+come and babble about their own
+trivial domestic troubles or their latest
+philosophy of life. But then mystery
+plays always are like that, and this is a
+jolly good one of its kind&mdash;a kind which
+it pains me, as a superior person, to
+confess that I liked enormously.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width:40%;"><a href="images/222.png"><img width="100%" src="images/222.png" alt=""/></a><p>THE MEDIUM AND THE PALMIST.</p>
+
+<p><i>Beverley</i> ... Mr. <span class="sc">H. B. Irving</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir Everard Marshall</i> ... Mr. <span class="sc">Holman Clark</span>.</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="sc">H. B. Irving</span> as the preposterous
+<i>Beverley</i> was in his very best form.
+<i>Beverley</i> is really a creation. How
+much the author's and how much the
+player's it would be an impertinence
+to inquire. This imperturbable trickster
+with his thin streak of genuine sensitiveness
+to psychic influence; his
+grotesquely florid style&mdash;the man certainly
+has style; his frank reliance on
+apt alcohol's artful aid; his cadging
+epicureanism; his keen eye for supplementary
+data for his inductions and
+prophecies; his cynical candour when
+detected, is presented to us with Mr.
+<span class="sc">Irving's</span> rich-flavoured and most whimsical
+sense of comedy, with all his
+exuberant abundance of gracious or
+fantastic gesture and resourceful business.
+In the trances, sometimes real,
+sometimes simulated, he gives you a
+plausible sketch of how a modicum of
+psychic power (whatever that may be),
+laced with whisky neat, might colour
+a s&eacute;ance. Mr. <i>Hackett</i>, by way of
+showing that he has not ignored the
+literature of his subject, has adapted
+from the admirable, but, I regret to
+say, entirely untrustworthy, because
+incurably original, <span class="sc">Maeterlinck</span> an entirely
+new definition of psychometry.
+But we certainly will not go into that.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Holman Clark</span> as the sceptical
+<i>Sir Everard</i>, completely spoofed by
+<i>Beverley</i> in the end, with an elaborate
+make-up ruthlessly reminding us of
+our simian ancestry, potters cleverly
+about the stage with that admirable
+and amiable craft which he has at such
+easy command. Miss <span class="sc">Marie Illington</span>
+as <i>Lady Marshall</i>, the seeker after
+light, kept the burlesquerie of her part
+skilfully within bounds&mdash;indeed this
+matter of key was extraordinarily well
+handled by the three players entrusted
+with what I have ventured to call the
+cork <i>motif</i>.</p>
+
+<p>As to the more serious business, Mr.
+<span class="sc">H. V. Esmond</span> seemed to behave very
+much as one would imagine a decent
+M.P. behaving in such embarrassing
+circumstances. He suspected his wife
+with all the ardour which public
+men on the stage always exhibit. His
+little turn of desperate tragedy carried
+conviction&mdash;almost too much conviction,
+as you will find&mdash;but I won't
+explain.</p>
+
+<p>Miss <span class="sc">Jessie Winter</span>, as his wife,
+very adroitly contrived an ambiguous
+effect of likely guilt but possible innocence.
+She more than fulfils the promise
+of her last performance in this
+theatre, but she must (may I tell her?)
+arrest the development of "the Fatal
+C&aelig;sura," that exasperating histrionic
+device whereby every salient phrase
+is broken up for no conceivable reason
+into two halves. In the secondary
+stages there is but slender hope of a
+cure; in the tertiary there is none.</p>
+
+<p>Miss <span class="sc">Darragh</span> was, as required, the
+vindictive widow to the life (this kind
+of life, you understand), and Miss <span class="sc">Hilda
+Bayley</span> played very charmingly the
+little wilful <i>fianc&eacute;e</i> who&mdash;but no, I must
+keep my promise.</p>
+
+<p>With much less evidence than the
+applause and generally keyed-up attitude
+of the Savoy audience afforded me,
+I could risk a psychic communication
+in the authentic manner of a Beverley
+s&eacute;ance. "All is dark.... It is getting
+light.... I see a man.... He leans
+eagerly to a telephone.... He thrusts
+something into envelopes. He goes on
+thrusting things into envelopes. The
+telephone keeps ringing.... It is....
+Can it be? Yes, it <i>is</i> a Box Office." An
+institution which at the Savoy should be
+busy for many months to come.</p>
+
+<p>T.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>A Misnomer.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"In memory of the name of the late Dr.
+F. C. Batchelor it is proposed that the name
+of the Forth Street Maternity Hospital (Dunedin)
+be altered to that of the Batchelor
+Hospital."&mdash;<i>Southland Times</i> (<i>N.Z.</i>)
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id="page223"></a>[pg 223]</span>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/223.png"><img width="100%" src="images/223.png" alt="" /></a><p> <i>Mother.</i> <span class="sc">"Did you remember to pray for
+everybody, dear?"</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Daughter.</i> <span class="sc">"Well, Mummy, I prayed for you, but Jack prayed for
+Daddy. He's looking after him just now</span>."</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>MUSIC IN WAR TIME.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Converted Collector.</h3>
+
+<p>(<i>An Order in Council prohibits the importation
+of all musical instruments.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>In ancient, peaceful <i>ante-bellum</i> days&mdash;</p>
+<p>Now far remote as <span class="sc">Hannibal's</span> or <span class="sc">Hanno's</span>&mdash;</p>
+<p>I had a weakness, possibly a craze,</p>
+<p>For buying Hun pianos.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I let no patriotic sentiment</p>
+<p>My honest inclination curb or fetter;</p>
+<p>On foreign articles my cash I spent,</p>
+<p>Because I liked them better.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Nor would I now proscribe Germanic Art,</p>
+<p>Their one surviving claim to lasting glory,</p>
+<p>Or bar <span class="sc">Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, Mozart&mdash;</span></p>
+<p><span class="sc">Strauss</span> is another story.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>But while our enemy unshattered stands</p>
+<p>In any single theatre or sector,</p>
+<p>I take no interest in German "grands,"</p>
+<p>As player or collector.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I will not have them broken up or burned,</p>
+<p>Although they cease to give me delectation,</p>
+<p>That mean to keep them suitably interned</p>
+<p>Throughout the War's duration.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>But now the Board of Trade, those lynx-eyed gents,</p>
+<p>Our economic needs severely scanning,</p>
+<p>The importation of all instruments</p>
+<p>Have just resolved on banning.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>No matter; I possess a set of pipes</p>
+<p>Made in the land whose emblem is the Thistle;</p>
+<p>Three Indian tom-toms of peculiar types</p>
+<p>And a Bolivian whistle.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I've a Peruvian nose-flute, made of bone,</p>
+<p>A war-conch brought me from the South Pacific,</p>
+<p>Which, by a leather-lunged performer blown,</p>
+<p>Is really quite horrific.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I have some balalaikas, few though fit,</p>
+<p>Whose strings I have acquired some skill in tweaking;</p>
+<p>And several pifferi, whose tubes emit</p>
+<p>A most unearthly squeaking.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>I am, alas! too old and weak to fight,</p>
+<p>But on these non-Teutonic pipes and tabors</p>
+<p>I hope a martial spirit to incite</p>
+<p>In "conscientious" neighbours.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>And when my time, as soon it must, shall come,</p>
+<p>My epitaph perhaps might thus begin well:</p>
+<p>"He 'did his bit' upon the Indian drum;</p>
+<p>He played the mandolin well.</p>
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+<p>Others who stayed at home to criticize</p>
+<p>More vocal proved; he, on a falling rental,</p>
+<p>In furthering the cause of the Allies</p>
+<p>Was always instrumental."</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In an account of a <span class="sc">Burns</span>' celebration
+given by the <i>North Battleford News</i>
+(Saskatchewan), it is remarked that "the
+absence of any kind of spirituous liquors
+around the festive board and the fact
+that the ladies were present" were
+unique features of the entertainment.
+But, according to the same report, there
+was yet another: "'The Immoral
+Memory' was given by Rev. D.
