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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+April 15, 1914, by Various, Edited by Owen Seaman
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2007 [eBook #22940]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 146, APRIL 15, 1914***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, Janet Blenkinship, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+ file which includes the original illustrations.
+ See 22940-h.htm or 22940-h.zip:
+ (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/9/4/22940/22940-h/22940-h.htm)
+ or
+ (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/9/4/22940/22940-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+VOL. 146
+
+APRIL 15, 1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+
+Reuter telegraphs from Melbourne that the Commonwealth building in
+London is to be called "Australia House." This should dispose
+effectively of the rumour that it was to be called "Canada House."
+
+* * *
+
+"The Song of the Breakers," which is being advertised, is not, we are
+told, a war song for the Suffragettes.
+
+* * *
+
+Some of the Press reported a recent happy event under the following
+heading:--
+
+"WEDDING OF MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL."
+
+Mr. GEORGE CORNWALLIS WEST would like it to be known that it was also
+his wedding.
+
+* * *
+
+It was rumoured one day last week that a certain officer famous for his
+picturesque language was about to receive a new appointment as
+Director-General of Expletives.
+
+* * *
+
+"GOLD-PLATED TYPEWRITER,"
+
+announces _The Mail_. We are sorry for the poor girl. Mr. GRANVILLE
+BARKER, of course, started the idea with his gilded fairies.
+
+* * *
+
+Miss MABEL ROGERS, we read, is bringing a suit against certain other
+girl students of Pardue University, Indiana, for "ragging" her by
+tearing off her clothes. It seems to us that it is the defendants who
+ought to bring the suit.
+
+* * *
+
+"Twelve small farmers," we are told, "were on Saturday sent for trial at
+Ballygar, County Galway, on a charge of cattle-driving." Their size
+should not excuse them.
+
+* * *
+
+One evening last week, _The Daily Mail_ tells us, the electric light
+failed in several districts of Tooting and Mitcham. "A resident in
+Garden Avenue," says our contemporary, "had invited about a dozen
+friends to a card party. The host secured a supply of candles, in the
+dim light of which the party played." It is good to know that in this
+prosaic age and in this prosaic London of ours it is still possible to
+have stirring adventures worth recording in the country's annals.
+
+* * *
+
+The power of the motor! "At the request of the Car," says _The
+Westminster Gazette_, "M. POINCARE will leave on his visit to Russia,
+after the national fêtes on July 14."
+
+* * *
+
+A couple of pictures by unknown artists fetched as much as £2,625 and
+£1,837 at CHRISTIE'S last week, and we hear that some of our less
+notable painters have been greatly encouraged by this boom in obscurity.
+
+* * *
+
+"This Machine," says an advertisement of a motor cycle, "Gets You
+Out-of-Doors--and Keeps You There." Frankly, we prefer the sort that
+Gets You Home Again.
+
+* * *
+
+The PREMIER, who was said to have "run away" to Fife, after all had a
+"walk over."
+
+* * *
+
+"The Elizabethan spirit," says a _laudator temporis acti_, "is dead
+among us." We beg to challenge this statement. When the Armada was
+sighted DRAKE went on with his game of bowls. To-day, in similar
+circumstances, we are confident that thousands of Englishmen would
+refuse to leave their game of golf.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: CAPTIVE GOLF.
+
+DEFAULTING GOLF-CLUB OFFICIAL TRYING TO IMPART A LITTLE INTEREST TO THE
+DAILY ROUND.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+PROFESSIONAL ANACHRONISM.
+
+Mrs. Andrew Fitzpatrick, who looped the loop last Friday at Hendon with
+her son Hector, is certainly one of the youngest-looking women in the
+world of her age--for she is put down in black and white as forty-four
+in more than one book of reference. Her miraculous _Lady Macbeth_, which
+she impersonated at the age of seven, is still a happy memory to many
+middle-aged playgoers, though the miracle was eclipsed by the nine days'
+wonder of her elopement and marriage to Mr. Fitzpatrick, the famous
+Ballarat millionaire, on her thirteenth birthday. Her daughter Gemma,
+who made her _début_ in Grand Opera at the Scala in 1895, is already a
+grandmother; and her son Hector, who fought in the Russo-Turkish war of
+1878, is the youngest Field-Marshal in the British Army.
+
+M. Atichewsky, the famous Russian pianist, who gives his first recital
+in the Blüthstein Hall next Wednesday, is no stranger to London
+audiences, though he is only just twenty years of age. In the year of
+QUEEN VICTORIA'S Diamond Jubilee he visited England as a _Wunderkind_,
+being then only thirteen years of age, and created a _furore_ by his
+precocious virtuosity. About eleven years later, while he was still in
+his teens, he appeared at the Philharmonic Concerts with his second
+wife, a soprano singer of remarkable attainments. The present Madame
+Atichewsky, it should be noted, has a wonderful contralto voice, which
+is inherited by her second daughter, Ladoga, who recently made her
+_début_ at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, in Brussels.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Poetry of the Ring.
+
+For two pugilists, shaking hands before the knock-out fight begins:--
+
+ "Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
+ Each on each."
+
+ _BROWNING, "Love among the Ruins."_
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "It is interesting to learn that the swans on the lower lake have
+ built a nest and that one of the pairs on the upper lake have
+ followed suit, so that there is some possibility of signets on the
+ lakes presently."
+
+ _Beckenham Journal._
+
+
+We shall be glad to see these freshwater seals.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE UNION OF IRISH HEARTS.
+
+(_How the prospect strikes an Englishman._)
+
+ ["In ancient times ... the Devlins were the hereditary horseboys of
+ the O'Neills. (Loud laughter.)"--_From the "Times'" report of Mr.
+ TIMOTHY HEALY'S speech in the House._]
+
+ I love to fancy, howsoe'er remote
+ The fiery dawn of that millennial future,
+ That some fine day the rent in Ireland's coat
+ Will be adjusted with a saving suture,
+ And one fair rule suffice
+ For lamb and lion, babe and cockatrice.
+
+ In her potential Kings I clearly trace
+ Ground for this hope; no bickering there, no jostling;
+ If HEALY cares to hint that DEVLIN'S race
+ Subsisted by hereditary ostling,
+ That's just the family fun
+ Brothers can well afford whose hearts are one.
+
+ No less the picture of O'BRIEN'S fist
+ Clenched playfully beneath a colleague's nose-piece
+ Lets me foresee--a sanguine optimist--
+ That Union which shall bring to ancient foes peace,
+ When all who lap the Boyne
+ Beg on their knees to be allowed to join.
+
+ Still (to be frank) 'tis not alone the dream
+ Of leagued Hibernians kissing lips with Ulster
+ That warms my heart; there is another scheme
+ That with a livelier motion makes my pulse stir;
+ And this can never be
+ Till we have posted REDMOND oversea.
+
+ But, when he's planted on his local throne,
+ The Federal Plan should find him far less sniffy;
+ We shall have Parliaments to call our own
+ Modelled from that high sample on the Liffey,
+ And crown the patient years
+ With joy of "England for the English" (_Cheers_).
+
+ Meanwhile, amid the present rude hotch-potch,
+ We natives must forgo this satisfaction,
+ For still the cry is "England for the Scotch"
+ (Or else some other tribe of Celt extraction);
+ That's why I shan't be happy
+ Till Erin's tedious Isle is off the tapis.
+
+ O. S.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE BOMB.
+
+I was rather glad to spend my eighteenth birthday in Germany, because I
+knew my people would make a special effort in the matter of presents.
+They did, and I turned the other girls at the _pension_ green with envy
+when I wore them. The only thing that spoilt my day was that there was
+nothing at all from Cecil, which was rather a blow.
+
+However, the next morning I received an official document referring to a
+parcel waiting for me at the Customs House, and lost no time in getting
+there.
+
+It was a long, low building, strewn with packing cases, cardboard boxes
+and dirt, with a row of pigeon-holes--some big enough to take an
+ostrich--on one side, and a counter defending a row of haughty officials
+on the other. Several people were wandering aimlessly about, but no one
+took the least notice of me, or appeared to realize I was in my
+nineteenth year. So I approached an official in a green uniform with
+brass buttons, standing behind the counter. He was tall and stout, and
+his hair, being about one millimetre long, showed his head shining
+through. He had a fierce fair moustache, and, owing to overwork or
+influenza coming on, was perspiring freely.
+
+Trusting he would prove more fatherly than he looked, I held out my
+paper. He drew back haughtily, ejaculating: "_Nein!_" and jerked his
+head towards a kind of letter-box on the counter. I pushed my paper in
+the slot, hoping the etiquette of the thing was all right now; and, as
+apparently it was, in his own good time he took the paper from the back
+of the box, looked at it, glanced sternly at me, looked at the paper
+again, and said severely:
+
+"_Vee--ta--hay--ad?_"
+
+I didn't know what he was driving at till I remembered my name was
+Whitehead. So I replied, "_Ja_," thinking his pronunciation not bad for
+the first shot. He turned to a pigeon-hole and laid a small square
+parcel on the counter addressed to me in Cecil's scrawl. I held out my
+hand, but he ignored it, and, picking up a fearsome-looking instrument
+consisting of blades, hooks and points--which turned out to be the
+official cutter--severed the silly little bit of string, unwrapped the
+paper and disclosed a white wooden box with a sliding lid.
+
+I bent forward, but he glared at me and moved it further away, slid back
+the lid, removed some shavings and looked inside. His official manner
+underwent a change; such a look of sudden human interest showed on his
+fat clammy face that I thought he must have found some quite new kind of
+sausage. But instead he drew out very gingerly a curious square black
+box with a sloping front, two round holes at one side, and a handle at
+the other. He put it down on the counter and glared at me.
+
+"_Was ist das?_" he demanded.
+
+"_Ich weiss nicht_," I replied, shaking my head.
+
+It was clear he didn't believe me, and he kept it out of my reach,
+turning it carefully about, and in response to a jerk of his chin two or
+three of his colleagues came up and glared, first, at me, and than at
+the suspicious object. However, he would not let them touch it, but,
+squaring his chin and taking a deep breath, he turned the handle.
+
+There was a faint ticking noise, but nothing happened, and I suggested
+timidly that he should look through the peep-holes and see what was
+going on inside. He frowned at my interference, but taking my advice all
+the same, raised the box nearer his fierce eye and turned the handle
+once more and with greater force. Instantly there was a loud whirr, and
+a bright green trick-serpent leapt through the lid, caught him full on
+the nose and sent him back sprawling among his packing cases, carrying
+two of his friends with him.
+
+I gave a bit of a squeak, but it was lost among the "_Ach Gotts_" and
+"_Himmels_" all round me. Cecil in his wildest dreams had never hoped
+for this. Whatever the consequences might be I meant to have my snake,
+and while I was collecting it from the floor and cramming it back in the
+box I discovered my defence.
+
+Smiling my very best smile, I turned and faced the angry officials the
+other side of the counter and, holding the box towards them, pointed to
+three printed words underneath: "Made in Germany."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "The Prime Minister left Cupar by the 5.29 train.... The motor
+ arrived at the station at 5.55 and the party went in leisurely
+ fashion down the station steps."--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+What it is to be a Prime Minister! Ordinary mortals arrive at 5.28 and
+go down the steps three at a time.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "It is, of course, impossible to dogmatise without conclusive
+ evidence."--_Times._
+
+You should hear our curate.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE FIGHT FOR THE BANNER.
+
+JOHN BULL. "THIS TIRES ME. WHY CAN'T YOU CARRY IT BETWEEN YOU? NEITHER
+OF YOU CAN CARRY IT ALONE."]
+
+[Illustration: "AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MOSES?"
+
+"PLEASE, TEACHER, IT'S MY FIRST SUNDAY HERE AND I DON'T KNOW ANYBODY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A NONENTITY.
+
+He was a tramp, a mere tramp, clearly a man of no importance to you or
+me or anyone else in the world. The evening was warm, the place secluded
+and remote, and, other things being equal, he climbed over the hedge,
+chose a comfortable position against a haystack, pulled from his pocket
+a fragment of a newspaper and a fragment of a pipe and settled down.
+
+A tramp, the merest tramp, seven miles from anywhere, sitting in a field
+smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper--what can such a one matter to
+the world at large?
+
+The portion of the newspaper was that containing the law reports, not a
+prime favourite with the tramp. The lengthy report which had squeezed
+out other matter that might have been worth reading was a proceeding
+before the Lords of Appeal, in which Sir Rupert Bingley, K.C., M.P., was
+being very explicit and very firm about the exact limitations of the
+power of the Divisional Court to commit for contempt. This was hardly
+fit matter for the reading of a young and susceptible tramp, our man was
+telling himself, when the name of a district which he had once traversed
+cropped up in the case and caught his wandering attention.
+
+The spot in question was on the wild Welsh border, and it was at a
+remote farm thereabouts that the trouble first began over which their
+Lordships and Sir Rupert, together with innumerable other senior
+counsel, junior counsel, solicitors, law reporters, lay reporters,
+ushers, and what-nots were so troubling themselves and each other. The
+farmer's stack of clover had been destroyed by fire, and the farmer,
+feeling that this was rather the affair of the Insurance Company than
+himself, had asked for solatium. The Insurance Company asked who set the
+stack on fire; the farmer didn't know; the Insurance Company, having
+regard to the size and the recent creation of the policy, were prepared
+to guess. The case was heard at Presteign Assizes and the farmer lost
+it, the jury who tried it being not quite so sure as was the farmer of
+his innocence in the matter.
+
+Encouraged by this, the Insurance Company prosecuted the farmer for
+perjury; but the jury that tried this case took almost a stronger view
+of the farmer's virtue than he did himself and found a verdict of "Not
+Guilty," adding a rider very depreciatory of the Insurance Company.
+Encouraged by this verdict, the farmer sued the Insurance Company for
+malicious prosecution, but the jury that tried this case had no faith in
+either party and disagreed. Another jury were then put in their stead
+and they as good as disagreed by finding for the farmer but assessing
+the damages at one farthing.
+
+It will be observed that their Lordships have not yet appeared in the
+matter, whereas the haystack, the cause of all the trouble, had as good
+as disappeared. Meanwhile our tramp, who had seen better days and was
+something of a mathematician, calculated that the total sum spent on
+counsels' fees alone up to this point was well over two hundred guineas.
+
+Social reformers get mixed up in everything nowadays, and one appeared
+in the affair at this juncture. Having chanced to be in court at the
+hearing of the Malicious Prosecution suit, he had formed an opinion of
+the last-mentioned jury, and in an extremely witty speech, had included
+them specifically in the long list of people and things that were no
+better than they should, be. One of the jurors had unhappily been among
+his audience and, possibly because his experience of another's cause had
+endeared him to litigation, he must needs start his action for slander.
+By the time that action had been tried, and appealed, and a new trial
+ordered and held, and the legal proceedings in the respective
+bankruptcies of the social reformer and the juror were completed, the
+total of counsels' guineas must have been well on the other side of a
+thousand.
+
+Everybody had now forgotten that there ever was a stack involved and no
+one would have recollected that the Insurance Company had had anything
+to do with it, had not the social reformer, in the course of his public
+examination, ingenuously attributed his financial downfall to the
+original misbehaviour of that company in disbelieving their
+policy-holders when they declared that they were not incendiaries.
+Thereupon, after a number of applications by counsel to a number of
+courts, the Insurance Company got itself inserted in the Bankruptcy
+proceedings, but not before an enterprising newspaper had taken upon
+itself to assert that there was an element of truth in the contention of
+the social reformer. And then it was that the Contempt proceedings
+began, and were fought strenuously stage by stage, each side briefing
+more and more counsel as they went along, until at last, when the case
+came before their Lordships, there were more barristers involved than
+could be seated in the limited accommodation provided at the bar of
+their Lordships' House.
+
+To calculate even roughly the final total of counsels' fees was no easy
+sum to be done on the fingers. After wrestling with it a little, the
+tramp leant back and puffed hard at his pipe--so hard that the sparks
+flew and the smoke became thick around him--so thick that "Bless my
+soul," said the tramp, rising hurriedly, "there's another stack I've
+been and gone and set afire!"
+
+A tramp, a mere tramp going about the country and setting fire to
+stacks, is not even he to be reckoned with in the order of things?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Professor (to novice during his first lesson)._ "WHAT ON
+EARTH ARE YER DOIN' OVER THERE? YER KNOW YOU'LL 'AVE TO COME AN' DO A
+BIT OF IN-FIGHTING IF YER WANT TO FIND MY WEAK SPOT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+APRIL FOR THE EPICURE.
+
+(_An effort to emulate the gustatory enthusiasm of "The P.M.G."_)
+
+April, though regarded as somewhat suspect by meteorologists, appeals
+with a peculiar force to gastronomic experts, owing to the number of
+delicacies associated with the month.
+
+FISH.
+
+Oysters, like the poor, are still with us, but only till the end of the
+month; hence, ostreophils should make the most of their opportunities.
+But, besides the "king of crustaceans," as Colonel NEWNHAM-DAVIS happily
+termed the oyster, the sea provides us with a quantity of other
+succulent denizens of the deep. Foremost among these is the turbot; a
+fish held in high honour since the time of the Roman emperors. Nor must
+we omit honourable mention of lobster, whitebait, mullet and eels. It is
+true that some people have an insuperable aversion from eels, but it is
+the mark of the enlightened feeder to conquer these prejudices. Besides,
+no one is asked to eat conger-eel at the best houses.
+
+MEAT.
+
+Beef, mutton and pork are in good condition, or, if they are not, they
+ought to be. But the ways of the animal world are inscrutable,
+especially pigs. Lambs, again, show a strange want of consideration for
+the consumer, for, though April 12th is called "Lamb and Gooseberry-Pie
+Day," lamb, like veal, is dear just now and shows no signs of becoming
+less expensive. This is one of the things which independent back-bench
+Members should ask a question about in the House of Commons, or, failing
+that, they might write to _The Times_.
+
+VERDANT STUFF.
+
+Lovers of salads should now be conscious of a pleasing titillation, for
+this is the green season _par excellence_. Watercress is at its
+cressiest; and lettuce springs from the earth for no other reason than
+to invite the attentions of those two culinary modistes, oil and
+vinegar--the Paquins of the kitchen--and so be "dressed", with highest
+elegance.
+
+_LES PETITS OISEAUX._
+
+Pheasants and partridges are, alas! not now obtainable except from cold
+storage. But let us not grumble over-much. Let us rather remember that
+the more they are neglected by the diner during the mating season the
+more of them there will be to eat when the horrid period of restriction
+is over. Among the rarer birds which are now on the market to compensate
+us may be mentioned the bobolink, the dwarf cassowary, the Bombay
+duckling and the skewbald fintail. The last-named bird, which comes to
+us from Algeria, is renowned for its savoury quality and is cooked in
+butter and madeira, with a _soupçon_ of cayenne. The effect of the
+cayenne is to merge the too prominent black and white of the flesh into
+an appetising grey. The Rhodesian sparrow is another highly esteemed
+delicacy, which does itself most justice when seethed in a casserole
+with antimony, garlic and a few drops of eau-de-Cologne.
+
+RHUBARB.
+
+This is an extremely painful subject. Let us hurriedly pass to something
+more congenial.
+
+EXOTIC FRUIT.
+
+An agreeable seasonal feature is the widening of the horizon to the
+fruit lover. All sorts of delightful foreign species and sub-species may
+now be bad for cash or (if one is lucky) credit--such as bomboudiac,
+angelica, piperazine, zakuska, shalloofs and pampooties. A delicious
+pampootie fool can be made quite cheaply as follows: 3 lb. of
+pampooties, 8 oz. of angelica paregoric, 1 imperial pint of sloe gin, 1
+gill of ammoniated quinine, 9 oz. of rock salt. Boil the sloe gin and
+quinine to a frazzle, put in the pampooties, cut in thin slices, and
+take out an insurance policy.