+Munro."</p>
+
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224" id="page224"></a>[pg 224]</span>
+
+<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+
+<h3>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics.</i>)</h3>
+
+<p>It is a tragic coincidence that, just as <span class="sc">Rupert Brooke's</span>
+now famous sonnets were published in volume form after
+his own death, the appearance of his <i>Letters from America</i>
+(<span class="sc">Sidgwick and Jackson</span>) follows immediately upon the
+death of Mr. <span class="sc">Henry James</span>, who had written the preface
+to them. Thus in one book we have the last work of two
+writers, widely separated in age and circumstance, but
+united by a very real bond of artistic and personal
+sympathy. How generous was the elder man's appreciation
+of the younger may be seen in this preface; it is at its best
+and simplest in dealing with that charm of personality by
+which all who knew <span class="sc">Rupert Brooke</span> will most vividly
+remember him. Elsewhere it must be confessed that the
+preface is by no means easy reading, so that one emerges
+at last a little breathless upon the transparent and sunlit
+stream of the <i>Letters</i> themselves. Many who recall these
+from their publication in <i>The Westminster Gazette</i> will be
+glad to meet them again. Those who knew the writer only
+as the poet of 1914 will perhaps
+wonder to find him the
+whimsical and smiling young
+adventurer who moves with
+such boyish enjoyment through
+these pages. There is holiday
+humour in them, even in the
+occasional statistics&mdash;holiday
+tasks, these latter; and everywhere
+the freshness of an unclouded
+vision. "Only just in
+time," one thinks, sharing the
+happiness that his <i>Letters</i>
+reflect, and grateful for it as
+for a beautiful thing snatched
+so narrowly from fate.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Mrs. <span class="sc">Belloc Lowndes</span> has
+written a story of the War
+that has at least the distinction
+of being absolutely
+fair. She has indeed got so
+far away from the perhaps
+excusable error of painting
+Germans uniformly black that her Huns in <i>The Red
+Cross Barge</i> (<span class="sc">Smith, Elder</span>) are made upon the average
+quite as attractive as their enemies. This by way of
+warning, so that if you are in no mood to look for
+pearls amid swine you may avoid some impatience and
+a feeling that impartiality can be carried too far. Not by
+any means that <i>The Red Cross Barge</i> is a pro-German
+book.... There is an attractive sense of atmosphere about
+Mrs. <span class="sc">Lowndes</span>' picture of the little French town in which
+a group of Germans are left during what appears to them
+the triumphal march to Paris. Here <i>Herr Doktor Max
+Keller</i> meets and falls in love with a French girl who is
+looking after certain wounded of both nations. The peaceful
+and picturesque air of the little place during this quiet
+occupation is well contrasted with the horrors that befall
+it when the draggled and drink-sodden soldiery come surging
+back in their retreat from the Marne. Eventually, just as
+the Germans are leaving, <i>Keller</i> is fatally wounded, and
+dies holding the hand of the enemy who has become so
+dear to him. One can hardly call the tale anything but
+sentimental, but it is sentiment of a fragrant and wholesome
+kind. In the years to come such stories will no
+doubt multiply indefinitely, but there will be few more
+gracefully and gently told.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/224.png"><img width="100%" src="images/224.png" alt=""/></a><p><i>Corporal (alluding to knock-kneed man).</i> <span class="sc">"It's
+no good; 'e never looks smart. Look at 'im now&mdash;the top 'alf of 'is legs
+standing to attention and the bottom 'alf standing at ease!"</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Richard Pryce</span>, true to the fashion of describing
+the childhood of heroes at great length, has in <i>David
+Penstephen</i> (<span class="sc">Methuen</span>) out-<span class="sc">Comptoned Mackenzie</span>. <i>David</i>
+in fact dallied so persistently in the nursery that I began
+to wonder if he would ever emerge; but, when he does
+get a move on, his story is strangely appealing. His father
+and mother, having ideas of their own, had excused themselves
+from the formalities of wedlock, and before <i>Mrs.
+Penstephen</i> broke down under the strain of this omission
+<i>David</i> and his sister, <i>Georgiana</i>, were born. Subsequently
+the parents were married, and had another son. But before
+this legitimate addition to the family a boating accident had
+deprived the world of two cousins of <i>Penstephen p&egrave;re</i>, and
+in consequence he inherited a baronetcy. This change of
+fortune affected his views, and as time passed by he became
+as orthodox a baronet as any you could wish to find in <i>Burke</i>.
+All of which was galling to <i>David's</i> mother, who loved and
+was jealous for those children who were born to suffer for
+their parents' original morals. The situation required very
+delicate handling, and Mr. <span class="sc">Pryce</span> is to be congratulated
+warmly upon the manner in which he has developed it.
+Perhaps a little more humour
+would have added salt to the
+tale, but however that may be
+we have a careful study of a
+boy and an exquisitely sympathetic
+portrait of a mother.
+The latter part of the book
+is admirable both in what it
+tells and in what it merely
+suggests. More is the pity
+that Mr. <span class="sc">Pryce</span> has weighed
+down <i>David's</i> childish back
+with too heavy a load of detail.
+My advice to you is to skip
+some of the earlier pages, and
+so husband your strength for
+the better enjoyment of the
+remainder.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><i>The Duel</i> (<span class="sc">Allen and
+Unwin</span>) is a study in the
+<span class="sc">Gorky</span> tradition, by <span class="sc">Alexander
+Kuprin</span>, of life in an
+obscure Russian regiment and
+an out-of-the-way provincial town before the great awakening
+that followed Mukden and Port Arthur purged away
+much dross and prepared the way for these latter days of
+sacrifice and heroism. It is a mournful document, a piece
+of devil's advocacy, a Russian counterpart of Lieutenant
+<span class="sc">Bilse's</span> <i>Life in a Garrison Town</i>, identical in temper and
+astonishingly similar in some of its detail. It is clear that
+the author, who was for seven years an infantry lieutenant
+and probably little fitted for the military life even at its best,
+endured much unhappiness, for the marks of suffering have
+burnt themselves into the book so savagely that the English
+translation, though characterized by a crudity which might
+reasonably be expected to accomplish much in the way of
+eliminating the personality of the author, cannot quite
+rob his work of its impression of power and intimate
+tragedy.  Those who are not in search of light refreshment
+and who will remember that this last decade of
+Russian national regeneration and reorganisation has
+rooted up the incompetence, the false standards, the irregular
+discipline and the inhuman barriers between officers
+and men here commented upon, may read these bitter
+chapters with profit. As for the translator, he might do
+well to study one of the <span class="sc">Garnett Turgenieffs</span>, and see
+how this kind of thing should be done.</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+150, March 29, 1916, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,1866 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150,
+March 29, 1916, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: September 20, 2007 [EBook #22688]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH,
+
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 150.
+
+
+
+March 29, 1916
+
+[Illustration:
+_Fond Mother._ "Anything in the paper, dear?"
+_Wage-earner (not unkindly)._ "No, Ma--nothing you could understand."]
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+"His seventy-one years sit lightly on Mr. GIBSON BOWLES," says the
+Special Correspondent of _The Evening News_. No doubt Mr. BOWLES has
+some good reason for permitting this familiarity, for he is not a man to
+be lightly sat upon.
+
+       ***
+
+"In particular," says a report on the resources of German East Africa,
+"the President of the Silk Association has just directed attention to
+the wild silk of the anaphe worm." The animal the great two-horned
+silkworm discovered by Sir HARRY JOHNSTON, before whose furious charges,
+according to the report of natives, even the elephant will give way.
+
+       ***
+
+A telegram from Rome states that it is generally believed that Admiral
+TIRPITZ resigned because he could not take the German Fleet out. Others
+again maintain that it was because he could no longer take the German
+people in.
+
+       ***
+
+It was recently stated in a Parliamentary Report that verminous uniforms
+had been purchased by the Government for the sum of L2,650 and
+immediately resold for L400. The difference is accounted for by the fact
+that they were sold as going concerns.
+
+       ***
+
+A white rook has been observed at Boston Road, Brentford, and a local
+ornithologist writes to say that the bird is probably an accidental
+straggler from King's Bishop's Fourth.
+
+       ***
+
+"To-day in many English homes," says a patriotic contemporary, "alien
+birds are carolling all unconscious of their countries' doom." One had
+independently noticed how the modulated of the Turkey buzzard had taken
+on a mournful tone.
+
+       ***
+
+"It is not unusual for horses to go to sleep as they walk along," said a
+sagacious coroner last week. How often in the old four-wheeler days,
+when we were going _ventre a terre_ from Buckingham Palace to the
+National Liberal Club, conversation was rendered impossible by the
+snores of the flying steed.
+
+       ***
+
+The price of admission to Kew for perambulators is 3d. on ordinary days,
+1s. on student days. The extra charge has been found necessary because
+of the fact that large numbers of horticulturists, in order to escape
+military service, have taken to travelling in these vehicles.
+
+       ***
+
+According to the author of _In a College Garden_ "it is not advisable to
+encourage any but educated ladies to become gardeners." It is always
+pleasant to note the extent to which a simple thing like a potato will
+recognise and respond to gentility in those who associate with it.
+
+       ***
+
+    "The Italian Ambassador opened the exhibition of the Royal
+    Society of Brush Artists at the society's premises in
+    Suffolk-street."
+
+    _Evening Paper._
+
+Mr. Punch welcomes the implicit admission that there are others.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "What is needed is that we should have on each of the main lines
+    of our overseas communications at least one ship that is faster
+    than anything else afloat."--_Manchester Guardian_.
+
+Is it not extraordinary that the Admiralty should never have thought of
+this simple device?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a theatre programme:--
+
+    "All the Male Members of the above Company are either attested
+    under Lord Derby's Scheme, or are otherwise Ineligible for
+    Service."
+
+The erroneous impression that to be attested is the short road to
+ineligibility has evidently spread from the platform to the stage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOR THEY ARE JOLLY POOR FELLOWS.
+
+    [The fine example of patriotism shown by the Universities of
+    Oxford and Cambridge throws into painful relief the action of
+    some of the obscure remnant, including College Fellows, who have
+    excused themselves from service or adopted an attitude of
+    superior detachment in relation to the War.]
+
+  You Intellectuals of Cam and Isis,
+    Pale phantoms in the dawn of Freedom's light,
+  And you that in this hour of England's crisis
+    Haven't the conscience (or the heart) to fight;
+
+  You cosmopolitans without a country,
+    Who go aloof on philosophic quests,
+  Sucking the fruit of knowledge from the Hun-tree
+    And spiritual milk from alien breasts;
+
+  False to that Brotherhood, who for the splendour
+    Of a great cause, with gallant hearts and gay,
+  Of youth and youth's high promise made surrender,
+    Because their courage knew the nobler way;
+
+  I envy not your chance on their returning;
+    When, scarred with war, they come from overseas,
+  There should be trouble in those Seats of Learning
+    Where you sat tight and took your pedants' ease.
+
+  Short shrift you'll get for your convenient scruples;
+    Conducted thither where the wet stream winds
+  You shall receive as elementary pupils
+    An object-lesson good for little minds.
+
+  Somewhere about the Guts of Cam and Isis,
+    May I be well in front to see you then
+  Taught by immersion what the local price is
+    To pay for being prigs instead of men.
+
+O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PHILOGAMUS.
+
+(_A Socratic Fragment_.)
+
+"... It is plain, therefore," said Socrates, "that the man whose soul is
+afflicted with illness will desire above all things to have it cured as
+quickly as possible, and for this purpose he will submit himself to one
+who understands the curing of souls. So far, I think, we are agreed, are
+we not?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Agathon, "that would appear to be the wisest
+course."
+
+"Then why," said Socrates, "do we find that men who are generally eager
+to be cured of an ague are indisposed to take care of their soul when it
+is manifestly suffering? You yourself have declared that your soul is
+sick within you, yet you consult nobody and take no steps."
+
+"Nay, nay, Socrates, I cannot allow you to catch me like this. Perhaps I
+spoke thoughtlessly when I mentioned my soul just now. Certainly I had
+not intended that you should tie me up with your questions and draw
+conclusions which it was impossible for me to foresee."
+
+"Then I suppose the fault must be mine, for in truth I had not designed
+to catch anyone, least of all yourself, my dear Agathon. But we will
+defer the consideration of the matter to a more favourable time, for I
+see Philogamus approaching and, if we may judge by the outward signs, he
+seems to be, as one might say, in a terrible state."
+
+Hereupon we turned to observe Philogamus, to whom indeed something
+painful and calamitous must have happened, for his garments were
+disarrayed and his hair was unkempt, and anger was seated upon his
+frowning brow, and he was muttering to himself and calling the gods to
+witness that he was unjustly treated and that no such misfortune had
+ever before happened to any other man; and he was beating his hands
+wildly together and was forgetting to salute his friends. Seeing him
+thus distraught Socrates plucked him by the sleeve as he passed and
+addressed him.
+
+"Hail, Philogamus," he said, "what great misfortune do you announce to
+us? Have the Barbarians at last seized upon the Piraeus, and are they
+even now marching irresistibly on the Acropolis? Are you sent out to
+summon us to arms? Here are a few of us who will join with you, laying
+aside even their most pressing private business, and will help to defend
+the State and themselves to the last gasp. Only do you deliver your
+message and let us know."
+
+"This," said Philogamus, "is no moment for laughing, though in laughter,
+O Socrates, you are always easily first, as they say, and the rest
+nowhere. But have you not heard what has happened?"
+
+"No," said Socrates, "and we much desire to know. I can speak
+confidently for myself, and Agathon here is, I am sure, in a fever of
+impatience."
+
+"Listen, then, and, by the gods, you shall be made aware of an injustice
+that calls for immediate redress. They are even now on the point of
+calling up the married men to go to the War."
+
+"That is very interesting; and what do the married men say to it?"
+
+"What do they say?" shouted Philogamus. "They say they will not go
+unless, according to the promises of Darbius and Ascuthius, all the
+unmarried men are taken first;" and he began once more beating his
+breast and glaring with his eyes like a dog who has been for long
+without water.
+
+"Softly, my good friend," said Socrates, "softly. As to the promise, I
+know it is being rigidly kept. All the willing single men are gone or
+going, and the unwilling are being compelled to join as quickly as is
+possible. What more can be done?"
+
+"Something ought to be done."
+
+"That is very true," said Socrates; "something ought always to be
+getting itself done, and the something at this moment is that the
+Barbarians ought to be beaten. But tell me, with regard to the married
+men, are they not concerned in the safety and welfare of the State?"
+
+"That, indeed, they are," said Philogamus; "none more so."
+
+"In that case why do they hang back and complain when the State declares
+that its safety and welfare demand that they should be ready to go?
+Because one here and there has concealed himself, is it for you, a
+married man, to retire when by going you might help to thrust back the
+Barbarians? Are you one of those that are called the attested ones?"
+
+"Yes, that I am," said Philogamus, proudly displaying his brown armlet
+with the red crown.
+
+"Then it is you, as it appears to me, who have given a pledge and made a
+promise, and that promise, I am sure, you will fulfil to the best of
+your ability. When the time comes it is for you to go at once and not to
+weary the market-place with empty noise and murmurs of complaint. For
+remember this: the man who has taken a wife and has brought up children
+under the State's protection owes more, if it be possible...."
+
+(_Here the fragment ends._)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a description of the German Crown Prince:--
+
+    "Before the war he liked to imitate the English, and posed as a
+    German megalomaniac."
+
+    _Daily News_.
+
+Yes, we believe there were some English like that--before the War.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MARKS OF THE BEAST.
+
+[Illustration: _Imperial Beggar_. "PITY A POOR WAR-LORD WHO HAS LOST
+HALF HIS MEN, AND MUST HAVE MORE MONEY IN ORDER TO LOSE THE OTHER
+HALF."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Voice through telephone (to officer dragged up from the
+first sleep he's had for two days)_. "Thought I'd better report,
+Sir.--we've just got the consignment of footballs up."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SCOTTISH REEL THING AT LAST.
+
+Now that Sir J. M. BARRIE has shown us the Transatlantic kinema man's
+idea of the perfect _Macbeth_, it is up to the purveyor of American
+films to retaliate by presenting one of his plots for ordinary stage
+performance in the Kirriemuir manner. Here and there an inadvertent
+touch of Western colour may be anticipated.
+
+Scene.--_Kensington Gardens. The_ Heroine--_oh, the little love!--is
+taking a dander round the "Keep off the Grass" boards. Her feet are
+bare, and this is probably the reason why from time to time she dances
+among the trees. In the background the Hero, wearing a divided kilt,
+rides about on a horse. Having thus given the audience time to settle,
+the play starts._
+
+_Heroine_ (_perceiving_ Hero). Gee! there's that rube I met up North.
+Sic a bonny lad too! (_sighing sadly_). But he hasna much siller, I'm
+sair misdootin'. Guess there's no twelve-pound look about him.
+
+_Hero_ (_dashing up and dismounting_). Wal, I wanter know. Say, ain't
+you the peach I useter see from my window in Thrums?
+
+_Heroine_ (_coyly_). Havers!
+
+_Hero_ (_not to be outdone_), Dagont!
+
+[_She strolls away with her chin in the air, her shoes and stockings in
+her hands, and the famous red light in her eye. She goes behind a tree,
+and the_ Hero, _thinking she has retired there to greet sadly, follows
+to console her. However, he discovers that she is merely resuming her
+footgear, and he retreats modestly._]
+
+_Hero_ (_rolling his eyes wildly to denote love_). A snod bit lassie,
+that. I mean to say--I--ay! Juist so! Ay, ou ay!
+
+_Heroine_ (_returning with her shoes on_). For the love of Mike--I mean
+Losh keep's!--are you still here?
+
+_Hero._ That's so. I wanter put you wise about me. I ain't no boob, as
+you seemter think. You can bet your rubbers on that. Maybe you're
+thinkin' that I'm but a puir laddie. Wal, let _me_ tell _you_ you're
+guessin' wrong. I'm an author--I do writin' stunts. And if I don't swell
+around in new pants all afternoon it's only because I have to keep all
+my cheques among the crumbs in my tobacco pouch. I _have_ to do it. All
+the best Scots writers do it. We call it Arcadian Mixture.
+
+_Heroine._ Guess that rollers out the course of true love some. But let
+_me_ tell _you_ there's another feller after me--a puir feckless body of
+a villain. And, Losh preserve us, here he comes!
+
+[_The_ Villain _enters. He looks rather like a revue-producer who has
+seen better nights. The_ Hero, _overcome by bashfulness at being
+discovered in conversation with a female, conceals himself behind his
+accent._]
+
+_Villain._ See here, gal, you just gotter marry me.
+
+_Heroine._ Shucks! I should say, Dinna blether, ma mannie.
+
+[_The_ Hero _creeps cautiously out of ambush._]
+
+_Villain_ (_caressingly_). I have always loved my little Mary.
+
+_Hero_ (_subtly ironic_). Imphm! Imphm! Ou ay, imphm!
+
+_Villain_ (_surprised but finding a way_). Oh, the dears! oh, the
+darlings!
+
+_Hero_ (_bewildered_). What's all that blatherskite, any old way?
+
+_Villain_ (_privily drawing bludgeon_). It was Sneeky Hobart who never
+went to kirk again after they substituted tin plates for the usual cloth
+collecting-bags.
+
+_Hero_ (_perplexed and off his guard_). Guess you've gone bughouse,
+sonny. I mean, I'm no quick in the uptak'----
+
+_Villain._ Are ye no? (_brandishing bludgeon_). Well, I am! (_He fells
+the_ Hero _senseless to the ground._) And noo, lassie, I can sorter
+concentrate on you.
+
+_Heroine_ (_in the most ladylike way_). Help! oh, help!
+
+_Villain._ Say, you don't seemter freeze on to me, somehow. But you must
+and shall be mine! Come awa', lassie.