+
+PLOVERS' EGGS.
+
+These eggs by a strange freak of nature are more easily obtainable in
+April and May than in any other month. In fact in December they are
+worth their weight in gold, and are then to be found on the tables only
+of Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY, Mr. ROCKEFELLER, Mr. HARRY LAUDER and Mr. JOHN
+BURNS. To-day they are anything from ninepence to a shilling each, and
+in a fortnight's time they will be sixpence each, with the added
+pleasure to the consumer of now and then finding a young plover inside.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "BUY A PUZZLE, SIR?"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "On Wednesday of last week an express train dashed into a flock of
+ sheep being driven over a level crossing at Northallerton to-day."
+
+ _Meat Trades' Journal._
+
+Only an express train could arrive a week early; the other ones are
+always late.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From a calendar:--
+
+ "April 6th. Dividends due. 'We needs must love the highest when we
+ see it.'"
+
+Unfortunately we don't often see it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+NOCTURNE.
+
+(_A Golf-match has recently been played at Bushey by night._)
+
+ Not in the noontide's horrid glare
+ When nervousness and lunch combined
+ And James's shoes and well-oiled hair
+ Perturb me, but when Cynthia fair
+ In heaven is shrined,
+ I show my perfect form, and play
+ Big brassie-shots like EDWARD RAY.
+ By night I am _plus_ four. By day----
+ Well, never mind.
+
+ With elfin stance I stride the tee
+ And deal my orb an amorous slap
+ In the mid-moonshine's mystery,
+ And Puck preserves the stroke for me
+ From foul mishap;
+ Pan saves me from the casual pot
+ And Dryad nymphs upbear my shot
+ Outstripping James's (James has got
+ No soul, poor chap).
+
+ The little pixies of the wood
+ Come thronging round him while he putts;
+ They do his game no kind of good
+ But many an unseen toadstool-hood
+ Their craft unshuts;
+ They turn his eye-balls to and fro
+ And make marsh-lanterns round him glow;
+ He is all off, whilst I am--oh!
+ One of the nuts.
+
+ The gossips by the club-room fire
+ Applaud my game with constant din:
+ "Approach-work never was so dire,
+ No mashies on this earth expire
+ So near the tin;
+ You ought to watch his tee-shots whizz
+ At number nine. Hot stuff he is.
+ The captain's lunar vase is his,
+ If he goes in."
+
+ And so I do. My argent sphere
+ Goes speeding through the night's opaque;
+ No hazards of the sand I fear,
+ The heavenly huntress keeps me clear
+ Of thorn and brake;
+ Not Dionysus' spotted ounce
+ More featly on the sward may bounce;
+ I hover like a hawk at pounce,
+ Putt out----and wake.
+
+ EVOE.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Spring Fashions.
+
+ "A waistcoat of tan and a limp lawn collar flowing over the
+ shoulders make a good suit."
+
+ _Times._
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ORANGES AND LEMONS.
+
+VI.--THE RECORD OF IT.
+
+"I shall be glad to see Peter again," said Dahlia, as she folded up her
+letter from home.
+
+Peter's previous letter, dictated to his nurse-secretary, had, according
+to Archie, been full of good things. Cross-examination of the proud
+father, however, had failed to reveal anything more stirring than "'I
+love mummy,' and--er--so on."
+
+We were sitting in the loggia after what I don't call breakfast--all of
+us except Simpson, who was busy with a mysterious package. We had not
+many days left; and I was beginning to feel that, personally, I should
+not be sorry to see things like porridge again. Each to his taste.
+
+"The time has passed absurdly quickly," said Myra. "We don't seem to
+have done _anything_--except enjoy ourselves. I mean anything specially
+Rivierish.' But it's been heavenly."
+
+"We've done lots of Rivierish things," I protested. "If you'll be quiet
+a moment I'll tell you some."
+
+These were some of the things;
+
+(1) We had been to the Riviera. (Nothing could take away from that. We
+had the labels on our luggage.)
+
+(2) We had lost heavily (thirty francs) at the Tables. (This alone
+justified the journey.)
+
+(3) Myra had sat next to a Prince at lunch. (Of course she might have
+done this in London, but so far there has been no great rush of Princes
+to our little flat. Dukes, Mayors, Companions of St. Michael and St.
+George, certainly; but, somehow, not Princes.)
+
+(4) Simpson had done the short third hole at Mt. Agel in three. (His
+first had cleverly dislodged the ball from the piled-up tee; his second,
+a sudden nick, had set it rolling down the hill to the green; and the
+third, an accidental putt, had sunk it.)
+
+(5) Myra and I had seen Corsica. (Question.)
+
+(6) And finally, and best of all, we had sat in the sun, under a blue
+sky, above a blue sea, and watched the oranges and lemons grow.
+
+So, though we had been to but few of the famous beauty spots around, we
+had had a delightfully lazy time; and as proof that we had not really
+been at Brighton there were, as I have said, the luggage labels. But we
+were to be able to show further proof. At this moment Simpson came out
+of the house, his face beaming with excitement, his hands carefully
+concealing something behind his back.
+
+"Guess what I've got," he said eagerly.
+
+"The sack," said Thomas.
+
+"Your new vests," said Archie.
+
+"Something that will interest us all," helped Simpson.
+
+"I withdraw my suggestion," said Archie.
+
+"Something we ought to have brought with us all along."
+
+"More money," said Myra.
+
+The tension was extreme. It was obvious that our consuming anxiety would
+have to be relieved very speedily. To avoid a riot, Thomas went behind
+Simpson's back and took his surprise away from him.
+
+"A camera," he said. "Good idea."
+
+Simpson was all over himself with bon-hommy.
+
+"I suddenly thought of it the other night," he said, smiling round at
+all of us in his happiness, "and I was just going to wake Thomas up to
+tell him, when I thought, I'd keep it a secret. So I wrote to a friend
+of mine and asked him to send me out one, and some films and things,
+just as a surprise for you."
+
+"Samuel, you _are_ a dear," said Myra, looking at him lovingly.
+
+"You see, I thought, Myra, you'd like to have some records of the place,
+because they're so jolly to look back on, and--er, I'm not quite sure
+how you work it, but I expect some of you know, and--er----"
+
+"Come on," said Myra, "I'll show you." She retired with Simpson to a
+secluded part of the loggia and helped him put the films in.
+
+"Nothing can save us," said Archie. "We are going to be taken together
+in a group. Simpson will send it to one of the picture papers, and we
+shall appear as 'Another Merry Little Party of well-known Sun-seekers.
+Names from left to right: Blank, blank, Mr. Archibald Mannering, blank,
+blank.' I'd better go and brush my hair."
+
+Simpson returned to us, nervous and fully charged with advice.
+
+"Right, Myra, I see. That'll be all right. Oh, look here, do you--oh
+yes, I see. Right. Now then--wait a bit--oh yes, I've got it. Now then,
+what shall we have first? A group?"
+
+"Take the house and the garden and the village," said Thomas. "You'll
+see plenty of _us_ afterwards."
+
+"The first one is bound to be a failure," I pointed out. "Rather let him
+fail at us, who are known to be beautiful, than, at the garden, which
+has its reputation yet to make. Afterwards, when he has got the knack,
+he will be able to do justice to the scenery."
+
+Archie joined us again, followed by the bull-dog. We grouped ourselves
+picturesquely.
+
+"That looks ripping," said Simpson. "Oh, look here, Myra, do you---- No,
+don't come; you'll spoil the picture. I suppose you have to--oh, it's
+all right, I think I've got it."
+
+"I shan't try to look handsome this time," said Archie; "it's not worth
+it. I shall just put an ordinary blurred expression on."
+
+"Now, are you ready? Don't move. Quite still, please; quite----"
+
+"It's instantaneous, you know," said Myra gently.
+
+This so unnerved Simpson that he let the thing off without any further
+warning, before we had time to get our expressions natural.
+
+"That was all right, Myra, wasn't it?" he said proudly.
+
+"I'm--I'm afraid you had your hand over the lens, Samuel dear."
+
+"Our new photographic series: 'Palms of the Great.' No. 1, Mr. S.
+Simpson's," murmured Archie.
+
+"It wouldn't have been a very good one anyhow," I said encouragingly.
+"It wasn't typical. Dahlia should have had an orange in her hand, and
+Myra might have been resting her cheek against a cactus. Try it again,
+Simpson, and get a little more colour into it."
+
+He tried again and got a lot more colour into it.
+
+"Strictly speaking," said Myra sadly, "you ought to have got it on to a
+new film."
+
+Simpson looked in horror at the back of his camera, found that he had
+forgotten to turn the handle, apologised profusely, and wound up very
+gingerly till the number "2" approached. "Now then," he said, looking up
+... and found himself alone.
+
+ * * *
+
+As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should
+you ever do us the honour of dining with us (as I hope you will), and
+(which seems impossible) should there ever come a moment when the
+conversation runs low, and you are revolving in your mind whether it is
+worth while asking us if we have been to any theatres lately, then I
+shall produce the album, and you will be left in no doubt that we are
+just back from the Riviera. You will see oranges and lemons and olives
+and cactuses and palms; blue sky (if you have enough imagination) and
+still bluer sea; picturesque villas, curious effects of rocks, distant
+backgrounds of mountain ... and on the last page the clever kindly face
+of Simpson.
+
+The whole affair will probably bore you to tears.
+
+But with Myra and me the case of course is different. We find these
+things, as Simpson said, very jolly to look back on.
+
+ A. A. M.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: [_Extract from Sentries' Orders_: "In case of man
+overboard, will throw the ship's life-buoy overboard, and report to the
+ship's officer on the bridge. In case of fire will at once report it
+quietly to the ship's officer on the bridge."]
+
+_Officer of the Watch (on transport)._ "WHAT DO YOU DO IN CASE OF FIRE?"
+
+_Nervous Sentry._ "THROW MESELF OVERBOARD AN' REPORT AT ONCE TO THE
+BLOKE ON THE BALCONY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+IN SEARCH OF PETER.
+
+Martell is one of those men that you might live next door to for
+half-a-century and never know any better. It is entirely owing to his
+wife and her love for Peter that Martell and I have discovered each
+other to be quite companionable fellows with many tastes in common, and
+I am smoking one of his cigars at the present moment.
+
+Peter is the most precious and the most coveted of my possessions. He is
+coveted, or was, chiefly by Mrs. Martell, who fell in love with his name
+and his deep romantic eyes. Apart from these I can see nothing
+remarkable in him. He is certainly the most irresponsible hound that
+ever sat down in front of a motor-car to attend to his personal
+cleanliness, but still I should not like to part with him. "We must have
+a Peter," was the text of Mrs. Martell's domestic monologues, and of
+late, before the great disillusionment--that is, after hinting
+delicately to me that she would like best of all to have _the_
+Peter--she took to sallying forth, armed with the name, into the
+purlieus of dog-fanciers to find a criminal that would fit the
+punishment.
+
+I was not altogether surprised, therefore, one afternoon when a note was
+brought in asking me to step round and have a cup of tea. Martell was
+monosyllabic as usual, and we sat and gazed into the fire.
+
+"I don't suppose you would like to part with Peter," he said suddenly.
+
+"I certainly should not," I answered.
+
+Then, after a pause, "Could you tell a good lie?" he asked.
+
+I looked up in astonishment, but just then Mrs. Martell entered and
+plunged _in medias res_. She had just returned from the last of those
+fruitless expeditions, and the slow realization that there can be only
+one Peter in the world had brought her nearly to tears.
+
+"And I've bought such a sweet little collar for him," she said, "with
+'Peter' printed in big letters."
+
+I remembered then that the original dog was in daily danger of being
+arrested, his very aged collar having been chewed to pulp after his last
+castigation therewith.
+
+"And a dear little pair of soft slippers, one for him to play with, and
+the other to smack him with if he's ever naughty, although I don't think
+he could be--your Peter, I mean. Have you slippers for him?"
+
+"Well, not a pair," I said, "and not exactly slippers. One's a
+golf-ball, the other's more in the nature of a boot."
+
+"Oh, but he 's such a sweet-tempered little creature, isn't he?"
+
+I felt Martell's eye upon, me.
+
+"Very," I said; "his early upbringing gave him a healthy body and a
+mellow heart. He was born in a brewery, you know, and never tasted water
+until I flung him into the canal the first day I had him. Since then, as
+often as he has time, he goes to bathe in the scummiest parts, and then
+comes and tells me all about it with any amount of circumstantial
+evidence. Most enthusiastic little swimmer he is."
+
+"What a funny dog! But I should never allow him to go out alone--if he
+were mine, I mean. And what sort of food do you give him?"
+
+"Well, he tried to swallow one of my white ties last night."
+
+"Oh, but I should give him proper food," she said. "He doesn't hate
+cats, does he? I couldn't bear a dog that did."
+
+My eyes met Martell's for one moment, then I cleared my throat. Slowly
+and sadly I opened the history of Peter militant, with unacknowledged
+borrowings from the lives of other Peters with other names. Beginning
+with cats I had seen in my garden looking as if they felt rather blurred
+and indistinct, I passed on through cats speechless and perforated, to
+cats that were. I told sad stories of the deaths of cats. I talked of
+nights of agonising shrieks, and mornings of guilty eyes and
+blood-stained lips. My store of reminiscences lasted five minutes, and
+before Mrs. Martell had recovered from their recitation I pleaded a
+pressing engagement and took my departure.
+
+You will now understand why I count Martell among my friends and am at
+this moment, as I said before, smoking one of his cigars. It came in a
+box of a hundred, with the laconic note, "One for each."
+
+As I write, my dog and my black kitten are barging in perfect accord all
+round my legs in pursuit of a brand-new collar with "Peter" printed in
+big letters.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: A NEW CRAZE.
+
+"WHAT A TRAGIC FACE YOU HAVE, MISS POOTLE."
+
+"YES, YOU SEE, I _ADORE_ MISERY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Notice outside a station of the Wirral Railway Co.:--
+
+ "Loiterers on the Company's premises or annoying passengers will be
+ prosecuted."
+
+The passenger who annoys us most and seems worthiest of prosecution is
+the fifth on our side of the carriage.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ANNABEL LEE.
+
+ Up and down on the fresh-ploughed levels,
+ All for the sake of their lady fair,
+ Two cock-partridges fought like devils,
+ Hammer-and-tongs and a hop in the air;
+ And I and "Basket" Annabel Lee--
+ Elderly tinking gyp is she--
+ We leaned on the paling and watched it go;
+ And "Eh," said she, "now a fight 'tis cruel,
+ But of all the compliments 'tis the jewel!
+ May I die to-day, but I know, I know
+ There's naught as a young maid's 'eart takes better
+ Than a couple o' big chaps out to get her
+ Through a dozen o' dustin' rounds or so.
+
+ "Bet my bonnet it strikes you funny,
+ Seein' I'm risin' seventy-three,
+ To think o' me once as sweet as honey;
+ Lor' how their fists went 'long o' me!
+ Jake Poltevo and Pembroke Bill,
+ I saw 'em then, and I sees 'em still,
+ Eh, how their fists went--_thud! crack! thud!_
+ None o' your booze-house scraps, Lor' love 'em;
+ Turf to their feet and the sky above 'em--
+ Stripped, bare-knuckle and mucked wi' blood;
+ Queer thing, ain't it, I still thinks pleasure
+ In the strength o' a man, bein' old, by measure,
+ And plain, you'd say, as a pint o' mud?
+
+ "Scared me fine at the time, though; weepin'
+ I 'id my face in the 'azels low;
+ Tip-toe soon I was back a-peepin',
+ Couldn't 'a' helped were it never so;
+ Each as good as the other chap--
+ Bad old woman I be, may'ap;
+ But eh, I loved 'em, the fine young men.
+ Marry a one of 'em? Why no, never;
+ They wasn't a-marryin' me whatever;
+ But I likes to think of 'em now and then;
+ For, of all the compliments, _that_ was candy,
+ And--ain't them dicky-birds at it dandy?
+ I knows the pride o' their pretty 'en!
+ Eh, but I loved 'em, me fine young men!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: FROM FIFE TO HARP.
+
+MR. ASQUITH. "ONE MORE BONNIE TOOTLE, AND THEN BACK TO THAT DREARY OLD
+HARP."]
+
+[Illustration: A FORETASTE OF HOME RULE HARMONY
+
+"Mr. Devlin here interposed with a remark which was not heard in the
+gallery, and Mr. W. O'Brien, turning round to where the hon. member was
+sitting, called out in an angry tone something which was not clearly
+heard."--"_Times'" Report._]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: If only Sir EDWARD CARSON belonged to some other
+oppressed nationality--Armenia, for instance!]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+(EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.)
+
+_House of Commons, Monday, April 6._--At third time of asking Home Rule
+Bill read a second time. Odd feature, in curious sitting that hotly
+contested measure passed crucial stage without a division. House divided
+on WALTER LONG'S amendment for its rejection. When thereupon SPEAKER put
+the question that "the Bill be now read a second time" there was none to
+say him nay. Some folk of hopeful habit see in this incident a forecast
+of the end.
+
+Debate unexpectedly decorous, not to say decidedly dull. TIM HEALY did
+something to lift it out of rut. But he was more concerned to belabour
+JOHN REDMOND and to dig DEVLIN in the ribs than to argue merits of
+measure. Taunted his much-loved fellow-patriot and countryman with
+facing both ways on question of exclusion of Ulster. ATTORNEY-GENERAL
+declared that PREMIER'S offer of exclusion for period of six years was
+still open. REDMOND, believing it was dead, had, TIM said, prepared its
+coffin, "and now the ATTORNEY-GENERAL comes along and forces fresh
+oxygen into the corpse."
+
+As for DEVLIN, he was introduced accidentally at end of harangue. Had
+interposed comment inaudible to main body of House, but safely assumed
+not to be complimentary. WILLIAM O'BRIEN turned round with angry retort.
+
+"There is," mused TIM, "one gentleman from whom on historical grounds I
+had expected firmness in regard to Ulster. It is the gentleman who has
+just interrupted me, and the grounds of expectation are that in ancient
+time downward from the flight of the earls the DEVLINS were the
+hereditary horse-boys of the O'NEILLS."
+
+Remark perhaps scarcely relevant to Home Rule Bill or motion for its
+Second Reading. But it soothed TIM and didn't hurt DEVLIN.
+
+BIRRELL having made cheery speech on situation generally, PETO rose with
+amiable intention of continuing debate. House had had enough of it.
+Persistently cried aloud for division. Amid hubbub PETO shouted
+dissatisfaction at top of his voice. Unequal contest maintained for only
+a few minutes, when MCKENNA in charge of business of House during
+absence of his elders nipped in with motion for Closure.
+
+This carried, LONG'S amendment negatived by 356 votes against 276.
+Majority for Government, 80. Motion for Second Reading unchallenged;
+amid prolonged cheering from Ministerialists and Irish Nationalists Bill
+read a second time.
+
+_Business done._--For third time in course of three successive sessions
+Home Rule Bill passes Second Reading stage.
+
+_Tuesday._--BROWNING, longing to be in England "now that April's there,"
+would have been disappointed had it been possible for him to turn up
+to-day. So dark and dank that at three o'clock, when Questions opened,
+electric light was turned on. Revealed dreary array of half-empty
+benches. Had Closure been promptly moved a count out inevitable.
+
+As in time of war the cutting off of superior officers brings
+comparatively young ones to chief command, MCKENNA (in the absence of
+PREMIER, CHANCELLOR OF EXCHEQUER, and FOREIGN SECRETARY) sits in the
+seat of the mighty in charge of Government business. Fills the part
+excellently. Ten days ago SPEAKER cheered House by announcement that
+there should be no more Supplementary Questions. Welcome resolution
+either forgotten or deliberately ignored. Supplementary Questions,
+almost exclusively argumentative, assertive, or personally offensive,
+buzzed about Treasury bench like bees at mouth of hive. HOME SECRETARY,
+alert, self-possessed, deftly parried attack.
+
+While Questions on printed paper were being duly picked up, put and
+answered, midway in melancholy proceeding there entered Distinguished
+Strangers' Gallery a small group of gorgeously clad princes from the
+storied East. They surveyed the scene with keen interest. In their
+far-off home they had read and talked of the House of Commons, the
+central controlling force of wide-spread Empire, whereof their
+possessions were as a bit of fringe. They had travelled far to look upon
+it. And here in this comparatively small chamber, scantily peopled, they
+beheld it.
+
+ Is this the face that launched a thousand ships
+ And stormed the topmost towers of Ilium?
+
+Fortunately for reputation of the House ROWLAND HUNT chanced to be to
+the fore. The other day, burning with patriotism, he issued a circular
+letter addressed to non-commissioned officers of the Army, advising them
+how to act in certain contingencies relating to Ulster. It happens that
+one CROWSLEY had previously circulated amongst soldiers at Aldershot a
+handbill urging the men to disobey orders when on duty. He was
+prosecuted for inciting to mutiny, convicted and sentenced. Members in
+Radical stronghold below Gangway want to know wherein the two cases
+differ, and why, if CROWSLEY is in gaol, the Member for South Shropshire
+should go free?
+
+ATTORNEY-GENERAL, to whom questions were addressed, diplomatically
+discriminated. Came to conclusion not to employ services of PUBLIC
+PROSECUTOR. So ROWLAND HUNT remains with us.
+
+_Business done._--A couple of small Government Bills advanced a stage.
+House talked out at eleven o'clock.
+
+_Wednesday._--Adjournment for brief Easter Holiday. Back on Tuesday.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: Sir EDWARD GREY (_in Sutherlandshire on the day of the
+final debate on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill_). "Ireland?
+Ireland? Where have I heard that name?"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE COWL.
+
+ _Murdoch McWhannel, 3, Poynings Avenue, Glasgow, N.W._, to _Messrs.
+ Fairley and Willing, house-factors there_.
+
+ _January 3, 191--._
+
+ I have been seriously annoyed for some weeks now by a noisy
+ chimney-cowl on your property at 15, Poynings Road. It is on the
+ stack of chimneys at the rear of your property, and within about
+ fifty yards of the back windows of this house. During the recent
+ high winds the cowl has kept up a continual shrieking, day and
+ night, which has been extremely destructive to "Nature's sweet
+ restorer, balmy sleep." I trust that you will be so good as to have
+ the cowl overhauled, and this cause of disturbance removed.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _January 6, 191-._
+
+ _Re_ your letter of 3rd curt., the chimney cowl at 15, Poynings
+ Road shall have our immediate attention.
+
+ _Murdoch McWhannel_ to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_.
+
+ _January 7, 191-._
+
+ I have to thank you for your prompt and courteous reply to my
+ letter of 3rd January, and am glad to know that the noisy cowl will
+ have your immediate attention.
+
+ _The Same_ to _the Same_.
+
+ _January 14, 191-._
+
+ May I remind you that in your letter of 6th January you were good
+ enough to promise that the noisy cowl at 15, Poynings Road would
+ have your immediate attention? Of course I know that it is
+ difficult to get tradesmen to work so soon after the New Year
+ holidays, but they should now be available, and the cowl is having
+ a very serious effect on the health and nerves of the residents
+ here.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _January 17, 191-._
+
+ _Re_ chimney cowl at 15, Poynings Road and your letter of 14th
+ curt., we are surprised to receive same. We sent out a tradesman on
+ January 11, who reported same date that he had oiled and adjusted
+ the cowl, and that it would give no further trouble. If you are
+ still troubled, some other cowl must be causing it now. We
+ understand, from enquiries made on the spot, that there is a noisy
+ one, not on our property at all, but on Hathaway Mansions. We hope
+ you will find this explanation satisfactory.
+
+ _Murdoch McWhannel_ to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_.
+
+ _January 19, 191-._
+
+ I am surprised by the contents of your letter of 17th, for which I
+ am much obliged. If your tradesman attended to a cowl on the back
+ stack of your property at 15, Poynings Road, on January 11, he must
+ have attended to the wrong cowl. One can readily understand that if
+ he adjusted and oiled a cowl which had not been making any noise it
+ would continue to be silent. The error might easily occur,
+ especially so soon after the New Year holidays. This is the only
+ explanation I can think of, for the noise has been as bad as ever.
+ I trust you will have the matter further looked into, as the
+ situation, especially in regard to my wife's nerves, is becoming
+ more and more serious.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _January 23, 191-._
+
+ _In re_ chimney cowl at 15, Poynings Road and your letter of
+ January 19, we can only say that it surprises us very much. We
+ employ only the most competent tradesmen, who could not possibly
+ make the kind of mistake you suppose. We beg to refer you to the
+ part of our letter of January 17 referring to Hathaway Mansions.
+
+ _Murdoch McWhannel_ to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_.
+
+ _January 24, 191-._
+
+ I regret very much the tone of your letter of January 23. It is
+ hardly courteous to suggest, as your letter does, that I cannot
+ distinguish between the noise of a cowl on Hathaway Mansions, which
+ are fully 150 yards away, and one which is practically just above
+ my bedroom. As I write this letter, seated at a table at the window
+ of my study, I can actually see the cowl shrieking--if you will
+ pardon a figure of speech which has perhaps a Hibernian flavour. As
+ my study is built out to the back of this house, it is parallel
+ with your property at 15, Poynings Road. I am within fifty yards of
+ the offending cowl. The noise it makes rises and falls in
+ shrillness according to the speed at which the cowl revolves under
+ the pressure of the wind. We are not disturbed at all by any cowl
+ on Hathaway Mansions, but by this one of yours, about which I wrote
+ you first so long ago as January 3. I have kept a diary of the cowl
+ since then and for some days earlier, showing the number of hours
+ per day that we have been annoyed by it, the number of times it has
+ prevented us from getting to sleep at the usual time, the number of
+ nights we have been wakened from the same cause, and the number of
+ mornings when we have been prematurely wakened, often as early as
+ seven o'clock, and prevented from getting to sleep again. I shall
+ be glad to send you a copy of this document for your information.
+ The original I must retain, in case any legal proceedings should be
+ necessary, as I have had each item in the diary certified by my
+ wife and our house-tablemaid, a very intelligent and observant
+ girl. I hope, however, it may not be necessary to take any legal
+ steps, such as an action of interdict and damages at my instance,
+ or a prosecution for nuisance at the instance of the public
+ authority, which in this case would be the City Council, to a
+ number of which body I am not altogether unknown. In fact I may say
+ I took the opportunity of mentioning the matter to Bailie McPartan
+ at a municipal conversazione to which my wife and I were invited
+ last week. I do not wish to trouble you by writing at any undue
+ length on this subject, but I think it right and only fair to tell
+ you that owing to the actual noise of the cowl, and perhaps even
+ more (as our doctor says) to the mental strain of listening to hear
+ whether it is going to begin again, my wife is on the verge of a
+ complete nervous collapse, which seems likely to necessitate some
+ weeks' rest cure in a nursing home, and possibly a trip to the
+ Canaries. I am advised by my lawyer that these are contingent
+ liabilities, the burden of which would fall upon you as the owner
+ of the cowl. In these circumstances I feel sure you will favour the
+ immediate removal of this nuisance.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _January 27, 191-._
+
+ Your letter of 24th curt. will receive immediate attention at the
+ hands of our solicitors. Messrs. Samson and Samuel, 114, North
+ Regent Street, to whom perhaps you will kindly address any further
+ communications you may think necessary _re_ cowl.
+
+ _Gilbert Macdonald, 5, Poynings Avenue, Glasgow, N.W._, to _George
+ Willing, house factor_.
+
+ _February 3, 191-._
+
+ DEAR WILLING,--For Heaven's sake, as an old friend, spike or remove
+ the chimney cowl that McWhannel at No. 3 has written you about. He
+ has called on me twice and written three long letters, "to enlist
+ my sympathy and support." He is the most poisonous kind of bore,
+ and I'll gladly pay for the removal of the cowl, if that's the only
+ way of muzzling him.
+
+ _Reply by telephone, summarised._ _Willing_ to _Macdonald_.
+
+ _February 4, 191-._
+
+I would do so, for friendship's sake, but I've just sold the property. I
+preferred that to having any more letters from him.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _February 14, 191-._
+
+ _Re_ your letters to Messrs. Samson and Samuel of January 29th and
+ 31st, and February 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th, and your telegrams of 12th
+ and 13th, we have now pleasure in advising you that we have sold
+ the property at 15, Poynings Road, including the cowl, to the
+ Corporation. We understand that the Corporation propose to use the
+ premises as a reception house in connection with their Home for
+ Lost Dogs, and we trust that this arrangement will be satisfactory
+ to you.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: HINTS TO ARTISTS AND WRITERS WHO NEED TO ADVERTISE
+THEMSELVES BY SOME ECCENTRICITY OF COSTUME.
+
+WHILE THE MOST ELABORATE ATTEMPTS TO DRAW ATTENTION OFTEN FALL FLAT,
+SOMETIMES THE SMALLEST DEVIATION FROM THE USUAL MAY PROVE
+IRRESISTIBLE.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Commercial Candour.
+
+From an Oxford Street wine merchant's advt.:--
+
+ "Equal to the so-called First Quality brands."
+
+ * * *
+
+ "He was defended by Mr. Macbottle of whisky."--_Scotch paper._
+
+The Macbottles (of whisky) are a very well-known Highland clan.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"At Sapphire Lodge in Vincent Square, W. A. Randall Wells has lately
+painted two rooms in a manner which combines novelty very successfully
+with a sound tradition." Speaking of the bedroom, _The Times_ goes on to
+say that "there are passages from the 'Sensitive Blast' finely written
+on vellum in every panel." Certainly this variation on the title of
+SHELLEY'S poem seems to "combine novelty very successfully with a sound
+tradition."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A VILLAIN IN REVOLT.
+
+ I have been in a fair dust-up in Denver City,
+ Made many a baresark rush;
+ I have bluffed with Death in my time and scooped the kitty,
+ Smashing a cool straight flush;
+ I have gouged my jack-knife deep in a victim's thorax
+ (Golly, how the blood did gush!);
+ I have scalped some dozens of skulls with an Indian war-axe
+ Without being put to the blush.
+
+ I've killed with stilettos at times and with crude sandbagging,
+ Or a brute belaying-pin;
+ With a twisted cord I have frequently done my scragging,
+ And doped with devilish gin;
+ I remember once in a boarding-house racket at Rio
+ How my snickersnee snicked clean in;
+ And I booted a blackguard to death with consid'rable _brio_
+ One evening in Tien-tsin.
+
+ I've run amok with a kris and sent men howling;
+ With a kukri I've killed my prey;
+ I'm an amateur still--I admit it--at disembow'ling,
+ But I've settled a few that way;
+ And I mind me well (for I still can sniff the aroma
+ Of that particular fray)
+ How I quartered and cut into ribbons some beggars at Boma
+ On rather a busy day.
+
+ But I'm blowed--being really a rabid humanitarian,
+ And a vegetarian too--
+ If I mean to devour an unfortunate fellow Aryan
+ In the Island of Oahu.
+ I have done dire deeds by request, without any evasion,
+ But this thing I will not do;
+ If they won't be content with a "fake" for this single occasion,
+ My cinema job is through.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From a list of popular novels:--
+
+ "_The Beloved Premier_, by H. MAXWELL.
+ _The Greater Law_, by VICTORIA CROSS."
+
+Politicians can take their choice.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Latest Cinema Poster.
+
+ "Our Sea Rooms now open.
+ No Finer Death."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Men that Matter.
+
+ Sound the clarion, FILSON, FYFE,
+ To all the reading world proclaim
+ One signed half-column, straight from life,
+ Is worth a page without a name.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE ART OF CONVERSATION.
+
+I had a terrible experience yesterday, one of life's inky black hours
+which will bring a shudder whenever in future days memory seizes an idle
+moment to refresh herself. I had been dining with Scarfield and his
+mother at Hampstead, and with the entry of the coffee he had pleaded a
+sudden dyspepsia and withdrawn. So his mother, a dear colourless old
+lady, undertook to entertain me. By her desire I lighted a cigar.
+
+She mentioned that she had just returned from a visit to Glasgow, and I
+remarked intelligently that Glasgow was a fine place. Considering for a
+moment, she observed that she thought the weather in Glasgow was colder
+than that of the South of England; and I said, Yes, very likely, I had
+heard so. In about two minutes she qualified her statement by informing
+me that the South of England was as a rule milder than Glasgow. I
+replied that it appeared to me very possible, adding recklessly that
+they had peculiarly mixed weather in Glasgow, which she seemed to think
+rather a questionable presentment of the case for the North, for she
+kept silent and ruminated for seven or eight minutes. My mind took a
+little excursion to Putney, where I have friends. But, before I had
+really settled at Putney, the lady's voice intimated that perhaps they
+had more rain in Glasgow than in the South of England.
+
+I came back from Putney with a slight mental wrench, yet sufficiently
+clear-headed to say decidedly that Glasgow, on the whole, had a much
+better climate than the South, because I had once spent a day there, and
+the sun shone the whole time, so I ought to know. Then I started off
+again, and had just reached Walham Green (one does not speak of these
+places, but I may tell you that it is a station on the way to Putney,
+where I have a friend), when she responded with lightning-like swiftness
+that it couldn't be healthy to live in Glasgow. This bordered on
+repartee, so I countered rapidly with the brilliant suggestion that a
+good many people managed to live there, hoping she would not score by
+the obvious rejoinder that a good many people died there. If she had, I
+can't imagine how I should have extricated myself. Luckily she merely
+murmured, "Ah, yes," and reflected. I was just stepping off the train at
+a station (Putney--to be explicit, it is a lady friend) when there
+seemed to be a collision, and I caught myself saying, "Indeed!" though I
+don't know why. She nodded approval, however, and I ventured on a
+meditative "Ye-es."
+
+"But they don't seem to mind," she said, glancing at me blandly through
+her spectacles. "_Do_ they?"
+
+"You see," I answered, chancing it, "they are so used to it." She smiled
+and agreed.
+
+"That must be the reason," she said. For what, I hadn't the remotest
+idea; but this just shows what presence of mind will do for one in an
+emergency.
+
+"What a difference they must find," I went on boldly, and lapsed into a
+muse. She sighted it, however, and replied in less than five minutes--
+
+"You mean now that the old-fashioned ones are coming in again?"
+
+Here was a catastrophe. Did she refer to hats, or skirts, or Christmas
+cards? What sudden original observation had I unfortunately missed
+during that last journey South-westward? At all costs I must keep cool.
+I pulled myself together and plunged.
+
+"Yes," I said. "You see the old-fashioned ones were so awfully tight,
+weren't they?"
+
+"Tight?" she echoed. "Not _tight_."
+
+"Well, not exactly _tight_," I answered, feeling rather distracted. "I
+meant large."
+
+She looked at me suspiciously, I thought. "_I_ think they're too long,"
+she said, "and such a lot of people in them."
+
+This was growing too complicated, and I wished heartily we had stuck to
+Glasgow and its weather.
+
+"One finds them," she added, "so hard to follow."
+
+I racked my miserable brain for anything that was lengthy, populous, and
+difficult to follow; in vain.
+
+"Still," I gasped, glancing at the door, "one can always ... one can
+generally ... one can sometimes sit down ... for a rest ... if one is
+dreadfully tired," I explained.
+
+She gazed at me reproachfully.
+
+"I don't usually stand at the back of the pit," she said. "The last time
+Fred took me we had stalls."
+
+"How--how _jolly_!" I murmured. "I was thinking of--of----"
+
+"If you please, Mr. Fred would like some soda-water and a few biscuits
+taken up, Ma'am," said the servant, entering softly.
+
+I rose.
+
+"Must you go?" protested my conversationalist. "Oh, I am so sorry! But
+come again soon--you have kept me quite lively. Good-bye."
+
+I took the tube to Charing Cross and changed there for Putney and Ethel.
+(Did I mention that her name was Ethel?) But when I told Ethel about it
+afterwards she said she thought sarcasm in elderly ladies was very
+objectionable.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+COMMERCIAL ART.
+
+ Across the sundering gulf of time
+ I lift a song to you,
+ Melodious as a minster chime,
+ Loud, I expect, as two.
+ Years have flown swiftly since we met;
+ Do you, remembered one, forget
+ The rapturous moment and sublime
+ When I drew near to you? I bet
+ A half-a-crown you do.
+
+ Your name I never learned--Hélène,
+ Beryl, perhaps Marie,
+ Phyllis, Estelle, or merely Jane--
+ It makes no odds to me.
+ I hymn you, maiden, none the less;
+ I toil in rhyme and metre; yes,
+ From noon till eve I bear the pain
+ Of this prolonged poetic stress
+ (With half-an-hour for tea).
+
+ Carrots your hair was (_i.e._, red;
+ "Carrots" is just my fun);
+ Blue were your eyes, and from them sped
+ A gleam that mocked the sun--
+ I _think_ that's so, but, as I say,
+ Time has moved quickly since that day,
+ And few, too few, the words we said
+ When languidly, as beauty may,
+ You handed me a bun.
+
+ Calmly you took it from the place
+ Where it was used to sit,
+ And I can still recall the grace
+ With which you dusted it.
+ I paid you, and we parted; so
+ Life's rich adventures come and go!
+ And did that brief glimpse of your face
+ Set love within me surging? No,
+ It didn't. Not a bit.
+
+ I only sing because I must;
+ Not mine the fret, the throb
+ Of fevered passion; verse is just
+ My livelihood, or job.
+ Searching for themes, I had a clear,
+ Swift vision of your dial; queer
+ How such things happen, but I trust
+ These lines will bring me in, my dear,
+ £1 or 30s.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: AT THE COSTUMIER'S.
+
+"OH YES, SHE'S SMART, BUT SHE HASN'T AN IDEA IN HER VOCABULARY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE BURNING QUESTION.
+
+Feeling that not all the representative voices have been heard with
+regard to the question of smoking in theatres, _Mr. Punch_ has been
+making further inquiries. The replies are appended:--
+
+_General VILLA V. VILLA._ I think that smoking should be permitted
+everywhere.
+
+_Mr. MAX PEMBERTON._ I am totally opposed to giving theatres the same
+comfortable rules as the variety halls. If people may smoke at musical
+comedies they are in danger of avoiding revues.
+
+_Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON._ I am in favour of giving the public all they
+want. Let them smoke if they wish to, everywhere and everywhen. Let them
+also chew and take snuff: a private snuff-box should be attached to
+every stall.
+
+_Mr. VICTOR GRAYSON._ I would support smoking in theatres if pipes were
+permitted. But of course they won't be.
+
+_Mr. BERNARD SHAW (to whom no inquiry was addressed, but that did not
+prevent his sending a long letter on the subject, the purport of which
+is that there should be no smoking anywhere)._ Had I ever smoked I
+should not now be the first intellectual in Europe.