+
+[_He seizes her and she resists. Meanwhile the_ Hero, _who fell on to a
+clump of genuine thistles, makes a superbly-rapid recovery from his
+unconsciousness._]
+
+_Villain_ (_pausing to mop his brow_). Say, you'll got my goat for sure
+if you kick up like this, lassie.
+
+_Heroine._ Gee! That's a great idea. If only Peter Pan's goat----
+
+[_The_ Hero, _inspired, crawls away unnoticed._]
+
+_Villain_ (_preparing to renew the struggle_). Lassie, I'm quite sweered
+o' you. There's an awesome look in your eye. And can ye no be more
+ladylike in your fechting? Remember whose heroine you are.
+
+[_He again strives to bear her off. The_ Hero, _having broken off a
+couple of branches and affixed them to his head--a little trick he
+learned from the Admirable Crichton--now returns disguised as a goat. He
+rushes at Villain, who flees and scales the park railings. But his
+overcoat collar catches in the spikes, and he hangs suspended and
+helpless. In that position he slowly starves, and dies inconspicuously
+as the_ Hero _and_ Heroine _finish the play._]
+
+_Hero_ (_extending his arms_). Say, is it a deal? I mean, will ye ha'e
+us, lassie?
+
+_Heroine_ (_with little wells of gladness in her eyes_). It's a cinch.
+Guess you're Mr. Smart from Smartville. Ay, I'm thinkin' I'll tak' you.
+But you men are fickle callants--that's what every woman knows. Come
+awa' and let's find a little meenister at once.
+
+_Hero._ Oh, joy! oh, rapture! oh, rosy rapture! [_They embrace and
+exeunt_.]
+
+_The Audience_. Hoots!
+
+Curtain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOURNALISTIC ANTICIPATION.
+
+"THE COMING GREAT SEA BATTLE.
+
+EXCLUSIVE PICTURES."
+
+_"Sunday Herald" Poster._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE KAISER AND THE DECLINING MARK.
+
+A now version has recently been discovered of the old Pickwickian
+inscription:--
+
+         +
+     B I L S T
+       U M
+     P S H I
+      S. M.
+      A R K
+
+It runs as follows:--
+
+    H I S M A
+      R K S
+      T U M
+       P S
+      B I L
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Vicar._ "These Salonikans, Mrs. Stubbs, are of
+course the Thessalonians to whom St. Paul wrote his celebrated letters."
+
+_Mrs. Stubbs._ "Well, I 'ope 'e'd better luck with 'is than I 'ave. I
+sent my boy out there three letters and two parcels, and I ain't got no
+answer to 'em yet."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE FRONT.
+
+The subtlety of the Military mind beats and will beat me to the end.
+Yesterday we lived in a row of earthen dwellings in a depression in the
+ground, which anyone might be excused for referring to, if not as
+trenches, at least as dugouts. These alone of all the marvels of
+military engineering I have observed during the War admitted of being
+shelled with equal exactitude from due in front and due in rear; and
+water seemed to have been laid on throughout. Taking all these things
+into consideration some Authority labelled them, once for all,
+"Billets."
+
+Last night we moved into a commodious cellar of a house which still
+leans against the next. It is only five minutes from town, and tramlines
+pass the door. Nay more, they stop abruptly at the door--such are the
+improvements effected by R.E. Inside the cellar are three bits of
+chairs, a table-top on boxes, and an inimitable ancestral smell that no
+deodorizer known to modern warfare can cope with. And all this is called
+"Trenches!" Our servants do their best to support the official illusion
+by neglecting to clean our boots and regarding with surprise and some
+little sadness any tendency on our part to wash.
+
+But you must not imagine that life here is all honey. Even here we do a
+bit for our eight-and-sixpence. Every evening there comes down from the
+front line a report that our men there want more food. A stricter or
+less beneficent C.O. than ours might at once institute a court of
+inquiry into what has happened to all the food we gave them last night.
+But not so with us. "The boys want food," he says to the Adjutant, "and,
+by Heaven, the boys shall have it."
+
+No sooner said than handed on to someone else to do. The Adjutant works
+off a little bit of his strong personal dislike for me in a note,
+couched, if you please, in the most friendly terms, intimating that he
+has raised heaven and earth to get me off, but the C.O. insists that I
+(as the only competent officer for the task) shall supervise the conduct
+of our rations to the front, middle and back lines to-night. He adds
+that the Intelligence Corps report that information received from
+deserters leads us to suppose that Fritz intends to strafe all roads and
+communication trenches in our sector to-night.
+
+The carrying party is supplied by a sister battalion, and makes the
+night thoroughly well acquainted with its views about a unit that can't
+supply blanks to carry their blanked rations for their blanked selves.
+Sometimes a second or a third trip may be necessary, and then the
+carriers' patriotic fervour expresses itself in terms almost potent
+enough to do the carrying for them. For some reason or other the R.E.,
+who design material for our porterage, consider its end and not its
+portability. Their special line of ready-made wire entanglements would
+entangle a hippopotamus; and when it comes to carrying one a
+mile-and-a-half you find it has no wheels, no handles, and simply won't
+fold up into the pocket. The usual procedure is for a man or two to roll
+on one of these barbed-wire death-traps until they are well stuck on
+them and then crawl to the point of delivery.
+
+Sometimes, of course, we have accidents. Last night, for instance, two
+men were proceeding (by the way the great point about being a soldier is
+that you never walk, run or otherwise ambulate--you proceed, or proceed
+at the double, which of course is much nicer for you)--yes, were
+proceeding, one at each end of an entanglement, along the top of a
+slope, when the leader missed his footing altogether and rolled down to
+the morass below. The second, after a brief struggle, followed with the
+entanglement. This movement involved not only the man behind, who was
+bearing a footboard, but also the remainder of the section. The entire
+avalanche was precipitated on to the leaders, and remained there
+struggling like the population of a fly-paper until a squad arrived with
+wire-cutters. When the R.E. heard of it they wanted the episode
+published in Corps Orders as a testimonial. But what the men wanted done
+about the R.E. I dare not tell you.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE TRUTH ABOUT CINEMALAND.
+
+A DISTINGUISHED neutral observer, who has just returned from a visit to
+Cinemaland, has furnished our representative with the following
+interesting account of his experiences and conclusions.
+
+One of the first things (he says) that impressed me was that in the
+great cities of Cinemaland there is, outwardly at least, little or no
+sign of scarcity. On the contrary, at the various hotels and
+restaurants, as well as several private entertainments that came under
+my observation, a note of almost wanton luxury appeared to be aimed at.
+Evening dress is worn whenever possible, and the costumes of the ladies
+are invariably the last word in ultra-fashionable extravagance. Food is
+as yet obviously plentiful; what is not consumed being frequently flung
+about, especially by the humorous elements of the population, and wasted
+with reckless prodigality.
+
+In spite however of this ostentation signs are not wanting that the true
+condition of the country is increasingly precarious. Crime of all sorts
+is rampant. Judging even by what I myself witnessed within a short
+period, the detectives of Cinemaland must all be working overtime. Quite
+recently a gang, under the leadership of a ruffian who elected to be
+known as The Clutching Hand, made large sums of money by working upon
+the terrors of its victims.
+
+Another significant symptom is that respect for law and authority as
+such appears to be almost non-existent. The police force of Cinemaland
+is a body of men who are most of them of conspicuously full habit. I can
+vouch for it that the appearance of these officials is almost invariably
+greeted with derision; and should they (as frequently happens) incur
+physical maltreatment or other misfortune in the exercise of their
+duties popular sympathy is almost always on the side of their opponents.
+
+A notable exception to this feeling is found in the attitude of the
+populace towards their chosen ruler, the Emperor, or Film-Lord,
+Charlemagne-Chaplin. It is only fair to record that recent spectacular
+(and carefully stage-managed) appearances of the monarch have been
+greeted with every demonstration of unswerving loyalty and affection.
+
+More significant perhaps to an outside spectator is the undeniable fact
+that the Wild Western portions of Cinemaland are to-day in a state of
+turbulence bordering upon anarchy. The Cowboys, who are its chief
+denizens, would seem, so far as my experience goes, to spend their
+entire time in exploits of murderous violence; though here (as elsewhere
+among this remarkable people) the influence of sentiment is often
+unexpectedly potent. It can hardly be doubted that a populace so
+emotional and ill-balanced as that of Cinemaland will have little power
+to withstand the strain of disaster.
+
+Despite my apparent freedom from restraint I am persuaded that I was
+kept under the observation of a number of uniformed officials during the
+whole course of my stay in Cinemaland; and I am bound to confess that my
+departure, which was made under cover of darkness, was not unattended
+with a sense of personal relief.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PARABLES FOR BOSCHES.
+
+Once upon a time there was a Father who was devoted to his child. He fed
+it and nursed it and watched it grow and gave it toys to play with--both
+soldiers and boats. Also he made it promises that some day he would
+extend their house and garden until no house and garden were bigger.
+Every year he took it to the top of a high precipice and showed it
+beautiful lands and water which should some day be theirs.
+
+The child had heard this promise so often that it used to ask, "When?
+when?" And always the answer was, "Some day, some day."
+
+And then at last the day came, and the Father took the child to the high
+precipice yet once more, but behold it chanced that they both fell over
+and were smashed, the Father hopelessly and the child very, very badly,
+so that it would for long years or perhaps for evermore be a cripple.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ONE OF OUR ALLIES.
+
+Somewhere in France--no, let me be bold and say in Paris--there is a
+young French soldier named Charles. Less than two years ago he was a
+plumber and whole; to-day he has but one arm, his left; the other and a
+piece of his shoulder with it having gone in saving his country from the
+foe.
+
+Charles is shy and very modest, and no bigger than so many French
+youths--he is only twenty-two--with dark-brown hair and blue eyes with
+very black centres, and a moustache that never succeeds in looking more
+than three weeks old. Being, however, brave, he does not let his maimed
+condition unduly trouble him, but runs his errands (all that he can now
+do) and whistles as he runs, and is glad to be alive at all, instead of
+dead, as so many of his comrades are and as his Colonel is, as I shall
+tell.
+
+At the Front Charles's duties were these. A despatch--a _pli_, as they
+call it--would be given him either back of the lines to deliver in the
+trenches, or in the trenches to deliver back of the lines, and in order
+to get there, if fighting was in progress, it was necessary for him to
+crawl for perhaps one or two kilometres on his stomach. On a certain day
+of intense activity, Charles in his trench was handed one of these
+critical missives for the commanding officer, who was a kilometre or so
+behind, and this he placed in his satchel and then began the hazardous
+journey.
+
+No one ever knows when the supreme moment of his life is coming; nor did
+Charles, but it was then.
+
+This being a terrific day--as a matter of fact it was during the famous
+battle for the Maison du Passeur, when the French and Germans were
+losing and retaking trenches for hours--he had to crawl all the way,
+only to come suddenly upon the body of the commanding officer himself
+stretched dead in a carrot field.
+
+To Charles's mind there was then but one thing to do, and that was, as
+he had been unable to deliver the message, to take it back to the
+sender. He therefore started on the return journey, and was only a few
+yards from his trench, and still un-hit, when he found a wounded officer
+on the ground. Here was a new problem, but necessarily having to stand
+up and throw aside all precautions, Charles got him as well as he could
+on his back and, still un-hit, half carried, half supported, him to the
+trench, and was at once away again with his despatch. It was at this
+moment that an exploding shell hurled the satchel from big hands and
+flung it on the open ground between the French trenches and the enemy's,
+which were here separated only by a few yards. At any cost the despatch
+must not fall into German hands, and Charles, who miraculously had not
+been injured by the explosion, began instantly to climb out of the
+trench to recover it, and this in spite of a sergeant, who called to him
+to keep under cover. But Charles, having one idea and one only, and that
+was to save from the foe the despatch that had been entrusted to him,
+succeeded in reaching it and securing it; and then came another shell
+that shattered his arm.
+
+That is all he remembers; but he must have rolled back to the bottom of
+the trench, where he was found, two days later, still clutching the
+satchel. And after that, although he remembers the coffee he was given
+to drink, all is a haze until he came fully to himself in hospital and
+found that no longer had he a right arm.
+
+Such is the story of Charles's effort for his country.
+
+Now I do not claim for Charles that he is any braver or has a finer
+sense of duty than many another French soldier; but this I know, that
+when he recovered he was summoned to the Invalides to receive not only
+the _Croix de Guerre_ but the _Medaille Militaire_ with the palm, which
+corresponds to our Victoria Cross, and that now, although, having left
+the Army, he no longer wears uniform but merely such poor civilian
+clothes as he can afford as a messenger, when he walks along the
+Boulevards--which he does as seldom as he can, so shy is he--there is
+not an officer, seeing the ribbons on his coat, who does not salute this
+little plumber with as much punctilio as though he were General JOFFRE
+himself; and, blushing crimson, Charles returns the salute.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Patriotic Scots Lady_ (_patrolling Victoria main-line
+station to assist any of her stranded countrymen arriving from the
+Front_). "Can I help you in any way?"
+
+_Perplexed Scot._ "Thank you, Mam. Is the toon far frae the station?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Mrs. Humphry Ward seems to have gone for inspiration to
+    contemporary characters, and now in 'Tasker Jevons' it is
+    difficult not to find the lineaments of a well-known writer."
+
+    _Evening Standard._
+
+Quite so: and Miss MAY SINCLAIR made _A Great Success_ of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.
+
+II.--King's Cross.
+
+  King's Cross!
+    What shall we do?
+  His purple robe
+    Is rent in two!
+  Out of his crown
+    He's torn the gems!
+  He's thrown his sceptre
+    Into the Thames!
+  The Court is shaking
+    In every shoe--
+  King's Cross!
+    _What_ shall we do?
+  _Leave him alone
+    For a minute or two._
+
+III.--Bishopsgate.
+
+  Bishopsgate Without,
+    Bishopsgate Within!
+  What a clamour at the gate,
+    O what a din!
+  Inside and outside
+  The Bishops bang and shout,
+  Outside crying, "Let me in!"
+  Inside, "Let me out."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "Look here, confound you! What do you mean by your
+'disclosures'? There's nothing here that wasn't in the morning papers."
+
+"I'm sorry you're disappointed, Sir. At the same time I must point out
+to you that my connection with the paper gives me abserlootly no
+influence with the editorial department."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ADJUTANT.
+
+  In that great Room which military error
+    Has miscalled Orderly (for it is not,
+  But full of tumult and debate and terror,
+    And worried writers growing rather hot,
+      For ever floundering in seas of chits
+      And forms and counterfoils and wrathful writs),
+      Alone unfevered mid the storm he sits
+    And tells them all exactly what is what.
+
+  Who so alert to solve the frequent riddle,
+    To judge if Jones should have his train-fare free,
+  Whether the band requires another fiddle,
+    And which is senior, Robinson or me?
+      Who shall indite such circulars as his
+      To Officers Commanding Companies
+      About their musketry, or why it is
+    So many men take sugar in their tea?
+
+  And when at times he shuns the sacred table
+    And like some eagle swoops upon parade,
+  Men mark his coming and there bursts a babel
+    As with new zeal the subalterns upbraid,
+      Lecture and illustrate, and on the right
+      Form sullen squads, and hope they're being bright--
+      Save those white-livered ones who at the sight
+    Hide their commands in some convenient glade.
+
+  For he is terrible; and few folk relish
+    The words of doom which shake his diaphragm;
+  Yet is the heart of him not wholly hellish,
+    But in his playing-hours he's like a lamb;
+      And who'd have said that one so skilled to strafe
+      And, when I err, too truculent by half,
+      Could own so rich, so rollicking a laugh,
+    Would see so well how humorous I am?
+
+  Yet if with leave unasked I quit the barrack,
+    Ever behind I dread that he will call,
+  Speed up the street in some avenging Darracq
+    Or on the Underground retrieve his thrall;
+      Nor in my home can quite escape the spell
+      But freeze with horror at the front-door bell,
+      For fear the parlour-maid may speak my knell,
+    May knock and say that _he_ is in the hall.
+
+  And, sleeping, still I have to brook his blusters;
+    A monstrous Adjutant is always nigh
+  At dream-reviews and endless dreamy musters,
+    Laden with lists and schemes and syllabi;
+      And, though he find no failing anywhere,
+      But all are present and correct and fair,
+      _I_ never fail to make the fellow swear,
+    _I_ always seem to catch his horrid eye.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO THE GLORY OF FRANCE.
+
+[Illustration: VERDUN, FEBRUARY-MARCH, 1916.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+[Illustration: FUNK-HOLES FOR MINISTERS.
+
+Designed for protection against raids by our air-experts.]
+
+_Tuesday, March 21st._--Returning from Westminster this afternoon I
+stumbled in Whitehall upon a Member whom I had not seen in his place
+this Session. "Going down to the House?" I asked. "What, is it sitting?"
+he replied; and then it appeared that he was just home on short leave
+after working hard "somewhere on the Continent," and had no present
+interest in political controversy. As I reflected on a speech I had just
+listened to, it occurred to me that the attitude of some of the
+stay-at-home Members towards the War is much the same as that of my hon.
+friend towards the House. "What, is it still going on?"
+
+If the Germans were in occupation of the Black Country, if Oxford were
+being daily shelled, as Rheims is, and if with a favouring breeze London
+could hear the dull rumble of the bombardment, as Paris can, I wonder if
+Members would still be encumbering the Order-paper with the sort of
+trivialities that now find place there.
+
+An exception may be made in favour of Mr. JOE KING. He has discovered a
+little late in the day that a war is going on in Europe, and that it
+affects a little country called Belgium, whose neutrality was guaranteed
+by the Powers. He was anxious to know whether Belgium had formally
+renounced her neutrality, and was no doubt greatly surprised to learn
+from Sir EDWARD GREY that, owing to one of the guaranteeing Powers
+having invaded her, Belgium had become a belligerent.
+
+I do not know whether Mr. PRINGLE was in the House when this
+announcement was made. But if so it evidently created no impression on
+his mind. In the debate on the Army Estimates he followed Captain TRYON,
+who had delivered an urgent appeal to the Government from the text, "A
+strong Army and a shorter War." Mr. PRINGLE'S ideal is just the reverse.
+In his view the Army is too big already, and is taking too great a toll
+from our industrial and commercial population. The great men who won the
+Napoleonic War--after twenty-three years--had not a big army; and the
+consequence was that, while it was going on, British trade expanded by
+leaps and bounds. To-day, owing to our disastrous military policy the
+demands upon our tonnage were so heavy that people had to go short of
+sugar and tobacco. Let us conserve our resources and be ready to dictate
+terms when Germany has been financially ruined. When Mr. PRINGLE at last
+sat down after three-quarters of an hour of this sort of thing I longed
+for ten minutes of Mr. BALFOUR at his best. But he was not present, and
+Mr. LONG was so much occupied in defending the Government against the
+charge of having broken faith with the married men that Mr. PRINGLE
+never got the trouncing he deserved.