+
+_Sir JAMES CRICHTON-BROWNE._ No smoking in theatres for me. And if I go
+to the Gaiety and find that a cigar or cigarette on my right or left
+singes my whiskers I will have the law of Mr. GEORGE EDWARDES.
+
+"_Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch._" Let there be smoking, but let some
+kind of control be kept on the brands of cigars that are smoked.
+
+_Mr. LLOYD GEORGE._ I am in favour of the extension of all taxable
+luxuries.
+
+_Mr. EUSTACE MILES._ Most London theatres are now so grossly
+over-ventilated that I welcome the idea of tobacco as helping to redress
+the balance.
+
+_Master ANTHONY ASQUITH._ Surely if there is smoking in one house of
+entertainment there may be smoking in another. I am sure my poor father
+would agree.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE FEDERAL SOLUTION.
+
+(_See the daily papers_ passim.)
+
+I.
+
+ SIR,--At last a ray of sanity has fallen like oil on the troubled
+ waters of the Irish controversy and has given a well-merited cold
+ douche to the extremists on either side. It is now acknowledged
+ that what for want of a better term I may call the Federal Solution
+ holds the field, and any attempt to expel it will only plunge the
+ objector still deeper in the mire and cover him with ridicule from
+ head to foot.
+
+ Long ago I adumbrated in the clearest possible way the fundamental
+ outlines of this solution, and every hour which has passed has only
+ sufficed, to strengthen a conviction which was already so deeply
+ rooted as to be beyond the reach of hostile argument. What is now
+ required to be done may be stated in a nutshell. Let the Government
+ withdraw the present Home Rule Bill. They will thus dispose at once
+ of the opposition of Mr. BONAR LAW, Sir EDWARD CARSON, Mr. J. L.
+ GARVIN and Mr. WILLIAM O'BRIEN, and will provide themselves with a
+ clean slate, which will be a peg on which any subsequent plan may
+ be hung. Then let them bring in a Bill (or four or more Bills, if
+ deemed necessary) for conferring autonomous governments on all the
+ counties of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, every county to
+ have the option of excluding itself for a period of not less than
+ fifty or more than a hundred years by a majority of two-thirds of
+ its electorate, women to count as two on a division. At the same
+ time let the House of Lords be so reconstituted as to become in
+ truth an Imperial Legislature, subject, however, to the veto of a
+ new and impartial body to be composed of Field-Marshals,
+ Archbishops, Judges and retired Lieutenant-Governors. Our Oversea
+ Dominions could come into this scheme at any moment, if so desired.
+ To this plan I can see no objections whatever except, perhaps, that
+ its execution will take time and will stand in the way of other
+ legislation--but anything that is worth doing takes time, and, for
+ my own part, I want no other legislation.
+
+ Yours, etc.,
+
+ JAMES B. HORNBLOWER,
+ Organising Secretary,
+ Society of Federationists.
+
+II.
+
+(_In answer to the above._)
+
+ SIR,--Dr. Hornblower is at his old games. His plan for settling the
+ Irish question is no plan at all, as I have frequently shown.
+ Whenever it has been submitted to the fire of criticism it has been
+ found that it will not wash. It is quite useless to try to mix oil
+ and vinegar in a jug that will not hold water.
+
+ I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am a convinced supporter of a
+ Federal Solution and have for many years endeavoured to remove the
+ public apathy which I have found to exist in regard to this
+ profoundly interesting question. My suggestion is that, in order to
+ sift the matter thoroughly and, if possible, to strike out a new
+ path, we should put our existing constitution into the melting pot
+ and thus clear away the weeds which threaten to choke its fair
+ growth. Let Parliament be a movable institution, sitting for one
+ week in Australia, for one week in Canada, for one week in Ireland,
+ and so on. In the course of a year it will have sat in all the
+ component parts of the Empire, which will then, indeed, be an
+ Empire on which the sun never sets, and in which Parliament always
+ sits. It need not, of course, be the same Parliament in every case,
+ but can be varied, to suit local customs and prejudices. As a
+ symbol of unity His Majesty the King might be conveyed by a special
+ service of air-ships from one country to another, so that he might
+ always open every Parliament in person. England, Scotland, Ireland
+ and Wales would thus take their proper places in the Empire by the
+ side of Barbados, Canada and British Guiana, and there would be no
+ jealousy because all would be treated equally. Only in this way can
+ civil war be avoided and Ulster be satisfied.
+
+ Yours, etc.,
+
+ BENJAMIN WOOLLET,
+ Chairman of the Amalgamated League
+ for the Federation of the Empire.
+
+III.
+
+(_In answer to the two preceding letters._)
+
+ SIR,--Professor Woollet and Dr. Hornblower are both wrong. The only
+ way in which a Federal Solution, such as we all desire, can be
+ brought about is to convert the existing House of Lords--no change
+ being made in its constitution--into the supreme and only
+ legislative assembly of the whole Empire. The House of Commons, of
+ course, would cease to sit, or it might take the place of the
+ present London County Council. This is the true plan. All others
+ are absurd. It is useless for people to say they do not want this.
+ We insist on their having it.
+
+ Yours, etc.,
+
+ JONATHAN FIREDAMP,
+ President of Council of the
+ Federal Association.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A MYTH OF BOND STREET.
+
+(_The latest thing in female head-wear is said to be the "Minerva"
+Hat._)
+
+ Forgive me if my nerves were somewhat shaken;
+ Pardon me if my pulse went pit-a-pat
+ When I observed your tiny head had taken
+ To a "Minerva" hat.
+
+ Love at my heart's closed door, with loudest knockings,
+ Won his admittance as I gazed on you
+ Garbed in the gear of her, of all blue-stockings,
+ The most superbly blue.
+
+ For you seemed nobler far in form and feature;
+ In wisdom, too, I deemed you now divine,
+ And, though I felt myself a worthless creature,
+ I swore to make you mine.
+
+ I said, "I'll win this goddess. Though the siege is
+ Long, I shall learn her wisdom if I can,
+ Until in time she throws her nuptial ægis
+ Over her Super-man."
+
+ And then you spoke, in accents all too human,
+ Glanced at me coyly from beneath your casque;
+ My vision vanished, and I saw the woman
+ Behind that heavenly mask.
+
+ And straight I felt (so flippant was your mien) a
+ Pain as I mused on Pallas and her fowl,
+ And left the phantom of a faked Athena,
+ A disillusioned Owl.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Love's Labour Lost.
+
+ "The Newcastle Fire Brigade were called upon last night to deal
+ with an outbreak at----, where Mr. J. G---- carries on business as
+ a firelighter manufacturer. Before much damage had been done, the
+ firemen were able to extinguish the flames with chemicals."
+
+ _Newcastle Daily Journal._
+
+Once again we see how the economic instinct clashes with the artistic
+temperament.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: A POINT TO POINT IN IRELAND.
+
+_Owner of Rank Bad Horse (who has given the mount to a stranger)._
+"BEGORRA, I DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS A FRIEND OF YER HONOUR'S! TELL HIM TO GET
+DOWN OFF THAT HORSE! SHURE, I THOUGHT HE WAS ONLY A ---- SAXON."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+A reflection that I could not resist after reading _Love the Harper_
+(SMITH, ELDER) was that the Boy appears in this volume as a very
+indifferent performer upon his instrument. For the muddle into which he
+plunged the amatory affairs of the inhabitants of Downside was terrible.
+Downside was a quiet delightful village, as lovingly described by Miss
+ELEANOR G. HAYDEN, but the number of misplaced attachments it contained
+seemed, as _Lady Bracknell_ once observed, "in excess of that which
+statisticians have laid down for our guidance." There was _John
+Harding_, the hero, who began by courting _Phyllis_, and subsequently
+transferred his suit to _Ruth_. There was _Will_, his brother, an even
+more inconstant lover, whom _Phyllis_ (still nominally betrothed to
+_John_) adored at first sight, and who divided his own heart between
+_Ruth_, _Phyllis_ and the crippled _Miss Mayling_. There was also _Ruth_
+herself, who thought she had a Past (she hadn't, at least it was all
+right really; but just in what sense it would be unfair to explain here)
+and therefore imagined herself for no man. The story begins with a
+wedding on the first page; and what with one thing and another I began
+to fear that this was the last consummation we were likely to get. But,
+of course, in the end---- But I shall not tell you how the couples
+finally re-sort themselves, because this is the author's secret, and one
+that she very craftily preserves till the last moment. It is
+arithmetically inevitable that there must be an odd woman left over in
+the end; but as to her identity I was entirely wrong, and so probably
+will you be. This ending is perhaps the best thing--I don't mean the
+words in an unkind sense--about a pleasant if not very thrilling story
+of a country that Miss HAYDEN evidently knows with the knowledge of
+affection.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Perhaps some of those who remember J. BURGON BICKERSTETH captaining the
+Oxford soccer team four years ago may be surprised to find him serving
+his apprenticeship at sky-piloting in Alberta. And very manfully and
+sincerely and tactfully he does it, to judge by the account which he
+modestly renders in _The Land of Open Doors_ (WELLS, GARDNER). With
+headquarters at Edmonton he rides and drives or swims (when the floods
+are out or the bridges down) across this untidy country from shack to
+shack, holding odd little services in dormitories and kitchens, and
+evidently making friends with the rough pioneer folk, railway men and
+small farmers, of his assorted acquaintance. The discouragements of such
+a task must be immense; indeed, they peep through the narrative,
+reticently enough, for grousing habits are not in the equipment of this
+staunch and cheery young parson. His notes of this land of promise and
+swift achievement are admirably observed. He has the gift of
+characterisation with humour, is clever at reproducing evidently
+authentic and entertaining dialogues, and has caught the Western idiom,
+not only in these set reproductions, but unconsciously in his own
+writing, which is singularly straightforward and attractive, nor
+burdened with the sort of cleverness which the young graduate is apt to
+air. Neither is there anything of the prig in his composition--his book
+abounds in reported words which an earlier generation of clerics would
+certainly have censored--but when he is saddened by the indifference,
+the unplumbed materialism and what he sees as the wickedness of his
+scattered flock he might remember for his comfort that valid and sane
+distinction of the casuists between formal and material sin. Anyway,
+good luck to him for a sportsman!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I have often wondered why so few novelists select the English Lake
+District as a fictional setting. I wonder still more after reading
+_Barbara Lynn_ (ARNOLD), in which it is used with fine and telling
+effect. Miss EMILY JENKINSON'S previous story showed that she had a rare
+sympathy with nature, and a still rarer gift of expressing it. _Barbara
+Lynn_ does much to strengthen that impression. It is a mountain tale,
+the scene of which is laid in an upland farm, girt about by the mighty
+hills and the solitude of the fells. Here, in the dour old house of
+Graystones, is played the drama of _Barbara_ and her sister _Lucy_; of
+_Peter_, who loved one and married the other; of the feckless _Joel_,
+and the old bed-ridden great-grandmother, who is a kind of chorus to it
+all. Practically these five are the only characters. Of them it is, of
+course, _Barbara_ herself who stands out most prominently, a figure of
+an austere yet wistful dignity, of whom any novelist might be proud. I
+should hazard a guess that Miss JENKINSON writes slowly; one feels this
+in her choice of words and her avoidance (even in the final tragic
+catastrophe) of anything approaching sensationalism or melodrama. When
+all, is said, however, it is for its descriptions that I shall remember
+the book. The hot summer, with the flocks calling in the night for
+water; the storm on the slopes of Thundergray; and the end of all things
+(which, pardon me, I do not mean to tell)--these are what live in the
+reader's mind. _Barbara Lynn_, in short, is an unusually imaginative
+novel, which has confirmed me in two previous impressions--first, that
+Miss EMILY JENKINSON is a writer upon whom to keep the appreciative eye;
+secondly, that Westmorland must be a perfectly beastly country to live
+in all the year round. Both of which conclusions are sincere tributes.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I was at school, some years ago, with two brilliant twins called DUFF,
+who between them captured, amongst other trifles, the Porson, two
+Trinity scholarships, a Fellowship, and first place in the examination
+for the Indian Civil Service. I mention them here as an example of the
+minute care with which ALISTAIR and HENRIETTA TAYLER have compiled _The
+Book of the Duffs_ (CONSTABLE). For I find their names and achievements
+duly recorded in the list of (I should think) every male Duff born of
+the stock of ADAM OF CLUNYBEG, _temp_ 1590, from, whom the present
+Duchess of FIFE is ninth or tenth in descent. And that is only one
+branch of the clan, only one of the numerous family-trees that make
+these two bulky volumes a perfect forest of Duffs. I know now exactly
+how _Macbeth_ felt when he saw Birnam Wood descending on Dunsinane. No
+wonder he exclaimed, "The cry is still, _They come_." When I looked at
+all these genealogies and lifelike portraits I had an appalling vision
+of this great army of Duffs of Clunybeg and Hatton and Fetteresso and
+the rest advancing towards me solemnly waving their family-trees. In the
+van, with his Dunsinane honours thick upon him, marched
+MACDUFF--MACDUFF, you know, who was also "Thane of Fife, created first
+Earl, 1057, _m._ Beatrice Banquo." Then followed a long train of other
+warriors--General Sir ALEXANDER, who fought in Flanders; Captain GEORGE,
+who was killed at Trafalgar; Admiral NORWICH and Admiral ROBERT, also
+contemporaries of NELSON; General PATRICK, who slew a tiger in single
+combat with a bayonet; General Commander-in-Chief Sir BEAUCHAMP of our
+own day--and I was afraid. Not, you understand, of their swords, but of
+their trees. And then suddenly the spirit of _Macbeth_ came upon me
+again. With him I shouted, "Lay on, Macduff; and damn'd be he that first
+cries, _Hold, enough_." But, luckier than he, I have lived to tell the
+tale, or rather to tell about it, and to recommend it to all those who
+have arborivorous tastes. I can promise them that they will heartily
+enjoy a good browse in the Forest of Duff.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+When a book is called _The Sea Captain_ (METHUEN) I do not think that
+the hero ought to be the driest of dry-bobs for nearly a quarter of it.
+If, however, Mr. H. C. BAILEY is a slow starter he knows how to make the
+pace when he once gets going; indeed, he travels so fast and so far that
+merely to follow him in fancy is a breathless business. When I have told
+you that _Diccon_ belonged to the spacious times of ELIZABETH, I need
+hardly add that his methods of winning fame and fortune on the sea were
+as rough as they were ready. Mercifully he had a steady head and a very
+strong back, or something must have given way under the strain that his
+creator puts upon him. No hero in modern fiction has jumped so
+frequently from the frying-pan into the fire with so little injury to
+himself. But if I cannot altogether believe in _Diccon_ I admit an
+affection for him. He was as loyal a lover and friend as could be found
+in the Elizabethan or any other age, and although he treated troublesome
+men without mercy his behaviour to women was marked by the extreme of
+propriety; so, though you may insist that he was merely a pirate, I
+shall still go on calling him a gentleman-adventurer, and leave him at
+that.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: OUR CURIO CRANKS.
+
+THE MAN WHO COLLECTS THE CHALK USED BY FAMOUS BILLIARD-PLAYERS.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_The Barbados Standard_ on an approaching Royal visit:--
+
+ "The visit it is understood is fixed to begin on April 29 and to
+ last until April 25. The visit is probably unprecedented."
+
+It is.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+146, APRIL 15, 1914***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 22940-8.txt or 22940-8.zip *******
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+April 15, 1914, by Various, Edited by Owen Seaman</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914</p>
+<p>Author: Various</p>
+<p>Editor: Owen Seaman</p>
+<p>Release Date: October 10, 2007 [eBook #22940]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 146, APRIL 15, 1914***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, Janet Blenkinship,<br />
+ and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+ (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h1>PUNCH,<br /> OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+<h2>VOL. 146</h2>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+<h2>APRIL 15, 1914.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>Reuter telegraphs from Melbourne that the Commonwealth building in
+London is to be called "Australia House." This should dispose
+effectively of the rumour that it was to be called "Canada House."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"The Song of the Breakers," which is being advertised, is not, we are
+told, a war song for the Suffragettes.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Some of the Press reported a recent happy event under the following
+heading:&mdash;</p>
+
+<h4>"<span class="smcap">Wedding of Mrs. Patrick Campbell.</span>"</h4>
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">George Cornwallis West</span> would like it to be known that it was also
+his wedding.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>It was rumoured one day last week that a certain officer famous for his
+picturesque language was about to receive a new appointment as
+Director-General of Expletives.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4>"<span class="smcap">Gold-Plated Typewriter,</span>"</h4>
+
+<p>announces <i>The Mail</i>. We are sorry for the poor girl. Mr. <span class="smcap">Granville
+Barker</span>, of course, started the idea with his gilded fairies.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>Miss <span class="smcap">Mabel Rogers</span>, we read, is bringing a suit against certain other
+girl students of Pardue University, Indiana, for "ragging" her by
+tearing off her clothes. It seems to us that it is the defendants who
+ought to bring the suit.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"Twelve small farmers," we are told, "were on Saturday sent for trial at
+Ballygar, County Galway, on a charge of cattle-driving." Their size
+should not excuse them.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>One evening last week, <i>The Daily Mail</i> tells us, the electric light
+failed in several districts of Tooting and Mitcham. "A resident in
+Garden Avenue," says our contemporary, "had invited about a dozen
+friends to a card party. The host secured a supply of candles, in the
+dim light of which the party played." It is good to know that in this
+prosaic age and in this prosaic London of ours it is still possible to
+have stirring adventures worth recording in the country's annals.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>The power of the motor! "At the request of the Car," says <i>The
+Westminster Gazette</i>, "M. <span class="smcap">Poincare</span> will leave on his visit to Russia,
+after the national f&ecirc;tes on July 14."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A couple of pictures by unknown artists fetched as much as &pound;2,625 and
+&pound;1,837 at <span class="smcap">Christie's</span> last week, and we hear that some of our less
+notable painters have been greatly encouraged by this boom in obscurity.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"This Machine," says an advertisement of a motor cycle, "Gets You
+Out-of-Doors&mdash;and Keeps You There." Frankly, we prefer the sort that
+Gets You Home Again.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>The <span class="smcap">Premier</span>, who was said to have "run away" to Fife, after all had a
+"walk over."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"The Elizabethan spirit," says a <i>laudator temporis acti</i>, "is dead
+among us." We beg to challenge this statement. When the Armada was
+sighted <span class="smcap">Drake</span> went on with his game of bowls. To-day, in similar
+circumstances, we are confident that thousands of Englishmen would
+refuse to leave their game of golf.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75%;">
+<a href="images/illus-281.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-281.png" alt="CAPTIVE GOLF." /></a>
+<h3>CAPTIVE GOLF.</h3>
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><span class="smcap">Defaulting golf-club official trying to impart a little interest to the
+daily round.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>PROFESSIONAL ANACHRONISM.</h2>
+
+<p>Mrs. Andrew Fitzpatrick, who looped the loop last Friday at Hendon with
+her son Hector, is certainly one of the youngest-looking women in the
+world of her age&mdash;for she is put down in black and white as forty-four
+in more than one book of reference. Her miraculous <i>Lady Macbeth</i>, which
+she impersonated at the age of seven, is still a happy memory to many
+middle-aged playgoers, though the miracle was eclipsed by the nine days'
+wonder of her elopement and marriage to Mr. Fitzpatrick, the famous
+Ballarat millionaire, on her thirteenth birthday. Her daughter Gemma,
+who made her <i>d&eacute;but</i> in Grand Opera at the Scala in 1895, is already a
+grandmother; and her son Hector, who fought in the Russo-Turkish war of
+1878, is the youngest Field-Marshal in the British Army.</p>
+
+<p>M. Atichewsky, the famous Russian pianist, who gives his first recital
+in the Bl&uuml;thstein Hall next Wednesday, is no stranger to London
+audiences, though he is only just twenty years of age. In the year of
+<span class="smcap">Queen Victoria's</span> Diamond Jubilee he visited England as a <i>Wunderkind</i>,
+being then only thirteen years of age, and created a <i>furore</i> by his
+precocious virtuosity. About eleven years later, while he was still in
+his teens, he appeared at the Philharmonic Concerts with his second
+wife, a soprano singer of remarkable attainments. The present Madame
+Atichewsky, it should be noted, has a wonderful contralto voice, which
+is inherited by her second daughter, Ladoga, who recently made her
+<i>d&eacute;but</i> at the Th&eacute;&acirc;tre de la Monnaie, in Brussels.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>The Poetry of the Ring.</h2>
+
+<p>For two pugilists, shaking hands before the knock-out fight begins:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Each on each."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Browning</span>, <i>"Love among the Ruins."</i></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is interesting to learn that the swans on the lower lake have
+built a nest and that one of the pairs on the upper lake have
+followed suit, so that there is some possibility of signets on the
+lakes presently."</p>
+
+<p class="author"><i>Beckenham Journal.</i></p></div>
+
+
+<p>We shall be glad to see these freshwater seals.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>THE UNION OF IRISH HEARTS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>How the prospect strikes an Englishman.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>["In ancient times ... the Devlins were the hereditary horseboys of
+the O'Neills. (Loud laughter.)"&mdash;<i>From the "Times'" report of Mr.