+
+_Wednesday, March 22nd._--One of the most cherished beliefs of the House
+of Commons is that upon the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill
+anything under the sun may be discussed. Colonel YATE was justly
+surprised, therefore, when the SPEAKER ruled that he was out of order in
+criticising the Indian Government for its conduct of the Mesopotamian
+Expedition, and advised him to reserve his remarks for the Indian Budget
+discussion--equivalent in these times to the Greek Kalends.
+
+Mr. CHAMBERLAIN was surprised too, but, regardless of the ruling,
+proceeded to make a carefully-prepared reply to the speech which the
+Hon. and gallant Member had not been allowed to deliver. He frankly
+admitted that there had been a lamentable breakdown of the hospital
+arrangements, but steps had been taken to improve them, and a telegram
+from General LAKE showed that the treatment of the men wounded in the
+recent engagement was satisfactory.
+
+Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING essayed another and a longer flight to-day, but
+had a good deal of engine trouble. His Parliamentary friends ought to
+have warned him that the House does not care to listen to a man reading
+extracts from his own leading articles, however prophetic they may have
+been; that the constant reiteration of a phrase such as "I would like to
+suggest, Mr. SPEAKER," soon becomes tiresome, and that to call somebody
+else "the De Rougemont of the air" is to invite the _tu quoque_. Members
+became more and more impatient as the orator became more and more
+dogmatic; and when he rhetorically demanded the name of "one man to whom
+we could turn to solve the problem" they derisively chorused, "BILLING!"
+Mr. TENNANT, recognising the feeling of the House, did not spend much
+time in refuting Mr. BILLING's wild assertions, but devoted most of his
+speech to replying to Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS, who had pleaded that the
+East-Coast towns should be more promptly warned of approaching
+air-raids. He had personally investigated the arrangements and was
+positively "staggered" at "the wonderful network that had been set up,"
+and he invited Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS to come with him privately and share
+his amazement. Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH was not convinced. He thought that
+there were still too many strands of red tape in the network, and
+reiterated the hope that the DERBY Committee would soon develop into a
+Ministry of the Air.
+
+_Thursday, March 23rd._--A distressing report in the papers this
+morning, that the _Galloper_ had been blown up by the Germans, made the
+friends of Sir FREDERICK SMITH anxious. Had he, on one of his periodical
+visits to the trenches to see Friend WINSTON, stumbled across an enemy
+mine? Happily the report was grossly exaggerated. The _Galloper_ was
+only a light-ship, and had not been destroyed by the enemy but merely
+withdrawn by the Trinity House; and on the Treasury Bench this afternoon
+there was the ATTORNEY-GENERAL very much alive.
+
+Mr. TREVELYAN had a motion on the paper condemning the administration of
+the Defence of the Realm Act, and in support of it produced a sheaf of
+cases, in which he said the Government had abused its powers. Among
+other acts of vile oppression they had ravished from her home, on
+September 1st, while her father was away shooting partridges, and had
+subsequently interned without trial, a young lady against whom no charge
+had been formulated. It sounded very dreadful, and someone called out,
+"Is this a Russian case?"
+
+Then arose Sir F. E. SMITH, and with a few forensic gestures demolished
+the house of cards that Mr. TREVELYAN had so laboriously erected. Most
+of his cases were out of court because they had already been in court,
+the decisions he impugned being those of the magistrates. As for the
+daughter of the partridge-slayer she was an associate of a notorious
+German spy, and had come back from Switzerland with a message for one of
+his agents. As her case had been fully considered by the late HOME
+SECRETARY he suggested that Mr. TREVELYAN should talk to him about it.
+
+This was the most pungent speech of the afternoon. The most amusing was
+that of Mr. GINNELL, who kept the House in fits of laughter for ten
+minutes while in his most rasping tones he jerked out epigrams against
+"this thing calling itself a Government." The Coalition was described as
+"two poisons blended, which could not make a wholesome drink." Never
+before has he had such a success. I only hope it will not turn his head
+and encourage him to attempt conscious humour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Veteran_ (_instructing "Bantam" in his duties as
+sentry_). "You look over there--there's the Germans. Don't you worry
+about them--_they_ won't 'urt you. But you watch those blinking rats.
+_They'll_ get you by the back of the leg and pull you off the bloomin'
+fire-step in no time!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The World at War at ---- Theatre Only."
+
+    _Advt. in Evening Paper._
+
+We are relieved to find that the area of conflict has been so much
+restricted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FROM SOMEWHERE IN AFRICA.
+
+We have just returned from another of those little expeditions which are
+becoming almost a habit with the ---- Frontier Force when in search of
+an enemy whose discretion is only rivalled by that of the German High
+Seas Fleet. We moved out four days ago with all the pomp of war--horse,
+foot and guns, ambulances and long trains of transport waggons, the
+fierce vivid fighting of the desert before us. We rode seventeen miles
+that day and camped at some wells. As we rolled ourselves in our
+blankets round the camp-fires to rest for the glorious contest of the
+morrow our hearts should have been filled with dreams of undying fame.
+But we were really wondering when the squadron transport would arrive
+with our porridge and sausages for breakfast.
+
+Next morning we were in the saddle by 3 A.M., and after some ten or
+twelve hours of unbroken and undisputed progress we captured two Arab
+shepherds in charge of as many as eight sheep. This _succes fou_ was the
+cause of justifiable satisfaction.
+
+In the first place we scented liver and bacon for breakfast. In the
+second place it seemed to promise a settlement of the long-standing
+dispute between me and the General. The General has a preposterous
+theory about the existence and hostility of a vast number of mythical
+Arabs in our immediate neighbourhood. Now this is obviously absurd. With
+the exception of three palm-trees, which belong to us, there is nothing
+but sand for about two hundred miles in all directions, and even an Arab
+cannot subsist entirely on sand. Of course, if there were any Arabs near
+us, they would be so enraged at finding themselves at a spot two hundred
+miles from anything except sand that they would be violently hostile to
+anyone, especially to the people who had engaged the only three
+palm-trees in the neighbourhood. But it is their existence that I
+dispute with the General. It is true he took a most unfair dialectical
+advantage, about a fortnight ago, by having a large battle. But my
+contention is that the enemy on this occasion were merely orange-sellers
+from the nearest town, hired by the General for the purpose of argument.
+
+These two shepherds, however, did seem to support his theory of the
+existence of Arabs, but as to their hostility there was still room for
+doubt. They were both extraordinarily old and unbelievably dirty. Also
+they were, as was very natural, extremely frightened. Seeing that they
+knew themselves to be the only living people for quite a number of miles
+round, it must have appeared to them that the entire ---- Frontier Force
+had come out solely for the purpose of capturing them, and that, as it
+had ridden some forty miles to do it, it would not be in a good temper.
+It was therefore rather hard to judge of their hostility, because as
+soon as they were confronted with the General and the interpreter they
+gave one yell of "Allah!" and fell flat, face downwards, in the sand,
+from which position they refused to move. They would not even budge when
+the interpreter took all their clothes off with a view to searching
+them. They probably thought this was merely a preliminary to skinning
+them. When they were finally induced to speak, I believe they were
+understood to say that we were the first men they'd seen for eight
+years. I don't wonder they were frightened. If you have lived all your
+life all alone in the middle of a howling desert with Grandfather it's a
+very frightening thing when a complete Frontier Force marches forty
+miles for the sole purpose of capturing you.
+
+But the day's excitement was not over yet. Towards evening I took my
+troop off at a gallop in person and captured a camel. It was a very
+young camel, hardly bigger than a sheep on stilts, and it cried like a
+child at the sight of me. This, I hope, was not so much due to my
+frightful appearance in my red moustaches as to the fact that it had
+probably never seen a man at all (not being eight years old), let alone
+an army.
+
+The curious aversion which it conceived for my moustache threatened to
+hold up the entire Frontier Force for the rest of the day, for it would
+neither be led nor driven. Fortunately, however, we had a very black
+Soudanese camel-driver with us as guide, and he came and spat at it,
+which soothed it considerably, and it followed him like a lamb. We got
+it back to camp next day and it is tied up near my tent. It has
+apparently made up its mind to waive the moustache question, and we now
+spit at one another in the friendliest fashion whenever I pass. I hope
+in time to train it to bring up my bath water in the morning from the
+three palm-trees.
+
+_Later._--The camel was the last episode of the campaign, and we
+returned to ---- yesterday. The total bag of a four days' expedition
+was--sheep, 8; shepherds, 2; camel, 1. The human section was
+subsequently released on the grounds that their political views were
+satisfactory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A well-known octopus family, having heard of the undersea
+photography, decides to pose.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ON THE MENACE OF HOME-BAKERY.
+
+    ["Women _can_ bake bread if they will. It is much easier than
+    trimming hats."--_"Housewife," in "The Daily News."_]
+
+  Aminta, be not led away
+  By words that sanguine women say;
+  Though simpler be the baking bread
+  Than trimming gear for your fair head,
+  Let your concern remain, I ask,
+  The sterner and the nobler task.
+
+  The nobler task: I'll tell you why.
+  Shall Bloggs, our baker, wilt and die
+  For loss of trade, his brood of eight
+  Left destitute and desolate?
+  And must _I_ perish 'neath the stress
+  Of culinary frightfulness?
+
+  No, dear. The millinery art
+  Is where I'd have you play your part;
+  For, though your hats may work intense
+  Despite on my aesthetic sense,
+  Whatever pain their crudeness brings
+  At least I needn't eat the things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.
+
+    "You never know your luck when you get our FRUIT."--_Advt. in
+   Irish Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "_Mr. Hayes._ Certainty is defined in Webster as the maximum of
+    our expectations. (Loud laughter.)
+
+    _The Judge_ (_laughing_). Let us get on. This is more like
+    _Punch_ than anything else. (Laughter.)"--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+It will now have to be called the Supreme Court of Punch and Judicature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Dear Old Lady._ "It must be a great strain for the man
+up the periscope."
+
+_Nephew._ "Yes, he has a thin time."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PULP FAMINE NOTICES.
+
+(_A Hint to Reviewers._)
+
+A WRITER in a recent issue of _The Daily Chronicle_ prefaces a column of
+novel notices with the following remarks: "The smaller papers consequent
+upon the famine in 'pulp' have made the reviewing of the new novels
+rather a job, but at least it is possible to give news of them."
+
+But the writer tackles his job in a half-hearted manner, using such
+ponderous polysyllables as "international" and "acquisition." Now Mr.
+Punch, always ready to lend a hand in a good cause, has instructed one
+of his young men to rewrite two of _The Chronicle_ reviews in words of
+one syllable, and presents them to his contemporary as models for
+imitation in the future.
+
+I.--Mrs. Ward.
+
+A GREAT HIT. By Mrs. Hump. Ward. Lond., Smith, Eld., _3s. 6d._ net.
+
+For the most part Mrs. WARD writes long yarns, and those who read her
+books look to her for more than five score thou. words. Here she gives
+us a short tale in which the three chief _roles_ are filled by a man who
+earns lots of dibs by his pen, his wife, and their, or his, friend--a
+peer's wife, who takes him up for her own ends. She tries in her hard
+bright way to shape his course as she views it, which means a place in
+the sun for _her_. The wife, who has brains as well as a warm heart,
+will not be robbed of her man like this, puts up a good fight, and in
+the end has the best of the bout with the pale witch with dark eyes who
+had waved her wand o'er the knight of the pen. It is not poss. to deal
+with all the points of Mrs. HUMP. WARD's book in words of one syll., but
+we can at least say here is a good tale to speed the flight of the hours
+of eve.
+
+II.-The Bills.
+
+THE SHOP GIRL. By C. N. and A. M. Sons o' Bill. Lond., Meth., _6s._
+
+_Miss Child_ is a nice sweet girl with lots of sense who goes to the
+land of the Yanks and makes things hum a bit in a nice sweet way. She
+meets her fate on board the big ship on the way out; but a long and
+bright yarn has to be read ere she makes the Port of Joy. We see a Yank
+store in full swing, learn much of the way it is worked, and the folk
+who run it are well drawn. To be frank one could scarce think that so
+_chic_ a tale could be made out of the prose of New York. But to the
+Bills--if I may so call them--all the world is a stage, and they see
+through the heart of the New Eve with a gaze that is quite weird. In
+fine this is a tale in which the Bills, while they take new ground,
+write with all their old _flair_ and charm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FORAIN.
+
+When M. RAEMAEKERS went to Paris the other day to receive his decoration
+and be feted for his fine pro-Ally spirit, it was M. FORAIN, as the head
+of living French cartoonists, who received him in the name of France and
+conferred the Order. M. FORAIN'S public appearances are nowadays few and
+far between, but he still wields--and none more searchingly--a pencil
+keen and swift as a sword, and he never takes it in hand but to create
+something memorable. A selection of his recent work is now on view in
+London at 22, Montagu Square, the residence of Mr. CAMPBELL DODGSON, the
+Keeper of the Prints at the British Museum, the proceeds of the entrance
+fees being intended for a hospital for French wounded soldiers at
+Arc-en-Barrois. The little exhibition, which should be seen by all who
+love great draughtsmanship and France, remains open until April 1.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"The Barton Mystery."
+
+One of the most difficult feats of juggling is, I understand, the deft
+tossing up and catching of a heavy weight (say a dumb-bell), a very
+light weight, such as a champagne cork, together with any old thing of
+irregular shape, a bedroom candlestick, for instance. Mr. WALTER
+HACKETT'S _The Barton Mystery_ is a most ingenious turn of this sort.
+
+The _fiance_ of the sister of the wife of _Richard Standish, M.P._, is
+under sentence of death for the murder of _Mr. Barton_. He happens to be
+innocent, though he admits at the trial that he quarrelled violently
+with and even threatened _Barton_ on the night of the murder, and his
+revolver has been found by the dead man's side. That vindictive relict,
+_Mrs. Barton_, is holding back some material evidence which could save
+the condemned man, or so _Standish_ thinks, and she is adamant. Now
+_Barton_ was unquestionably a bad egg, but the widow doesn't want the
+whole world to know it--at least not till she finds the woman. Some
+woman, who had incidentally written some, shall we say, very impetuous
+love letters, is being shielded. Who is she? Is it _Standish's_ wife,
+for instance? Ah!... This is the dumb-bell.
+
+A _Lady Marshall_, the wife of a _Sir Everard Marshall_, a comic
+scientist in perpetual flight from his overwhelming spouse, is one of
+the sort that finds a new religion every few months and is now in the
+first fast furious throes of her latest, which is some form of
+psychomania, whereof the high priest is one _Beverley_, a plausible
+ringletted charlatan of alcoholic tendencies (_Sludge the Medium_,
+without his cringe and snarl), who ekes out his spasmodic visitations of
+genuine psychic illumination with the most shameless spoof. This is the
+cork.
+
+The candlestick is the dream _motif_, always a ticklish business to
+handle, and in this particular case--well, no, I won't be such a
+spoil-sport as to go into that, for the chief pleasure of this kind of
+an entertainment is the succession of pleasant unexpected shocks which
+are deftly administered to the audience by the author.
+
+There were times indeed when the latter nearly dropped his
+dumb-bell--times when it was in imminent peril of barging into the cork;
+and most certainly the candlestick very nearly slipped out of his hand.
+But it just didn't, so you will see that it was really a most
+exceptional piece of jugglery. Of course I will admit you have to
+swallow the robust assumption that into a household over which the
+shadow of death in its ugliest form hovers so threateningly two fatuous
+people, to wit the scientist and his wife, can come and babble about
+their own trivial domestic troubles or their latest philosophy of life.
+But then mystery plays always are like that, and this is a jolly good
+one of its kind--a kind which it pains me, as a superior person, to
+confess that I liked enormously.
+
+[Illustration: THE MEDIUM AND THE PALMIST.
+
+_Beverley_ ... Mr. H. B. Irving.
+
+_Sir Everard Marshall_ ... Mr. Holman Clark.]
+
+Mr. H. B. IRVING as the preposterous _Beverley_ was in his very best
+form. _Beverley_ is really a creation. How much the author's and how
+much the player's it would be an impertinence to inquire. This
+imperturbable trickster with his thin streak of genuine sensitiveness to
+psychic influence; his grotesquely florid style--the man certainly has
+style; his frank reliance on apt alcohol's artful aid; his cadging
+epicureanism; his keen eye for supplementary data for his inductions and
+prophecies; his cynical candour when detected, is presented to us with
+Mr. IRVING'S rich-flavoured and most whimsical sense of comedy, with all
+his exuberant abundance of gracious or fantastic gesture and resourceful
+business. In the trances, sometimes real, sometimes simulated, he gives
+you a plausible sketch of how a modicum of psychic power (whatever that
+may be), laced with whisky neat, might colour a seance. Mr. _Hackett_,
+by way of showing that he has not ignored the literature of his subject,
+has adapted from the admirable, but, I regret to say, entirely
+untrustworthy, because incurably original, MAETERLINCK an entirely new
+definition of psychometry. But we certainly will not go into that.
+
+Mr. HOLMAN CLARK as the sceptical _Sir Everard_, completely spoofed by
+_Beverley_ in the end, with an elaborate make-up ruthlessly reminding us
+of our simian ancestry, potters cleverly about the stage with that
+admirable and amiable craft which he has at such easy command. Miss
+MARIE ILLINGTON as _Lady Marshall_, the seeker after light, kept the
+burlesquerie of her part skilfully within bounds--indeed this matter of
+key was extraordinarily well handled by the three players entrusted with
+what I have ventured to call the cork _motif_.
+
+As to the more serious business, Mr. H. V. ESMOND seemed to behave very
+much as one would imagine a decent M.P. behaving in such embarrassing
+circumstances. He suspected his wife with all the ardour which public
+men on the stage always exhibit. His little turn of desperate tragedy
+carried conviction--almost too much conviction, as you will find--but I
+won't explain.
+
+Miss JESSIE WINTER, as his wife, very adroitly contrived an ambiguous
+effect of likely guilt but possible innocence. She more than fulfils the
+promise of her last performance in this theatre, but she must (may I
+tell her?) arrest the development of "the Fatal Caesura," that
+exasperating histrionic device whereby every salient phrase is broken up
+for no conceivable reason into two halves. In the secondary stages there
+is but slender hope of a cure; in the tertiary there is none.