+<span class="smcap">Timothy Healy's</span> speech in the House.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I love to fancy, howsoe'er remote<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The fiery dawn of that millennial future,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That some fine day the rent in Ireland's coat<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Will be adjusted with a saving suture,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And one fair rule suffice<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For lamb and lion, babe and cockatrice.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In her potential Kings I clearly trace<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ground for this hope; no bickering there, no jostling;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If <span class="smcap">Healy</span> cares to hint that <span class="smcap">Devlin's</span> race<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Subsisted by hereditary ostling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">That's just the family fun<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Brothers can well afford whose hearts are one.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No less the picture of <span class="smcap">O'Brien's</span> fist<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clenched playfully beneath a colleague's nose-piece<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lets me foresee&mdash;a sanguine optimist&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That Union which shall bring to ancient foes peace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">When all who lap the Boyne<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Beg on their knees to be allowed to join.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Still (to be frank) 'tis not alone the dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of leagued Hibernians kissing lips with Ulster<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That warms my heart; there is another scheme<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That with a livelier motion makes my pulse stir;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And this can never be<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Till we have posted <span class="smcap">Redmond</span> oversea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But, when he's planted on his local throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Federal Plan should find him far less sniffy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We shall have Parliaments to call our own<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Modelled from that high sample on the Liffey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And crown the patient years<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With joy of "England for the English" (<i>Cheers</i>).<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Meanwhile, amid the present rude hotch-potch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We natives must forgo this satisfaction,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For still the cry is "England for the Scotch"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(Or else some other tribe of Celt extraction);<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">That's why I shan't be happy<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Till Erin's tedious Isle is off the tapis.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">O. S.<br /></span>
+
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>THE BOMB.</h2>
+
+<p>I was rather glad to spend my eighteenth birthday in Germany, because I
+knew my people would make a special effort in the matter of presents.
+They did, and I turned the other girls at the <i>pension</i> green with envy
+when I wore them. The only thing that spoilt my day was that there was
+nothing at all from Cecil, which was rather a blow.</p>
+
+<p>However, the next morning I received an official document referring to a
+parcel waiting for me at the Customs House, and lost no time in getting
+there.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long, low building, strewn with packing cases, cardboard boxes
+and dirt, with a row of pigeon-holes&mdash;some big enough to take an
+ostrich&mdash;on one side, and a counter defending a row of haughty officials
+on the other. Several people were wandering aimlessly about, but no one
+took the least notice of me, or appeared to realize I was in my
+nineteenth year. So I approached an official in a green uniform with
+brass buttons, standing behind the counter. He was tall and stout, and
+his hair, being about one millimetre long, showed his head shining
+through. He had a fierce fair moustache, and, owing to overwork or
+influenza coming on, was perspiring freely.</p>
+
+<p>Trusting he would prove more fatherly than he looked, I held out my
+paper. He drew back haughtily, ejaculating: "<i>Nein!</i>" and jerked his
+head towards a kind of letter-box on the counter. I pushed my paper in
+the slot, hoping the etiquette of the thing was all right now; and, as
+apparently it was, in his own good time he took the paper from the back
+of the box, looked at it, glanced sternly at me, looked at the paper
+again, and said severely:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Vee&mdash;ta&mdash;hay&mdash;ad?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>I didn't know what he was driving at till I remembered my name was
+Whitehead. So I replied, "<i>Ja</i>," thinking his pronunciation not bad for
+the first shot. He turned to a pigeon-hole and laid a small square
+parcel on the counter addressed to me in Cecil's scrawl. I held out my
+hand, but he ignored it, and, picking up a fearsome-looking instrument
+consisting of blades, hooks and points&mdash;which turned out to be the
+official cutter&mdash;severed the silly little bit of string, unwrapped the
+paper and disclosed a white wooden box with a sliding lid.</p>
+
+<p>I bent forward, but he glared at me and moved it further away, slid back
+the lid, removed some shavings and looked inside. His official manner
+underwent a change; such a look of sudden human interest showed on his
+fat clammy face that I thought he must have found some quite new kind of
+sausage. But instead he drew out very gingerly a curious square black
+box with a sloping front, two round holes at one side, and a handle at
+the other. He put it down on the counter and glared at me.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Was ist das?</i>" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ich weiss nicht</i>," I replied, shaking my head.</p>
+
+<p>It was clear he didn't believe me, and he kept it out of my reach,
+turning it carefully about, and in response to a jerk of his chin two or
+three of his colleagues came up and glared, first, at me, and than at
+the suspicious object. However, he would not let them touch it, but,
+squaring his chin and taking a deep breath, he turned the handle.</p>
+
+<p>There was a faint ticking noise, but nothing happened, and I suggested
+timidly that he should look through the peep-holes and see what was
+going on inside. He frowned at my interference, but taking my advice all
+the same, raised the box nearer his fierce eye and turned the handle
+once more and with greater force. Instantly there was a loud whirr, and
+a bright green trick-serpent leapt through the lid, caught him full on
+the nose and sent him back sprawling among his packing cases, carrying
+two of his friends with him.</p>
+
+<p>I gave a bit of a squeak, but it was lost among the "<i>Ach Gotts</i>" and
+"<i>Himmels</i>" all round me. Cecil in his wildest dreams had never hoped
+for this. Whatever the consequences might be I meant to have my snake,
+and while I was collecting it from the floor and cramming it back in the
+box I discovered my defence.</p>
+
+<p>Smiling my very best smile, I turned and faced the angry officials the
+other side of the counter and, holding the box towards them, pointed to
+three printed words underneath: "Made in Germany."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The Prime Minister left Cupar by the 5.29 train.... The motor
+arrived at the station at 5.55 and the party went in leisurely
+fashion down the station steps."&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>What it is to be a Prime Minister! Ordinary mortals arrive at 5.28 and
+go down the steps three at a time.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is, of course, impossible to dogmatise without conclusive
+evidence."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>You should hear our curate.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75%;">
+<a href="images/illus-283.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-283.png" alt="THE FIGHT FOR THE BANNER." /></a>
+<h3>THE FIGHT FOR THE BANNER.</h3><p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><span class="smcap">John Bull.</span> "THIS TIRES ME. WHY CAN'T YOU CARRY IT BETWEEN YOU? NEITHER
+OF YOU CAN CARRY IT ALONE."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75%;">
+<a href="images/illus-285.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-285.png" alt="And What Do You Know About Moses" /></a>
+<p><span class="smcap">"And What Do You Know About Moses?</span>"</p>
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Please, Teacher, it's my first Sunday here and I don't know anybody.</span>"</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>A NONENTITY.</h2>
+
+<p>He was a tramp, a mere tramp, clearly a man of no importance to you or
+me or anyone else in the world. The evening was warm, the place secluded
+and remote, and, other things being equal, he climbed over the hedge,
+chose a comfortable position against a haystack, pulled from his pocket
+a fragment of a newspaper and a fragment of a pipe and settled down.</p>
+
+<p>A tramp, the merest tramp, seven miles from anywhere, sitting in a field
+smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper&mdash;what can such a one matter to
+the world at large?</p>
+
+<p>The portion of the newspaper was that containing the law reports, not a
+prime favourite with the tramp. The lengthy report which had squeezed
+out other matter that might have been worth reading was a proceeding
+before the Lords of Appeal, in which Sir Rupert Bingley, K.C., M.P., was
+being very explicit and very firm about the exact limitations of the
+power of the Divisional Court to commit for contempt. This was hardly
+fit matter for the reading of a young and susceptible tramp, our man was
+telling himself, when the name of a district which he had once traversed
+cropped up in the case and caught his wandering attention.</p>
+
+<p>The spot in question was on the wild Welsh border, and it was at a
+remote farm thereabouts that the trouble first began over which their
+Lordships and Sir Rupert, together with innumerable other senior
+counsel, junior counsel, solicitors, law reporters, lay reporters,
+ushers, and what-nots were so troubling themselves and each other. The
+farmer's stack of clover had been destroyed by fire, and the farmer,
+feeling that this was rather the affair of the Insurance Company than
+himself, had asked for solatium. The Insurance Company asked who set the
+stack on fire; the farmer didn't know; the Insurance Company, having
+regard to the size and the recent creation of the policy, were prepared
+to guess. The case was heard at Presteign Assizes and the farmer lost
+it, the jury who tried it being not quite so sure as was the farmer of
+his innocence in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by this, the Insurance Company prosecuted the farmer for
+perjury; but the jury that tried this case took almost a stronger view
+of the farmer's virtue than he did himself and found a verdict of "Not
+Guilty," adding a rider very depreciatory of the Insurance Company.
+Encouraged by this verdict, the farmer sued the Insurance Company for
+malicious prosecution, but the jury that tried this case had no faith in
+either party and disagreed. Another jury were then put in their stead
+and they as good as disagreed by finding for the farmer but assessing
+the damages at one farthing.</p>
+
+<p>It will be observed that their Lordships have not yet appeared in the
+matter, whereas the haystack, the cause of all the trouble, had as good
+as disappeared. Meanwhile our tramp, who had seen better days and was
+something of a mathematician, calculated that the total sum spent on
+counsels' fees alone up to this point was well over two hundred guineas.</p>
+
+
+<p>Social reformers get mixed up in everything nowadays, and one appeared
+in the affair at this juncture. Having chanced to be in court at the
+hearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> of the Malicious Prosecution suit, he had formed an opinion of
+the last-mentioned jury, and in an extremely witty speech, had included
+them specifically in the long list of people and things that were no
+better than they should, be. One of the jurors had unhappily been among
+his audience and, possibly because his experience of another's cause had
+endeared him to litigation, he must needs start his action for slander.
+By the time that action had been tried, and appealed, and a new trial
+ordered and held, and the legal proceedings in the respective
+bankruptcies of the social reformer and the juror were completed, the
+total of counsels' guineas must have been well on the other side of a
+thousand.</p>
+
+
+<p>Everybody had now forgotten that there ever was a stack involved and no
+one would have recollected that the Insurance Company had had anything
+to do with it, had not the social reformer, in the course of his public
+examination, ingenuously attributed his financial downfall to the
+original misbehaviour of that company in disbelieving their
+policy-holders when they declared that they were not incendiaries.
+Thereupon, after a number of applications by counsel to a number of
+courts, the Insurance Company got itself inserted in the Bankruptcy
+proceedings, but not before an enterprising newspaper had taken upon
+itself to assert that there was an element of truth in the contention of
+the social reformer. And then it was that the Contempt proceedings
+began, and were fought strenuously stage by stage, each side briefing
+more and more counsel as they went along, until at last, when the case
+came before their Lordships, there were more barristers involved than
+could be seated in the limited accommodation provided at the bar of
+their Lordships' House.</p>
+
+<p>To calculate even roughly the final total of counsels' fees was no easy
+sum to be done on the fingers. After wrestling with it a little, the
+tramp leant back and puffed hard at his pipe&mdash;so hard that the sparks
+flew and the smoke became thick around him&mdash;so thick that "Bless my
+soul," said the tramp, rising hurriedly, "there's another stack I've
+been and gone and set afire!"</p>
+
+<p>A tramp, a mere tramp going about the country and setting fire to
+stacks, is not even he to be reckoned with in the order of things?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75%;">
+<a href="images/illus-286.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-286.png" alt="Professor (to novice during his first lesson)." /></a>
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Professor (to novice during his first lesson).</i> "<span class="smcap">What on
+earth are yer doin' over there? Yer know you'll 'ave to come an' do a
+bit of in-fighting if yer want to find my weak spot.</span>"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>APRIL FOR THE EPICURE.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="center">(<i>An effort to emulate the gustatory enthusiasm of "The P.M.G."</i>)</p>
+
+<p>April, though regarded as somewhat suspect by meteorologists, appeals
+with a peculiar force to gastronomic experts, owing to the number of
+delicacies associated with the month.</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Fish.</span></h4>
+
+<p>Oysters, like the poor, are still with us, but only till the end of the
+month; hence, ostreophils should make the most of their opportunities.
+But, besides the "king of crustaceans," as Colonel <span class="smcap">Newnham-Davis</span> happily
+termed the oyster, the sea provides us with a quantity of other
+succulent denizens of the deep. Foremost among these is the turbot; a
+fish held in high honour since the time of the Roman emperors. Nor must
+we omit honourable mention of lobster, whitebait, mullet and eels. It is
+true that some people have an insuperable aversion from eels, but it is
+the mark of the enlightened feeder to conquer these prejudices. Besides,
+no one is asked to eat conger-eel at the best houses.</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Meat.</span></h4>
+
+<p>Beef, mutton and pork are in good condition, or, if they are not, they
+ought to be. But the ways of the animal world are inscrutable,
+especially pigs. Lambs, again, show a strange want of consideration for
+the consumer, for, though April 12th is called "Lamb and Gooseberry-Pie
+Day," lamb, like veal, is dear just now and shows no signs of becoming
+less expensive. This is one of the things which independent back-bench
+Members should ask a question about in the House of Commons, or, failing
+that, they might write to <i>The Times</i>.</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Verdant Stuff.</span></h4>
+
+<p>Lovers of salads should now be conscious of a pleasing titillation, for
+this is the green season <i>par excellence</i>. Watercress is at its
+cressiest; and lettuce springs from the earth for no other reason than
+to invite the attentions of those two culinary modistes, oil and
+vinegar&mdash;the Paquins of the kitchen&mdash;and so be "dressed", with highest
+elegance.</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap"><i>Les Petits Oiseaux.</i></span></h4>
+
+<p>Pheasants and partridges are, alas! not now obtainable except from cold
+storage. But let us not grumble over-much. Let us rather remember that
+the more they are neglected by the diner during the mating season the
+more of them there will be to eat when the horrid period of restriction
+is over. Among the rarer birds which are now on the market to compensate
+us may be mentioned the bobolink, the dwarf cassowary, the Bombay
+duckling and the skewbald fintail. The last-named bird, which comes to
+us from Algeria, is renowned for its savoury quality and is cooked in
+butter and madeira, with a <i>soup&ccedil;on</i> of cayenne. The effect of the
+cayenne is to merge the too prominent black and white of the flesh into
+an appetising grey. The Rhodesian sparrow is another highly esteemed
+delicacy, which does itself most justice when seethed in a casserole
+with antimony, garlic and a few drops of eau-de-Cologne.</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Rhubarb.</span></h4>
+
+<p>This is an extremely painful subject. Let us hurriedly pass to something
+more congenial.</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Exotic Fruit.</span></h4>
+
+<p>An agreeable seasonal feature is the widening of the horizon to the
+fruit lover. All sorts of delightful foreign species and sub-species may
+now be bad for cash or (if one is lucky) credit&mdash;such as bomboudiac,
+angelica, piperazine, zakuska, shalloofs and pampooties. A delicious
+pampootie fool can be made quite cheaply as follows: 3 lb. of
+pampooties, 8 oz. of angelica paregoric, 1 imperial pint of sloe gin, 1
+gill of ammoniated quinine, 9 oz. of rock salt. Boil the sloe gin and
+quinine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> to a frazzle, put in the pampooties, cut in thin slices, and
+take out an insurance policy.</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Plovers' Eggs.</span></h4>
+
+<p>These eggs by a strange freak of nature are more easily obtainable in
+April and May than in any other month. In fact in December they are
+worth their weight in gold, and are then to be found on the tables only
+of Mr. <span class="smcap">Mallaby-Deeley</span>, Mr. <span class="smcap">Rockefeller</span>, Mr. <span class="smcap">Harry Lauder</span> and Mr. <span class="smcap">John
+Burns</span>. To-day they are anything from ninepence to a shilling each, and
+in a fortnight's time they will be sixpence each, with the added
+pleasure to the consumer of now and then finding a young plover inside.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75%;">
+<a href="images/illus-287.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-287.png" alt="And What Do You Know About Moses" /></a>
+<h4>"<span class="smcap">Buy a puzzle, Sir?</span>"</h4>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"On Wednesday of last week an express train dashed into a flock of
+sheep being driven over a level crossing at Northallerton to-day."</p>
+
+<p><i>Meat Trades' Journal.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>Only an express train could arrive a week early; the other ones are
+always late.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>From a calendar:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"April 6th. Dividends due. 'We needs must love the highest when we
+see it.'"</p></div>
+
+<p>Unfortunately we don't often see it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>NOCTURNE.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>A Golf-match has recently been played at Bushey by night.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not in the noontide's horrid glare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When nervousness and lunch combined<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And James's shoes and well-oiled hair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perturb me, but when Cynthia fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In heaven is shrined,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I show my perfect form, and play<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Big brassie-shots like <span class="smcap">Edward Ray</span>.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By night I am <i>plus</i> four. By day&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Well, never mind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With elfin stance I stride the tee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And deal my orb an amorous slap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the mid-moonshine's mystery,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Puck preserves the stroke for me<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">From foul mishap;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pan saves me from the casual pot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Dryad nymphs upbear my shot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Outstripping James's (James has got<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">No soul, poor chap).<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The little pixies of the wood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come thronging round him while he putts;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They do his game no kind of good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But many an unseen toadstool-hood<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Their craft unshuts;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They turn his eye-balls to and fro<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And make marsh-lanterns round him glow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He is all off, whilst I am&mdash;oh!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">One of the nuts.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The gossips by the club-room fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Applaud my game with constant din:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Approach-work never was so dire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No mashies on this earth expire<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">So near the tin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You ought to watch his tee-shots whizz<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At number nine. Hot stuff he is.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The captain's lunar vase is his,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">If he goes in."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And so I do. My argent sphere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Goes speeding through the night's opaque;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No hazards of the sand I fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heavenly huntress keeps me clear<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Of thorn and brake;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not Dionysus' spotted ounce<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More featly on the sward may bounce;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I hover like a hawk at pounce,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Putt out&mdash;&mdash;and wake.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Evoe.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>Spring Fashions.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"A waistcoat of tan and a limp lawn collar flowing over the
+shoulders make a good suit."</p>
+
+<p class="author"><i>Times.</i></p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+<h2>ORANGES AND LEMONS.</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">VI.&mdash;The Record of it.</span></h4>
+
+<p>"I shall be glad to see Peter again," said Dahlia, as she folded up her
+letter from home.</p>
+
+<p>Peter's previous letter, dictated to his nurse-secretary, had, according
+to Archie, been full of good things. Cross-examination of the proud
+father, however, had failed to reveal anything more stirring than "'I
+love mummy,' and&mdash;er&mdash;so on."</p>
+
+<p>We were sitting in the loggia after what I don't call breakfast&mdash;all of
+us except Simpson, who was busy with a mysterious package. We had not
+many days left; and I was beginning to feel that, personally, I should
+not be sorry to see things like porridge again. Each to his taste.</p>
+
+<p>"The time has passed absurdly quickly," said Myra. "We don't seem to
+have done <i>anything</i>&mdash;except enjoy ourselves. I mean anything specially
+Rivierish.' But it's been heavenly."</p>
+
+<p>"We've done lots of Rivierish things," I protested. "If you'll be quiet
+a moment I'll tell you some."</p>
+
+<p>These were some of the things;</p>
+
+<p>(1) We had been to the Riviera. (Nothing could take away from that. We
+had the labels on our luggage.)</p>
+
+<p>(2) We had lost heavily (thirty francs) at the Tables. (This alone
+justified the journey.)</p>
+
+<p>(3) Myra had sat next to a Prince at lunch. (Of course she might have
+done this in London, but so far there has been no great rush of Princes
+to our little flat. Dukes, Mayors, Companions of St. Michael and St.
+George, certainly; but, somehow, not Princes.)</p>
+
+<p>(4) Simpson had done the short third hole at Mt. Agel in three. (His
+first had cleverly dislodged the ball from the piled-up tee; his second,
+a sudden nick, had set it rolling down the hill to the green; and the
+third, an accidental putt, had sunk it.)</p>
+
+<p>(5) Myra and I had seen Corsica. (Question.)</p>
+
+<p>(6) And finally, and best of all, we had sat in the sun, under a blue
+sky, above a blue sea, and watched the oranges and lemons grow.</p>
+
+<p>So, though we had been to but few of the famous beauty spots around, we
+had had a delightfully lazy time; and as proof that we had not really
+been at Brighton there were, as I have said, the luggage labels. But we
+were to be able to show further proof. At this moment Simpson came out
+of the house, his face beaming with excitement, his hands carefully
+concealing something behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess what I've got," he said eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"The sack," said Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>"Your new vests," said Archie.</p>
+
+<p>"Something that will interest us all," helped Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>"I withdraw my suggestion," said Archie.</p>
+
+<p>"Something we ought to have brought with us all along."</p>
+
+<p>"More money," said Myra.</p>
+
+<p>The tension was extreme. It was obvious that our consuming anxiety would
+have to be relieved very speedily. To avoid a riot, Thomas went behind
+Simpson's back and took his surprise away from him.</p>
+
+<p>"A camera," he said. "Good idea."</p>
+
+<p>Simpson was all over himself with bon-hommy.</p>
+
+<p>"I suddenly thought of it the other night," he said, smiling round at
+all of us in his happiness, "and I was just going to wake Thomas up to
+tell him, when I thought, I'd keep it a secret. So I wrote to a friend
+of mine and asked him to send me out one, and some films and things,
+just as a surprise for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Samuel, you <i>are</i> a dear," said Myra, looking at him lovingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I thought, Myra, you'd like to have some records of the place,
+because they're so jolly to look back on, and&mdash;er, I'm not quite sure
+how you work it, but I expect some of you know, and&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," said Myra, "I'll show you." She retired with Simpson to a
+secluded part of the loggia and helped him put the films in.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing can save us," said Archie. "We are going to be taken together
+in a group. Simpson will send it to one of the picture papers, and we
+shall appear as 'Another Merry Little Party of well-known Sun-seekers.
+Names from left to right: Blank, blank, Mr. Archibald Mannering, blank,
+blank.' I'd better go and brush my hair."</p>
+
+<p>Simpson returned to us, nervous and fully charged with advice.</p>
+
+<p>"Right, Myra, I see. That'll be all right. Oh, look here, do you&mdash;oh
+yes, I see. Right. Now then&mdash;wait a bit&mdash;oh yes, I've got it. Now then,
+what shall we have first? A group?"</p>
+
+<p>"Take the house and the garden and the village," said Thomas. "You'll
+see plenty of <i>us</i> afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"The first one is bound to be a failure," I pointed out. "Rather let him
+fail at us, who are known to be beautiful, than, at the garden, which
+has its reputation yet to make. Afterwards, when he has got the knack,
+he will be able to do justice to the scenery."</p>
+
+<p>Archie joined us again, followed by the bull-dog. We grouped ourselves
+picturesquely.</p>
+
+<p>"That looks ripping," said Simpson. "Oh, look here, Myra, do you&mdash;&mdash; No,
+don't come; you'll spoil the picture. I suppose you have to&mdash;oh, it's
+all right, I think I've got it."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't try to look handsome this time," said Archie; "it's not worth
+it. I shall just put an ordinary blurred expression on."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, are you ready? Don't move. Quite still, please; quite&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's instantaneous, you know," said Myra gently.</p>
+
+<p>This so unnerved Simpson that he let the thing off without any further
+warning, before we had time to get our expressions natural.</p>
+
+<p>"That was all right, Myra, wasn't it?" he said proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm&mdash;I'm afraid you had your hand over the lens, Samuel dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Our new photographic series: 'Palms of the Great.' No. 1, Mr. S.
+Simpson's," murmured Archie.</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't have been a very good one anyhow," I said encouragingly.
+"It wasn't typical. Dahlia should have had an orange in her hand, and
+Myra might have been resting her cheek against a cactus. Try it again,
+Simpson, and get a little more colour into it."</p>
+
+<p>He tried again and got a lot more colour into it.</p>
+
+<p>"Strictly speaking," said Myra sadly, "you ought to have got it on to a
+new film."</p>
+
+<p>Simpson looked in horror at the back of his camera, found that he had
+forgotten to turn the handle, apologised profusely, and wound up very
+gingerly till the number "2" approached. "Now then," he said, looking up
+... and found himself alone.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<blockquote><p>As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should
+you ever do us the honour of dining with us (as I hope you will), and
+(which seems impossible) should there ever come a moment when the
+conversation runs low, and you are revolving in your mind whether it is
+worth while asking us if we have been to any theatres lately, then I
+shall produce the album, and you will be left in no doubt that we are
+just back from the Riviera. You will see oranges and lemons and olives
+and cactuses and palms; blue sky (if you have enough imagination) and
+still bluer sea; picturesque villas, curious effects of rocks, distant
+backgrounds of mountain ... and on the last page the clever kindly face
+of Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>The whole affair will probably bore you to tears.</p>
+
+<p>But with Myra and me the case of course is different. We find these
+things, as Simpson said, very jolly to look back on.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A. A. M.</span><br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75%;">
+<a href="images/illus-289.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-289.png" alt="Extract from Sentries' Orders" /></a>
+
+</div>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>Extract from Sentries' Orders</i>: "In case of man
+overboard, will throw the ship's life-buoy overboard, and report to the
+ship's officer on the bridge. In case of fire will at once report it
+quietly to the ship's officer on the bridge."</p>
+
+<p><i>Officer of the Watch (on transport).</i> "<span class="smcap">What do you do in case of fire?</span>"</p>
+
+<p><i>Nervous Sentry.</i> "<span class="smcap">Throw meself overboard an' report at once to the
+bloke on the balcony.</span>"</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h3>IN SEARCH OF PETER.</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>Martell is one of those men that you might live next door to for
+half-a-century and never know any better. It is entirely owing to his
+wife and her love for Peter that Martell and I have discovered each
+other to be quite companionable fellows with many tastes in common, and
+I am smoking one of his cigars at the present moment.</p>
+
+<p>Peter is the most precious and the most coveted of my possessions. He is
+coveted, or was, chiefly by Mrs. Martell, who fell in love with his name
+and his deep romantic eyes. Apart from these I can see nothing
+remarkable in him. He is certainly the most irresponsible hound that
+ever sat down in front of a motor-car to attend to his personal
+cleanliness, but still I should not like to part with him. "We must have
+a Peter," was the text of Mrs. Martell's domestic monologues, and of
+late, before the great disillusionment&mdash;that is, after hinting
+delicately to me that she would like best of all to have <i>the</i>
+Peter&mdash;she took to sallying forth, armed with the name, into the
+purlieus of dog-fanciers to find a criminal that would fit the
+punishment.</p>
+
+<p>I was not altogether surprised, therefore, one afternoon when a note was
+brought in asking me to step round and have a cup of tea. Martell was
+monosyllabic as usual, and we sat and gazed into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose you would like to part with Peter," he said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly should not," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after a pause, "Could you tell a good lie?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>I looked up in astonishment, but just then Mrs. Martell entered and
+plunged <i>in medias res</i>. She had just returned from the last of those
+fruitless expeditions, and the slow realization that there can be only
+one Peter in the world had brought her nearly to tears.</p>
+
+<p>"And I've bought such a sweet little collar for him," she said, "with
+'Peter' printed in big letters."</p>
+
+<p>I remembered then that the original dog was in daily danger of being
+arrested, his very aged collar having been chewed to pulp after his last
+castigation therewith.</p>
+
+<p>"And a dear little pair of soft slippers, one for him to play with, and
+the other to smack him with if he's ever naughty, although I don't think
+he could be&mdash;your Peter, I mean. Have you slippers for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not a pair," I said, "and not exactly slippers. One's a
+golf-ball, the other's more in the nature of a boot."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but he 's such a sweet-tempered little creature, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>I felt Martell's eye upon, me.</p>
+
+<p>"Very," I said; "his early upbringing gave him a healthy body and a
+mellow heart. He was born in a brewery, you know, and never tasted water
+until I flung him into the canal the first day I had him. Since then, as
+often as he has time, he goes to bathe in the scummiest parts, and then
+comes and tells me all about it with any amount of circumstantial
+evidence. Most enthusiastic little swimmer he is."</p>
+
+<p>"What a funny dog! But I should never allow him to go out alone&mdash;if he
+were mine, I mean. And what sort of food do you give him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he tried to swallow one of my white ties last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I should give him proper food," she said. "He doesn't hate
+cats, does he? I couldn't bear a dog that did."</p>
+
+<p>My eyes met Martell's for one moment, then I cleared my throat. Slowly
+and sadly I opened the history of Peter militant, with unacknowledged
+borrowings from the lives of other Peters with other names. Beginning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+with cats I had seen in my garden looking as if they felt rather blurred
+and indistinct, I passed on through cats speechless and perforated, to
+cats that were. I told sad stories of the deaths of cats. I talked of
+nights of agonising shrieks, and mornings of guilty eyes and
+blood-stained lips. My store of reminiscences lasted five minutes, and
+before Mrs. Martell had recovered from their recitation I pleaded a
+pressing engagement and took my departure.</p>
+
+<p>You will now understand why I count Martell among my friends and am at
+this moment, as I said before, smoking one of his cigars. It came in a
+box of a hundred, with the laconic note, "One for each."</p>
+
+<p>As I write, my dog and my black kitten are barging in perfect accord all
+round my legs in pursuit of a brand-new collar with "Peter" printed in
+big letters.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%;">
+<a href="images/illus-290.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-290.png" alt="A NEW CRAZE." /></a>
+<h4>A NEW CRAZE.</h4>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">What a tragic face you have, Miss Pootle.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Yes, You See, I <i>adore</i> misery.</span>"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>Notice outside a station of the Wirral Railway Co.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Loiterers on the Company's premises or annoying passengers will be
+prosecuted."</p></div>
+
+<p>The passenger who annoys us most and seems worthiest of prosecution is
+the fifth on our side of the carriage.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>ANNABEL LEE.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up and down on the fresh-ploughed levels,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All for the sake of their lady fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two cock-partridges fought like devils,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hammer-and-tongs and a hop in the air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I and "Basket" Annabel Lee&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Elderly tinking gyp is she&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We leaned on the paling and watched it go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And "Eh," said she, "now a fight 'tis cruel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of all the compliments 'tis the jewel!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May I die to-day, but I know, I know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's naught as a young maid's 'eart takes better<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than a couple o' big chaps out to get her<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through a dozen o' dustin' rounds or so.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Bet my bonnet it strikes you funny,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seein' I'm risin' seventy-three,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To think o' me once as sweet as honey;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lor' how their fists went 'long o' me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jake Poltevo and Pembroke Bill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw 'em then, and I sees 'em still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eh, how their fists went&mdash;<i>thud! crack! thud!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">None o' your booze-house scraps, Lor' love 'em;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turf to their feet and the sky above 'em&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stripped, bare-knuckle and mucked wi' blood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Queer thing, ain't it, I still thinks pleasure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the strength o' a man, bein' old, by measure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And plain, you'd say, as a pint o' mud?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Scared me fine at the time, though; weepin'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I 'id my face in the 'azels low;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tip-toe soon I was back a-peepin',<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Couldn't 'a' helped were it never so;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each as good as the other chap&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bad old woman I be, may'ap;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But eh, I loved 'em, the fine young men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Marry a one of 'em? Why no, never;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They wasn't a-marryin' me whatever;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I likes to think of 'em now and then;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For, of all the compliments, <i>that</i> was candy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And&mdash;ain't them dicky-birds at it dandy?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I knows the pride o' their pretty 'en!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eh, but I loved 'em, me fine young men!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75%;">
+<a href="images/illus-291.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-291.png" alt="FROM FIFE TO HARP." /></a>
+<h4>FROM FIFE TO HARP.</h4>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in"><span class="smcap">Mr. Asquith.</span> "ONE MORE BONNIE TOOTLE, AND THEN BACK TO THAT DREARY OLD
+HARP."</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<span class="smcap">Extracted from the Diary of Toby, M.P.</span>)</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 40%;">
+<a href="images/illus-293a.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-293a.png" alt="A FORETASTE OF HOME RULE HARMONY" /></a>
+<h4>A FORETASTE OF HOME RULE HARMONY</h4>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in">"Mr. Devlin here interposed with a remark which was not heard in the
+gallery, and Mr. W. O'Brien, turning round to where the hon. member was
+sitting, called out in an angry tone something which was not clearly
+heard."&mdash;"<i>Times'" Report.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><i>House of Commons, Monday, April 6.</i>&mdash;At third time of asking Home Rule
+Bill read a second time. Odd feature, in curious sitting that hotly
+contested measure passed crucial stage without a division. House divided
+on <span class="smcap">Walter Long's</span> amendment for its rejection. When thereupon <span class="smcap">Speaker</span> put
+the question that "the Bill be now read a second time" there was none to
+say him nay. Some folk of hopeful habit see in this incident a forecast
+of the end.</p>
+
+<p>Debate unexpectedly decorous, not to say decidedly dull. <span class="smcap">Tim Healy</span> did
+something to lift it out of rut. But he was more concerned to belabour
+<span class="smcap">John Redmond</span> and to dig <span class="smcap">Devlin</span> in the ribs than to argue merits of
+measure. Taunted his much-loved fellow-patriot and countryman with
+facing both ways on question of exclusion of Ulster. <span class="smcap">Attorney-General</span>
+declared that <span class="smcap">Premier's</span> offer of exclusion for period of six years was
+still open. <span class="smcap">Redmond</span>, believing it was dead, had, <span class="smcap">Tim</span> said, prepared its
+coffin, "and now the <span class="smcap">Attorney-General</span> comes along and forces fresh
+oxygen into the corpse."</p>
+
+<p>As for <span class="smcap">Devlin</span>, he was introduced accidentally at end of harangue. Had
+interposed comment inaudible to main body of House, but safely assumed
+not to be complimentary. <span class="smcap">William O'Brien</span> turned round with angry retort.</p>
+
+<p>"There is," mused <span class="smcap">Tim</span>, "one gentleman from whom on historical grounds I
+had expected firmness in regard to Ulster. It is the gentleman who has
+just interrupted me, and the grounds of expectation are that in ancient
+time downward from the flight of the earls the <span class="smcap">Devlins</span> were the
+hereditary horse-boys of the <span class="smcap">O'Neills</span>."</p>
+
+<p>Remark perhaps scarcely relevant to Home Rule Bill or motion for its
+Second Reading. But it soothed <span class="smcap">Tim</span> and didn't hurt <span class="smcap">Devlin</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Birrell</span> having made cheery speech on situation generally, <span class="smcap">Peto</span> rose with
+amiable intention of continuing debate. House had had enough of it.
+Persistently cried aloud for division. Amid hubbub <span class="smcap">Peto</span> shouted
+dissatisfaction at top of his voice. Unequal contest maintained for only
+a few minutes, when <span class="smcap">McKenna</span> in charge of business of House during
+absence of his elders nipped in with motion for Closure.</p>
+
+<p>This carried, <span class="smcap">Long's</span> amendment negatived by 356 votes against 276.
+Majority for Government, 80. Motion for Second Reading unchallenged;
+amid prolonged cheering from Ministerialists and Irish Nationalists Bill
+read a second time.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 45%;">
+<a href="images/illus-293b.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-293b.png" alt="If only Sir" /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in">If only Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Carson</span> belonged to some other
+oppressed nationality&mdash;Armenia, for instance!</p>
+
+
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Business done.</i>&mdash;For third time in course of three successive sessions
+Home Rule Bill passes Second Reading stage.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Browning</span>, longing to be in England "now that April's there,"
+would have been disappointed had it been possible for him to turn up
+to-day. So dark and dank that at three o'clock, when Questions opened,
+electric light was turned on. Revealed dreary array of half-empty
+benches. Had Closure been promptly moved a count out inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>As in time of war the cutting off of superior officers brings
+comparatively young ones to chief command, <span class="smcap">McKenna</span> (in the absence of
+<span class="smcap">Premier</span>, <span class="smcap">Chancellor of Exchequer</span>, and <span class="smcap">Foreign Secretary</span>) sits in the
+seat of the mighty in charge of Government business. Fills the part
+excellently. Ten days ago <span class="smcap">Speaker</span> cheered House by announcement that
+there should be no more Supplementary Questions. Welcome resolution
+either forgotten or deliberately ignored. Supplementary Questions,
+almost exclusively argumentative, assertive, or personally offensive,
+buzzed about Treasury bench like bees at mouth of hive. <span class="smcap">Home Secretary</span>,
+alert, self-possessed, deftly parried attack.</p>
+
+
+<p>While Questions on printed paper were being duly picked up, put and
+answered, midway in melancholy proceeding there entered Distinguished
+Strangers' Gallery a small group of gorgeously clad princes from the
+storied East. They surveyed the scene with keen interest. In their
+far-off home they had read and talked of the House of Commons, the
+central controlling force of wide-spread Empire, whereof their
+possessions were as a bit of fringe. They had travelled far to look upon
+it. And here in this comparatively small chamber, scantily peopled, they
+beheld it.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Is this the face that launched a thousand ships<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stormed the topmost towers of Ilium?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Fortunately for reputation of the House <span class="smcap">Rowland Hunt</span> chanced to be to
+the fore. The other day, burning with patriotism, he issued a circular
+letter addressed to non-commissioned officers of the Army, advising them
+how to act in certain contingencies relating to Ulster. It happens that
+one <span class="smcap">Crowsley</span> had previously circulated amongst soldiers at Aldershot a
+handbill urging the men to disobey orders when on duty. He was
+prosecuted for inciting to mutiny,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> convicted and sentenced. Members in
+Radical stronghold below Gangway want to know wherein the two cases
+differ, and why, if <span class="smcap">Crowsley</span> is in gaol, the Member for South Shropshire
+should go free?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Attorney-General</span>, to whom questions were addressed, diplomatically
+discriminated. Came to conclusion not to employ services of <span class="smcap">Public
+Prosecutor</span>. So <span class="smcap">Rowland Hunt</span> remains with us.</p>
+
+<p><i>Business done.</i>&mdash;A couple of small Government Bills advanced a stage.