+
+Miss DARRAGH was, as required, the vindictive widow to the life (this
+kind of life, you understand), and Miss HILDA BAYLEY played very
+charmingly the little wilful _fiancee_ who--but no, I must keep my
+promise.
+
+With much less evidence than the applause and generally keyed-up
+attitude of the Savoy audience afforded me, I could risk a psychic
+communication in the authentic manner of a Beverley seance. "All is
+dark.... It is getting light.... I see a man.... He leans eagerly to a
+telephone.... He thrusts something into envelopes. He goes on thrusting
+things into envelopes. The telephone keeps ringing.... It is.... Can it
+be? Yes, it _is_ a Box Office." An institution which at the Savoy should
+be busy for many months to come.
+
+T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A MISNOMER.
+
+    "In memory of the name of the late Dr. F. C. Batchelor it is
+    proposed that the name of the Forth Street Maternity Hospital
+    (Dunedin) be altered to that of the Batchelor
+    Hospital."--_Southland Times_ (_N.Z._)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration] _Mother._ "Did you remember to pray for everybody, dear?"
+
+_Daughter._ "Well, Mummy, I prayed for you, but Jack prayed for Daddy.
+He's looking after him just now."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MUSIC IN WAR TIME.
+
+The Converted Collector.
+
+(_An Order in Council prohibits the importation of all musical
+instruments._)
+
+  In ancient, peaceful _ante-bellum_ days--
+  Now far remote as HANNIBAL'S or HANNO'S--
+  I had a weakness, possibly a craze,
+  For buying Hun pianos.
+
+  I let no patriotic sentiment
+  My honest inclination curb or fetter;
+  On foreign articles my cash I spent,
+  Because I liked them better.
+
+  Nor would I now proscribe Germanic Art,
+  Their one surviving claim to lasting glory,
+  Or bar BEETHOVEN, WAGNER, BACH, MOZART--
+  STRAUSS is another story.
+
+  But while our enemy unshattered stands
+  In any single theatre or sector,
+  I take no interest in German "grands,"
+  As player or collector.
+
+  I will not have them broken up or burned,
+  Although they cease to give me delectation,
+  That mean to keep them suitably interned
+  Throughout the War's duration.
+
+  But now the Board of Trade, those lynx-eyed gents,
+  Our economic needs severely scanning,
+  The importation of all instruments
+  Have just resolved on banning.
+
+  No matter; I possess a set of pipes
+  Made in the land whose emblem is the Thistle;
+  Three Indian tom-toms of peculiar types
+  And a Bolivian whistle.
+
+  I've a Peruvian nose-flute, made of bone,
+  A war-conch brought me from the South Pacific,
+  Which, by a leather-lunged performer blown,
+  Is really quite horrific.
+
+  I have some balalaikas, few though fit,
+  Whose strings I have acquired some skill in tweaking;
+  And several pifferi, whose tubes emit
+  A most unearthly squeaking.
+
+  I am, alas! too old and weak to fight,
+  But on these non-Teutonic pipes and tabors
+  I hope a martial spirit to incite
+  In "conscientious" neighbours.
+
+  And when my time, as soon it must, shall come,
+  My epitaph perhaps might thus begin well:
+  "He 'did his bit' upon the Indian drum;
+  He played the mandolin well.
+
+  Others who stayed at home to criticize
+  More vocal proved; he, on a falling rental,
+  In furthering the cause of the Allies
+  Was always instrumental."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In an account of a BURNS' celebration given by the _North Battleford
+News_ (Saskatchewan), it is remarked that "the absence of any kind of
+spirituous liquors around the festive board and the fact that the ladies
+were present" were unique features of the entertainment. But, according
+to the same report, there was yet another: "'The Immoral Memory' was
+given by Rev. D. Munro."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
+
+It is a tragic coincidence that, just as RUPERT BROOKE'S now famous
+sonnets were published in volume form after his own death, the
+appearance of his _Letters from America_ (SIDGWICK AND JACKSON) follows
+immediately upon the death of Mr. HENRY JAMES, who had written the
+preface to them. Thus in one book we have the last work of two writers,
+widely separated in age and circumstance, but united by a very real bond
+of artistic and personal sympathy. How generous was the elder man's
+appreciation of the younger may be seen in this preface; it is at its
+best and simplest in dealing with that charm of personality by which all
+who knew RUPERT BROOKE will most vividly remember him. Elsewhere it must
+be confessed that the preface is by no means easy reading, so that one
+emerges at last a little breathless upon the transparent and sunlit
+stream of the _Letters_ themselves. Many who recall these from their
+publication in _The Westminster Gazette_ will be glad to meet them
+again. Those who knew the writer only as the poet of 1914 will perhaps
+wonder to find him the whimsical and smiling young adventurer who moves
+with such boyish enjoyment through these pages. There is holiday humour
+in them, even in the occasional statistics--holiday tasks, these latter;
+and everywhere the freshness of an unclouded vision. "Only just in
+time," one thinks, sharing the happiness that his _Letters_ reflect, and
+grateful for it as for a beautiful thing snatched so narrowly from fate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES has written a story of the War that has at least the
+distinction of being absolutely fair. She has indeed got so far away
+from the perhaps excusable error of painting Germans uniformly black
+that her Huns in _The Red Cross Barge_ (SMITH, ELDER) are made upon the
+average quite as attractive as their enemies. This by way of warning, so
+that if you are in no mood to look for pearls amid swine you may avoid
+some impatience and a feeling that impartiality can be carried too far.
+Not by any means that _The Red Cross Barge_ is a pro-German book....
+There is an attractive sense of atmosphere about Mrs. LOWNDES' picture
+of the little French town in which a group of Germans are left during
+what appears to them the triumphal march to Paris. Here _Herr Doktor Max
+Keller_ meets and falls in love with a French girl who is looking after
+certain wounded of both nations. The peaceful and picturesque air of the
+little place during this quiet occupation is well contrasted with the
+horrors that befall it when the draggled and drink-sodden soldiery come
+surging back in their retreat from the Marne. Eventually, just as the
+Germans are leaving, _Keller_ is fatally wounded, and dies holding the
+hand of the enemy who has become so dear to him. One can hardly call the
+tale anything but sentimental, but it is sentiment of a fragrant and
+wholesome kind. In the years to come such stories will no doubt multiply
+indefinitely, but there will be few more gracefully and gently told.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Corporal (alluding to knock-kneed man)._ "It's no good;
+'e never looks smart. Look at 'im now--the top 'alf of 'is legs standing
+to attention and the bottom 'alf standing at ease!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. RICHARD PRYCE, true to the fashion of describing the childhood of
+heroes at great length, has in _David Penstephen_ (METHUEN)
+out-COMPTONED MACKENZIE. _David_ in fact dallied so persistently in the
+nursery that I began to wonder if he would ever emerge; but, when he
+does get a move on, his story is strangely appealing. His father and
+mother, having ideas of their own, had excused themselves from the
+formalities of wedlock, and before _Mrs. Penstephen_ broke down under
+the strain of this omission _David_ and his sister, _Georgiana_, were
+born. Subsequently the parents were married, and had another son. But
+before this legitimate addition to the family a boating accident had
+deprived the world of two cousins of _Penstephen pere_, and in
+consequence he inherited a baronetcy. This change of fortune affected
+his views, and as time passed by he became as orthodox a baronet as any
+you could wish to find in _Burke_. All of which was galling to _David's_
+mother, who loved and was jealous for those children who were born to
+suffer for their parents' original morals. The situation required very
+delicate handling, and Mr. PRYCE is to be congratulated warmly upon the
+manner in which he has developed it. Perhaps a little more humour would
+have added salt to the tale, but however that may be we have a careful
+study of a boy and an exquisitely sympathetic portrait of a mother. The
+latter part of the book is admirable both in what it tells and in what
+it merely suggests. More is the pity that Mr. PRYCE has weighed down
+_David's_ childish back with too heavy a load of detail. My advice to
+you is to skip some of the earlier pages, and so husband your strength
+for the better enjoyment of the remainder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Duel_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) is a study in the GORKY tradition, by
+ALEXANDER KUPRIN, of life in an obscure Russian regiment and an
+out-of-the-way provincial town before the great awakening that followed
+Mukden and Port Arthur purged away much dross and prepared the way for
+these latter days of sacrifice and heroism. It is a mournful document, a
+piece of devil's advocacy, a Russian counterpart of Lieutenant BILSE'S
+_Life in a Garrison Town_, identical in temper and astonishingly similar
+in some of its detail. It is clear that the author, who was for seven
+years an infantry lieutenant and probably little fitted for the military
+life even at its best, endured much unhappiness, for the marks of
+suffering have burnt themselves into the book so savagely that the
+English translation, though characterized by a crudity which might
+reasonably be expected to accomplish much in the way of eliminating the
+personality of the author, cannot quite rob his work of its impression
+of power and intimate tragedy. Those who are not in search of light
+refreshment and who will remember that this last decade of Russian
+national regeneration and reorganisation has rooted up the incompetence,
+the false standards, the irregular discipline and the inhuman barriers
+between officers and men here commented upon, may read these bitter
+chapters with profit. As for the translator, he might do well to study
+one of the GARNETT TURGENIEFFS, and see how this kind of thing should be
+done.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+150, March 29, 1916, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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