+House talked out at eleven o'clock.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday.</i>&mdash;Adjournment for brief Easter Holiday. Back on Tuesday.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65%;">
+<a href="images/illus-294.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-294.png" alt="Edward Grey" /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in">Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Grey</span> (<i>in Sutherlandshire on the day of the
+final debate on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill</i>). "Ireland?
+Ireland? Where have I heard that name?"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+
+<h2>THE COWL.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Murdoch McWhannel, 3, Poynings Avenue, Glasgow, N.W.</i>,<br />to <i>Messrs.
+Fairley and Willing, house-factors there</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 3, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I have been seriously annoyed for some weeks now by a noisy
+chimney-cowl on your property at 15, Poynings Road. It is on the
+stack of chimneys at the rear of your property, and within about
+fifty yards of the back windows of this house. During the recent
+high winds the cowl has kept up a continual shrieking, day and
+night, which has been extremely destructive to "Nature's sweet
+restorer, balmy sleep." I trust that you will be so good as to have
+the cowl overhauled, and this cause of disturbance removed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Messrs. Fairley and Willing</i><br />to <i>Murdoch McWhannel</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 6, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Re</i> your letter of 3rd curt., the chimney cowl at 15, Poynings
+Road shall have our immediate attention.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Murdoch McWhannel</i><br />to <i>Messrs. Fairley and Willing</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 7, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I have to thank you for your prompt and courteous reply to my
+letter of 3rd January, and am glad to know that the noisy cowl will
+have your immediate attention.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>The Same</i><br />to <i>the Same</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 14, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>May I remind you that in your letter of 6th January you were good
+enough to promise that the noisy cowl at 15, Poynings Road would
+have your immediate attention? Of course I know that it is
+difficult to get tradesmen to work so soon after the New Year
+holidays, but they should now be available, and the cowl is having
+a very serious effect on the health and nerves of the residents
+here.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Messrs. Fairley and Willing</i><br />to <i>Murdoch McWhannel</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 17, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Re</i> chimney cowl at 15, Poynings Road and your letter of 14th
+curt., we are surprised to receive same. We sent out a tradesman on
+January 11, who reported same date that he had oiled and adjusted
+the cowl, and that it would give no further trouble. If you are
+still troubled, some other cowl must be causing it now. We
+understand, from enquiries made on the spot, that there is a noisy
+one, not on our property at all, but on Hathaway Mansions. We hope
+you will find this explanation satisfactory.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Murdoch McWhannel</i><br />to <i>Messrs. Fairley and Willing</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 19, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I am surprised by the contents of your letter of 17th, for which I
+am much obliged. If your tradesman attended to a cowl on the back
+stack of your property at 15, Poynings Road, on January 11, he must
+have attended to the wrong cowl. One can readily understand that if
+he adjusted and oiled a cowl which had not been making any noise it
+would continue to be silent. The error might easily occur,
+especially so soon after the New Year holidays. This is the only
+explanation I can think of, for the noise has been as bad as ever.
+I trust you will have the matter further looked into, as the
+situation, especially in regard to my wife's nerves, is becoming
+more and more serious.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Messrs. Fairley and Willing</i><br />to <i>Murdoch McWhannel</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 23, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>In re</i> chimney cowl at 15, Poynings Road and your letter of
+January 19, we can only say that it surprises us very much. We
+employ only the most competent tradesmen, who could not possibly
+make the kind of mistake you suppose. We beg to refer you to the
+part of our letter of January 17 referring to Hathaway Mansions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Murdoch McWhannel</i><br />to <i>Messrs. Fairley and Willing</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 24, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>I regret very much the tone of your letter of January 23. It is
+hardly courteous to suggest, as your letter does, that I cannot
+distinguish between the noise of a cowl on Hathaway Mansions, which
+are fully 150 yards away, and one which is practically just above
+my bedroom. As I write this letter, seated at a table at the window
+of my study, I can actually see the cowl shrieking&mdash;if you will
+pardon a figure of speech which has perhaps a Hibernian flavour. As
+my study is built out to the back of this house, it is parallel
+with your property at 15, Poynings Road. I am within fifty yards of
+the offending cowl. The noise it makes rises and falls in
+shrillness according to the speed at which the cowl revolves under
+the pressure of the wind. We are not disturbed at all by any cowl
+on Hathaway Mansions, but by this one of yours, about which I wrote
+you first so long ago as January 3. I have kept a diary of the cowl
+since then and for some days earlier, showing the number of hours
+per day that we have been annoyed by it, the number of times it has
+prevented us from getting to sleep at the usual time, the number of
+nights we have been wakened from the same cause, and the number of
+mornings when we have been prematurely wakened, often as early as
+seven o'clock, and prevented from getting to sleep again. I shall
+be glad to send you a copy of this document for your information.
+The original I must retain, in case any legal proceedings should be
+necessary, as I have had each item in the diary certified by my
+wife and our house-tablemaid, a very intelligent and observant
+girl. I hope, however, it may not be necessary to take any legal
+steps, such as an action of interdict and damages at my instance,
+or a prosecution for nuisance at the instance of the public
+authority, which in this case would be the City Council, to a
+number of which body I am not altogether unknown. In fact I may say
+I took the opportunity of mentioning the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> matter to Bailie McPartan
+at a municipal conversazione to which my wife and I were invited
+last week. I do not wish to trouble you by writing at any undue
+length on this subject, but I think it right and only fair to tell
+you that owing to the actual noise of the cowl, and perhaps even
+more (as our doctor says) to the mental strain of listening to hear
+whether it is going to begin again, my wife is on the verge of a
+complete nervous collapse, which seems likely to necessitate some
+weeks' rest cure in a nursing home, and possibly a trip to the
+Canaries. I am advised by my lawyer that these are contingent
+liabilities, the burden of which would fall upon you as the owner
+of the cowl. In these circumstances I feel sure you will favour the
+immediate removal of this nuisance.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Messrs. Fairley and Willing</i><br />to <i>Murdoch McWhannel</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>January 27, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Your letter of 24th curt. will receive immediate attention at the
+hands of our solicitors. Messrs. Samson and Samuel, 114, North
+Regent Street, to whom perhaps you will kindly address any further
+communications you may think necessary <i>re</i> cowl.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Gilbert Macdonald, 5, Poynings Avenue, Glasgow, N.W.</i>,<br />to <i>George
+Willing, house factor</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>February 3, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Willing</span>,&mdash;For Heaven's sake, as an old friend, spike or remove
+the chimney cowl that McWhannel at No. 3 has written you about. He
+has called on me twice and written three long letters, "to enlist
+my sympathy and support." He is the most poisonous kind of bore,
+and I'll gladly pay for the removal of the cowl, if that's the only
+way of muzzling him.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Reply by telephone, summarised.</i> <i>Willing</i><br />to <i>Macdonald</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>February 4, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I would do so, for friendship's sake, but I've just sold the property. I
+preferred that to having any more letters from him.</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="author"><i>Messrs. Fairley and Willing</i><br />to <i>Murdoch McWhannel</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<i>February 14, 191-.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Re</i> your letters to Messrs. Samson and Samuel of January 29th and
+31st, and February 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th, and your telegrams of 12th
+and 13th, we have now pleasure in advising you that we have sold
+the property at 15, Poynings Road, including the cowl, to the
+Corporation. We understand that the Corporation propose to use the
+premises as a reception house in connection with their Home for
+Lost Dogs, and we trust that this arrangement will be satisfactory
+to you.</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h3>HINTS TO ARTISTS AND WRITERS WHO NEED TO ADVERTISE
+THEMSELVES BY SOME ECCENTRICITY OF COSTUME.</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 800px">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 40%;">
+<a href="images/illus-295a.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-295a.png" alt="Edward Grey" /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><span class="smcap">While the most elaborate attempts to draw attention often fall flat,</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 40%;">
+<a href="images/illus-295b.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-295b.png" alt="Edward Grey" /></a>
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in" class="caption"><span class="smcap">sometimes the smallest deviation from the usual may prove
+irresistible.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>Commercial Candour.</p>
+
+<p>From an Oxford Street wine merchant's advt.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Equal to the so-called First Quality brands."</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 20%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"He was defended by Mr. Macbottle of whisky."&mdash;<i>Scotch paper.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>The Macbottles (of whisky) are a very well-known Highland clan.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>"At Sapphire Lodge in Vincent Square, W. A. Randall Wells has lately
+painted two rooms in a manner which combines novelty very successfully
+with a sound tradition." Speaking of the bedroom, <i>The Times</i> goes on to
+say that "there are passages from the 'Sensitive Blast' finely written
+on vellum in every panel." Certainly this variation on the title of
+<span class="smcap">Shelley's</span> poem seems to "combine novelty very successfully with a sound
+tradition."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>A VILLAIN IN REVOLT.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have been in a fair dust-up in Denver City,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made many a baresark rush;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have bluffed with Death in my time and scooped the kitty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smashing a cool straight flush;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have gouged my jack-knife deep in a victim's thorax<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Golly, how the blood did gush!);<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have scalped some dozens of skulls with an Indian war-axe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without being put to the blush.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I've killed with stilettos at times and with crude sandbagging,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or a brute belaying-pin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a twisted cord I have frequently done my scragging,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And doped with devilish gin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I remember once in a boarding-house racket at Rio<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How my snickersnee snicked clean in;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I booted a blackguard to death with consid'rable <i>brio</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One evening in Tien-tsin.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I've run amok with a kris and sent men howling;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a kukri I've killed my prey;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm an amateur still&mdash;I admit it&mdash;at disembow'ling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I've settled a few that way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I mind me well (for I still can sniff the aroma<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that particular fray)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How I quartered and cut into ribbons some beggars at Boma<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On rather a busy day.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But I'm blowed&mdash;being really a rabid humanitarian,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a vegetarian too&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If I mean to devour an unfortunate fellow Aryan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the Island of Oahu.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have done dire deeds by request, without any evasion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But this thing I will not do;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If they won't be content with a "fake" for this single occasion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My cinema job is through.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>From a list of popular novels:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<i>The Beloved Premier</i>, by <span class="smcap">H. Maxwell</span>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>The Greater Law</i>, by <span class="smcap">Victoria Cross</span>."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Politicians can take their choice.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>The Latest Cinema Poster.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Our Sea Rooms now open.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No Finer Death."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>The Men that Matter.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sound the clarion, <span class="smcap">Filson</span>, <span class="smcap">Fyfe</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To all the reading world proclaim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One signed half-column, straight from life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is worth a page without a name.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>THE ART OF CONVERSATION.</h2>
+
+<p>I had a terrible experience yesterday, one of life's inky black hours
+which will bring a shudder whenever in future days memory seizes an idle
+moment to refresh herself. I had been dining with Scarfield and his
+mother at Hampstead, and with the entry of the coffee he had pleaded a
+sudden dyspepsia and withdrawn. So his mother, a dear colourless old
+lady, undertook to entertain me. By her desire I lighted a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>She mentioned that she had just returned from a visit to Glasgow, and I
+remarked intelligently that Glasgow was a fine place. Considering for a
+moment, she observed that she thought the weather in Glasgow was colder
+than that of the South of England; and I said, Yes, very likely, I had
+heard so. In about two minutes she qualified her statement by informing
+me that the South of England was as a rule milder than Glasgow. I
+replied that it appeared to me very possible, adding recklessly that
+they had peculiarly mixed weather in Glasgow, which she seemed to think
+rather a questionable presentment of the case for the North, for she
+kept silent and ruminated for seven or eight minutes. My mind took a
+little excursion to Putney, where I have friends. But, before I had
+really settled at Putney, the lady's voice intimated that perhaps they
+had more rain in Glasgow than in the South of England.</p>
+
+<p>I came back from Putney with a slight mental wrench, yet sufficiently
+clear-headed to say decidedly that Glasgow, on the whole, had a much
+better climate than the South, because I had once spent a day there, and
+the sun shone the whole time, so I ought to know. Then I started off
+again, and had just reached Walham Green (one does not speak of these
+places, but I may tell you that it is a station on the way to Putney,
+where I have a friend), when she responded with lightning-like swiftness
+that it couldn't be healthy to live in Glasgow. This bordered on
+repartee, so I countered rapidly with the brilliant suggestion that a
+good many people managed to live there, hoping she would not score by
+the obvious rejoinder that a good many people died there. If she had, I
+can't imagine how I should have extricated myself. Luckily she merely
+murmured, "Ah, yes," and reflected. I was just stepping off the train at
+a station (Putney&mdash;to be explicit, it is a lady friend) when there
+seemed to be a collision, and I caught myself saying, "Indeed!" though I
+don't know why. She nodded approval, however, and I ventured on a
+meditative "Ye-es."</p>
+
+<p>"But they don't seem to mind," she said, glancing at me blandly through
+her spectacles. "<i>Do</i> they?"</p>
+
+<p>"You see," I answered, chancing it, "they are so used to it." She smiled
+and agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"That must be the reason," she said. For what, I hadn't the remotest
+idea; but this just shows what presence of mind will do for one in an
+emergency.</p>
+
+<p>"What a difference they must find," I went on boldly, and lapsed into a
+muse. She sighted it, however, and replied in less than five minutes&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You mean now that the old-fashioned ones are coming in again?"</p>
+
+<p>Here was a catastrophe. Did she refer to hats, or skirts, or Christmas
+cards? What sudden original observation had I unfortunately missed
+during that last journey South-westward? At all costs I must keep cool.
+I pulled myself together and plunged.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said. "You see the old-fashioned ones were so awfully tight,
+weren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tight?" she echoed. "Not <i>tight</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not exactly <i>tight</i>," I answered, feeling rather distracted. "I
+meant large."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me suspiciously, I thought. "<i>I</i> think they're too long,"
+she said, "and such a lot of people in them."</p>
+
+<p>This was growing too complicated, and I wished heartily we had stuck to
+Glasgow and its weather.</p>
+
+<p>"One finds them," she added, "so hard to follow."</p>
+
+<p>I racked my miserable brain for anything that was lengthy, populous, and
+difficult to follow; in vain.</p>
+
+<p>"Still," I gasped, glancing at the door, "one can always ... one can
+generally ... one can sometimes sit down ... for a rest ... if one is
+dreadfully tired," I explained.</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at me reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't usually stand at the back of the pit," she said. "The last time
+Fred took me we had stalls."</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;how <i>jolly</i>!" I murmured. "I was thinking of&mdash;of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, Mr. Fred would like some soda-water and a few biscuits
+taken up, Ma'am," said the servant, entering softly.</p>
+
+<p>I rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Must you go?" protested my conversationalist. "Oh, I am so sorry! But
+come again soon&mdash;you have kept me quite lively. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>I took the tube to Charing Cross and changed there for Putney and Ethel.
+(Did I mention that her name was Ethel?) But when I told Ethel about it
+afterwards she said she thought sarcasm in elderly ladies was very
+objectionable.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>COMMERCIAL ART.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Across the sundering gulf of time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I lift a song to you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Melodious as a minster chime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Loud, I expect, as two.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Years have flown swiftly since we met;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do you, remembered one, forget<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rapturous moment and sublime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I drew near to you? I bet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A half-a-crown you do.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Your name I never learned&mdash;H&eacute;l&egrave;ne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beryl, perhaps Marie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Phyllis, Estelle, or merely Jane&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It makes no odds to me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I hymn you, maiden, none the less;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I toil in rhyme and metre; yes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From noon till eve I bear the pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of this prolonged poetic stress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(With half-an-hour for tea).<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Carrots your hair was (<i>i.e.</i>, red;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Carrots" is just my fun);<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blue were your eyes, and from them sped<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A gleam that mocked the sun&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I <i>think</i> that's so, but, as I say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Time has moved quickly since that day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And few, too few, the words we said<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When languidly, as beauty may,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You handed me a bun.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Calmly you took it from the place<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where it was used to sit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I can still recall the grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With which you dusted it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I paid you, and we parted; so<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life's rich adventures come and go!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And did that brief glimpse of your face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Set love within me surging? No,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It didn't. Not a bit.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I only sing because I must;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not mine the fret, the throb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of fevered passion; verse is just<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My livelihood, or job.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Searching for themes, I had a clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swift vision of your dial; queer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How such things happen, but I trust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These lines will bring me in, my dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&pound;1 or 30s.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 70%;">
+<a href="images/illus-297.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-297.png" alt="Edward Grey" /></a>
+
+<h3>AT THE COSTUMIER'S.</h3>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><span class="smcap">Oh yes, she's smart, but she hasn't an idea in her vocabulary.</span>"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+<h2>THE BURNING QUESTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Feeling that not all the representative voices have been heard with
+regard to the question of smoking in theatres, <i>Mr. Punch</i> has been
+making further inquiries. The replies are appended:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>General <span class="smcap">Villa v. Villa</span>.</i> I think that smoking should be permitted
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Max Pemberton</span>.</i> I am totally opposed to giving theatres the same
+comfortable rules as the variety halls. If people may smoke at musical
+comedies they are in danger of avoiding revues.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. G. K. <span class="smcap">Chesterton</span>.</i> I am in favour of giving the public all they
+want. Let them smoke if they wish to, everywhere and everywhen. Let them
+also chew and take snuff: a private snuff-box should be attached to
+every stall.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Victor Grayson</span>.</i> I would support smoking in theatres if pipes were
+permitted. But of course they won't be.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Bernard Shaw</span> (to whom no inquiry was addressed, but that did not
+prevent his sending a long letter on the subject, the purport of which
+is that there should be no smoking anywhere).</i> Had I ever smoked I
+should not now be the first intellectual in Europe.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir <span class="smcap">James Crichton-Browne</span>.</i> No smoking in theatres for me. And if I go
+to the Gaiety and find that a cigar or cigarette on my right or left
+singes my whiskers I will have the law of Mr. <span class="smcap">George Edwardes</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.</i>" Let there be smoking, but let some
+kind of control be kept on the brands of cigars that are smoked.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Lloyd George</span>.</i> I am in favour of the extension of all taxable
+luxuries.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Eustace Miles</span>.</i> Most London theatres are now so grossly
+over-ventilated that I welcome the idea of tobacco as helping to redress
+the balance.</p>
+
+<p><i>Master <span class="smcap">Anthony Asquith</span>.</i> Surely if there is smoking in one house of
+entertainment there may be smoking in another. I am sure my poor father
+would agree.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>THE FEDERAL SOLUTION.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>See the daily papers</i> passim.)</p>
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,&mdash;At last a ray of sanity has fallen like oil on the troubled
+waters of the Irish controversy and has given a well-merited cold
+douche to the extremists on either side. It is now acknowledged
+that what for want of a better term I may call the Federal Solution
+holds the field, and any attempt to expel it will only plunge the
+objector still deeper in the mire and cover him with ridicule from
+head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>Long ago I adumbrated in the clearest possible way the fundamental
+outlines of this solution, and every hour which has passed has only
+sufficed, to strengthen a conviction which was already so deeply
+rooted as to be beyond the reach of hostile argument. What is now
+required to be done may be stated in a nutshell. Let the Government
+withdraw the present Home Rule Bill. They will thus dispose at once
+of the opposition of Mr. <span class="smcap">Bonar Law</span>, Sir <span class="smcap">Edward Carson</span>, Mr. <span class="smcap">J. L.
+Garvin</span> and Mr. <span class="smcap">William O'Brien</span>, and will provide themselves with a
+clean slate, which will be a peg on which any subsequent plan may
+be hung. Then let them bring in a Bill (or four or more Bills, if
+deemed necessary) for conferring autonomous governments on all the
+counties of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, every county to
+have the option of excluding itself for a period of not less than
+fifty or more than a hundred years by a majority of two-thirds of
+its electorate, women to count as two on a division. At the same
+time let the House of Lords be so reconstituted as to become in
+truth an Imperial Legislature, subject, however, to the veto of a
+new and impartial body to be composed of Field-Marshals,
+Archbishops, Judges and retired Lieutenant-Governors. Our Oversea
+Dominions could come into this scheme at any moment, if so desired.
+To this plan I can see no objections whatever except, perhaps, that
+its execution will take time and will stand in the way of other
+legislation&mdash;but anything that is worth doing takes time, and, for
+my own part, I want no other legislation.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Yours, etc.,</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">James B. Hornblower</span>,<br />
+Organising Secretary,<br />
+Society of Federationists.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>In answer to the above.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,&mdash;Dr. Hornblower is at his old games. His plan for settling the
+Irish question is no plan at all, as I have frequently shown.
+Whenever it has been submitted to the fire of criticism it has been
+found that it will not wash. It is quite useless to try to mix oil
+and vinegar in a jug that will not hold water.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am a convinced supporter of a
+Federal Solution and have for many years endeavoured to remove the
+public apathy which I have found to exist in regard to this
+profoundly interesting question. My suggestion is that, in order to
+sift the matter thoroughly and, if possible, to strike out a new
+path, we should put our existing constitution into the melting pot
+and thus clear away the weeds which threaten to choke its fair
+growth. Let Parliament be a movable institution, sitting for one
+week in Australia, for one week in Canada, for one week in Ireland,
+and so on. In the course of a year it will have sat in all the
+component parts of the Empire, which will then, indeed, be an
+Empire on which the sun never sets, and in which Parliament always
+sits. It need not, of course, be the same Parliament in every case,
+but can be varied, to suit local customs and prejudices. As a
+symbol of unity His Majesty the King might be conveyed by a special
+service of air-ships from one country to another, so that he might
+always open every Parliament in person. England, Scotland, Ireland
+and Wales would thus take their proper places in the Empire by the
+side of Barbados, Canada and British Guiana, and there would be no
+jealousy because all would be treated equally. Only in this way can
+civil war be avoided and Ulster be satisfied.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Yours, etc.,</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">Benjamin Woollet</span>,<br />
+Chairman of the Amalgamated League<br />
+for the Federation of the Empire.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<h3>III.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>In answer to the two preceding letters.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,&mdash;Professor Woollet and Dr. Hornblower are both wrong. The only
+way in which a Federal Solution, such as we all desire, can be
+brought about is to convert the existing House of Lords&mdash;no change
+being made in its constitution&mdash;into the supreme and only
+legislative assembly of the whole Empire. The House of Commons, of
+course, would cease to sit, or it might take the place of the
+present London County Council. This is the true plan. All others
+are absurd. It is useless for people to say they do not want this.
+We insist on their having it.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Yours, etc.,</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">Jonathan Firedamp</span>,<br />
+President of Council of the<br />
+Federal Association.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h3>A MYTH OF BOND STREET.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>The latest thing in female head-wear is said to be the "Minerva"
+Hat.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Forgive me if my nerves were somewhat shaken;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pardon me if my pulse went pit-a-pat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I observed your tiny head had taken<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">To a "Minerva" hat.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love at my heart's closed door, with loudest knockings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Won his admittance as I gazed on you<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Garbed in the gear of her, of all blue-stockings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">The most superbly blue.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For you seemed nobler far in form and feature;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In wisdom, too, I deemed you now divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, though I felt myself a worthless creature,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">I swore to make you mine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I said, "I'll win this goddess. Though the siege is<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long, I shall learn her wisdom if I can,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until in time she throws her nuptial &aelig;gis<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Over her Super-man."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And then you spoke, in accents all too human,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glanced at me coyly from beneath your casque;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My vision vanished, and I saw the woman<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Behind that heavenly mask.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And straight I felt (so flippant was your mien) a<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pain as I mused on Pallas and her fowl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And left the phantom of a faked Athena,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">A disillusioned Owl.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>Love's Labour Lost.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The Newcastle Fire Brigade were called upon last night to deal
+with an outbreak at&mdash;&mdash;, where Mr. J. G&mdash;&mdash; carries on business as
+a firelighter manufacturer. Before much damage had been done, the
+firemen were able to extinguish the flames with chemicals."</p>
+
+<p class="author"><i>Newcastle Daily Journal.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>Once again we see how the economic instinct clashes with the artistic
+temperament.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 80%;">
+<a href="images/illus-299.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-299.png" alt="A POINT TO POINT IN IRELAND." /></a>
+
+<h3>A POINT TO POINT IN IRELAND.</h3>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Owner of Rank Bad Horse (who has given the mount to a stranger).</i>
+"<span class="smcap">Begorra, I didn't know he was a friend of yer honour's! Tell him to get
+down off that horse! Shure, I thought he was only a &mdash;&mdash; Saxon.</span>"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>A reflection that I could not resist after reading <i>Love the Harper</i>
+(<span class="smcap">Smith, Elder</span>) was that the Boy appears in this volume as a very
+indifferent performer upon his instrument. For the muddle into which he
+plunged the amatory affairs of the inhabitants of Downside was terrible.
+Downside was a quiet delightful village, as lovingly described by Miss
+<span class="smcap">Eleanor G. Hayden</span>, but the number of misplaced attachments it contained
+seemed, as <i>Lady Bracknell</i> once observed, "in excess of that which
+statisticians have laid down for our guidance." There was <i>John
+Harding</i>, the hero, who began by courting <i>Phyllis</i>, and subsequently
+transferred his suit to <i>Ruth</i>. There was <i>Will</i>, his brother, an even
+more inconstant lover, whom <i>Phyllis</i> (still nominally betrothed to
+<i>John</i>) adored at first sight, and who divided his own heart between
+<i>Ruth</i>, <i>Phyllis</i> and the crippled <i>Miss Mayling</i>. There was also <i>Ruth</i>
+herself, who thought she had a Past (she hadn't, at least it was all
+right really; but just in what sense it would be unfair to explain here)
+and therefore imagined herself for no man. The story begins with a
+wedding on the first page; and what with one thing and another I began
+to fear that this was the last consummation we were likely to get. But,
+of course, in the end&mdash;&mdash; But I shall not tell you how the couples
+finally re-sort themselves, because this is the author's secret, and one
+that she very craftily preserves till the last moment. It is
+arithmetically inevitable that there must be an odd woman left over in
+the end; but as to her identity I was entirely wrong, and so probably
+will you be. This ending is perhaps the best thing&mdash;I don't mean the
+words in an unkind sense&mdash;about a pleasant if not very thrilling story
+of a country that Miss <span class="smcap">Hayden</span> evidently knows with the knowledge of
+affection.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>Perhaps some of those who remember <span class="smcap">J. Burgon Bickersteth</span> captaining the
+Oxford soccer team four years ago may be surprised to find him serving
+his apprenticeship at sky-piloting in Alberta. And very manfully and
+sincerely and tactfully he does it, to judge by the account which he
+modestly renders in <i>The Land of Open Doors</i> (<span class="smcap">Wells, Gardner</span>). With
+headquarters at Edmonton he rides and drives or swims (when the floods
+are out or the bridges down) across this untidy country from shack to
+shack, holding odd little services in dormitories and kitchens, and
+evidently making friends with the rough pioneer folk, railway men and
+small farmers, of his assorted acquaintance. The discouragements of such
+a task must be immense; indeed, they peep through the narrative,
+reticently enough, for grousing habits are not in the equipment of this
+staunch and cheery young parson. His notes of this land of promise and
+swift achievement are admirably observed. He has the gift of
+characterisation with humour, is clever at reproducing evidently
+authentic and entertaining dialogues, and has caught the Western idiom,
+not only in these set reproductions, but unconsciously in his own
+writing, which is singularly straightforward and attractive, nor
+burdened with the sort of cleverness which the young graduate is apt to
+air. Neither is there anything of the prig in his compo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>sition&mdash;his book
+abounds in reported words which an earlier generation of clerics would
+certainly have censored&mdash;but when he is saddened by the indifference,
+the unplumbed materialism and what he sees as the wickedness of his
+scattered flock he might remember for his comfort that valid and sane
+distinction of the casuists between formal and material sin. Anyway,
+good luck to him for a sportsman!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 45%;">
+<a href="images/illus-300.png"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-300.png" alt="A POINT TO POINT IN IRELAND." /></a>
+
+<h3>OUR CURIO CRANKS.</h3>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><span class="smcap">The man who collects the chalk used by famous billiard-players.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+<p>I have often wondered why so few novelists select the English Lake
+District as a fictional setting. I wonder still more after reading
+<i>Barbara Lynn</i> (<span class="smcap">Arnold</span>), in which it is used with fine and telling
+effect. Miss <span class="smcap">Emily Jenkinson's</span> previous story showed that she had a rare
+sympathy with nature, and a still rarer gift of expressing it. <i>Barbara
+Lynn</i> does much to strengthen that impression. It is a mountain tale,
+the scene of which is laid in an upland farm, girt about by the mighty
+hills and the solitude of the fells. Here, in the dour old house of
+Graystones, is played the drama of <i>Barbara</i> and her sister <i>Lucy</i>; of
+<i>Peter</i>, who loved one and married the other; of the feckless <i>Joel</i>,
+and the old bed-ridden great-grandmother, who is a kind of chorus to it
+all. Practically these five are the only characters. Of them it is, of
+course, <i>Barbara</i> herself who stands out most prominently, a figure of
+an austere yet wistful dignity, of whom any novelist might be proud. I
+should hazard a guess that Miss <span class="smcap">Jenkinson</span> writes slowly; one feels this
+in her choice of words and her avoidance (even in the final tragic
+catastrophe) of anything approaching sensationalism or melodrama. When
+all, is said, however, it is for its descriptions that I shall remember
+the book. The hot summer, with the flocks calling in the night for
+water; the storm on the slopes of Thundergray; and the end of all things
+(which, pardon me, I do not mean to tell)&mdash;these are what live in the
+reader's mind. <i>Barbara Lynn</i>, in short, is an unusually imaginative
+novel, which has confirmed me in two previous impressions&mdash;first, that
+Miss <span class="smcap">Emily Jenkinson</span> is a writer upon whom to keep the appreciative eye;
+secondly, that Westmorland must be a perfectly beastly country to live
+in all the year round. Both of which conclusions are sincere tributes.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>I was at school, some years ago, with two brilliant twins called <span class="smcap">Duff</span>,
+who between them captured, amongst other trifles, the Porson, two
+Trinity scholarships, a Fellowship, and first place in the examination
+for the Indian Civil Service. I mention them here as an example of the
+minute care with which <span class="smcap">Alistair</span> and <span class="smcap">Henrietta Tayler</span> have compiled <i>The
+Book of the Duffs</i> (<span class="smcap">Constable</span>). For I find their names and achievements
+duly recorded in the list of (I should think) every male Duff born of
+the stock of <span class="smcap">Adam of Clunybeg</span>, <i>temp.</i> 1590, from, whom the present
+Duchess of <span class="smcap">Fife</span> is ninth or tenth in descent. And that is only one
+branch of the clan, only one of the numerous family-trees that make
+these two bulky volumes a perfect forest of Duffs. I know now exactly
+how <i>Macbeth</i> felt when he saw Birnam Wood descending on Dunsinane. No
+wonder he exclaimed, "The cry is still, <i>They come</i>." When I looked at
+all these genealogies and lifelike portraits I had an appalling vision
+of this great army of Duffs of Clunybeg and Hatton and Fetteresso and
+the rest advancing towards me solemnly waving their family-trees. In the
+van, with his Dunsinane honours thick upon him, marched
+<span class="smcap">Macduff</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Macduff</span>, you know, who was also "Thane of Fife, created first
+Earl, 1057, <i>m.</i> Beatrice Banquo." Then followed a long train of other
+warriors&mdash;General Sir <span class="smcap">Alexander</span>, who fought in Flanders; Captain <span class="smcap">George</span>,
+who was killed at Trafalgar; Admiral <span class="smcap">Norwich</span> and Admiral <span class="smcap">Robert</span>, also
+contemporaries of <span class="smcap">Nelson</span>; General <span class="smcap">Patrick</span>, who slew a tiger in single
+combat with a bayonet; General Commander-in-Chief Sir <span class="smcap">Beauchamp</span> of our
+own day&mdash;and I was afraid. Not, you understand, of their swords, but of
+their trees. And then suddenly the spirit of <i>Macbeth</i> came upon me
+again. With him I shouted, "Lay on, Macduff; and damn'd be he that first
+cries, <i>Hold, enough</i>." But, luckier than he, I have lived to tell the
+tale, or rather to tell about it, and to recommend it to all those who
+have arborivorous tastes. I can promise them that they will heartily
+enjoy a good browse in the Forest of Duff.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p>When a book is called <i>The Sea Captain</i> (<span class="smcap">Methuen</span>) I do not think that
+the hero ought to be the driest of dry-bobs for nearly a quarter of it.
+If, however, Mr. <span class="smcap">H. C. Bailey</span> is a slow starter he knows how to make the
+pace when he once gets going; indeed, he travels so fast and so far that
+merely to follow him in fancy is a breathless business. When I have told
+you that <i>Diccon</i> belonged to the spacious times of <span class="smcap">Elizabeth</span>, I need
+hardly add that his methods of winning fame and fortune on the sea were
+as rough as they were ready. Mercifully he had a steady head and a very
+strong back, or something must have given way under the strain that his
+creator puts upon him. No hero in modern fiction has jumped so
+frequently from the frying-pan into the fire with so little injury to
+himself. But if I cannot altogether believe in <i>Diccon</i> I admit an
+affection for him. He was as loyal a lover and friend as could be found
+in the Elizabethan or any other age, and although he treated troublesome
+men without mercy his behaviour to women was marked by the extreme of
+propriety; so, though you may insist that he was merely a pirate, I
+shall still go on calling him a gentleman-adventurer, and leave him at
+that.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 50%;' />
+
+<p><i>The Barbados Standard</i> on an approaching Royal visit:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The visit it is understood is fixed to begin on April 29 and to
+last until April 25. The visit is probably unprecedented."</p></div>
+
+<p>It is.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 146, APRIL 15, 1914***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 22940-h.txt or 22940-h.zip *******</p>
+<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/9/4/22940">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/9/4/22940</a></p>
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@@ -0,0 +1,2282 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+April 15, 1914, by Various, Edited by Owen Seaman
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2007 [eBook #22940]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 146, APRIL 15, 1914***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, Janet Blenkinship, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+ file which includes the original illustrations.
+ See 22940-h.htm or 22940-h.zip:
+ (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/9/4/22940/22940-h/22940-h.htm)
+ or
+ (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/9/4/22940/22940-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+VOL. 146
+
+APRIL 15, 1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+
+Reuter telegraphs from Melbourne that the Commonwealth building in
+London is to be called "Australia House." This should dispose
+effectively of the rumour that it was to be called "Canada House."
+
+* * *
+
+"The Song of the Breakers," which is being advertised, is not, we are
+told, a war song for the Suffragettes.
+
+* * *
+
+Some of the Press reported a recent happy event under the following
+heading:--
+
+"WEDDING OF MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL."
+
+Mr. GEORGE CORNWALLIS WEST would like it to be known that it was also
+his wedding.
+
+* * *
+
+It was rumoured one day last week that a certain officer famous for his
+picturesque language was about to receive a new appointment as
+Director-General of Expletives.
+
+* * *
+
+"GOLD-PLATED TYPEWRITER,"
+
+announces _The Mail_. We are sorry for the poor girl. Mr. GRANVILLE
+BARKER, of course, started the idea with his gilded fairies.
+
+* * *
+
+Miss MABEL ROGERS, we read, is bringing a suit against certain other
+girl students of Pardue University, Indiana, for "ragging" her by
+tearing off her clothes. It seems to us that it is the defendants who
+ought to bring the suit.
+
+* * *
+
+"Twelve small farmers," we are told, "were on Saturday sent for trial at
+Ballygar, County Galway, on a charge of cattle-driving." Their size
+should not excuse them.
+
+* * *
+
+One evening last week, _The Daily Mail_ tells us, the electric light
+failed in several districts of Tooting and Mitcham. "A resident in
+Garden Avenue," says our contemporary, "had invited about a dozen
+friends to a card party. The host secured a supply of candles, in the
+dim light of which the party played." It is good to know that in this
+prosaic age and in this prosaic London of ours it is still possible to
+have stirring adventures worth recording in the country's annals.
+
+* * *
+
+The power of the motor! "At the request of the Car," says _The
+Westminster Gazette_, "M. POINCARE will leave on his visit to Russia,
+after the national fetes on July 14."
+
+* * *
+
+A couple of pictures by unknown artists fetched as much as L2,625 and
+L1,837 at CHRISTIE'S last week, and we hear that some of our less
+notable painters have been greatly encouraged by this boom in obscurity.
+
+* * *
+
+"This Machine," says an advertisement of a motor cycle, "Gets You
+Out-of-Doors--and Keeps You There." Frankly, we prefer the sort that
+Gets You Home Again.
+
+* * *
+
+The PREMIER, who was said to have "run away" to Fife, after all had a
+"walk over."
+
+* * *
+
+"The Elizabethan spirit," says a _laudator temporis acti_, "is dead
+among us." We beg to challenge this statement. When the Armada was
+sighted DRAKE went on with his game of bowls. To-day, in similar
+circumstances, we are confident that thousands of Englishmen would
+refuse to leave their game of golf.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: CAPTIVE GOLF.
+
+DEFAULTING GOLF-CLUB OFFICIAL TRYING TO IMPART A LITTLE INTEREST TO THE
+DAILY ROUND.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+PROFESSIONAL ANACHRONISM.
+
+Mrs. Andrew Fitzpatrick, who looped the loop last Friday at Hendon with
+her son Hector, is certainly one of the youngest-looking women in the
+world of her age--for she is put down in black and white as forty-four
+in more than one book of reference. Her miraculous _Lady Macbeth_, which
+she impersonated at the age of seven, is still a happy memory to many
+middle-aged playgoers, though the miracle was eclipsed by the nine days'
+wonder of her elopement and marriage to Mr. Fitzpatrick, the famous
+Ballarat millionaire, on her thirteenth birthday. Her daughter Gemma,
+who made her _debut_ in Grand Opera at the Scala in 1895, is already a
+grandmother; and her son Hector, who fought in the Russo-Turkish war of
+1878, is the youngest Field-Marshal in the British Army.
+
+M. Atichewsky, the famous Russian pianist, who gives his first recital
+in the Bluethstein Hall next Wednesday, is no stranger to London
+audiences, though he is only just twenty years of age. In the year of
+QUEEN VICTORIA'S Diamond Jubilee he visited England as a _Wunderkind_,
+being then only thirteen years of age, and created a _furore_ by his
+precocious virtuosity. About eleven years later, while he was still in
+his teens, he appeared at the Philharmonic Concerts with his second
+wife, a soprano singer of remarkable attainments. The present Madame
+Atichewsky, it should be noted, has a wonderful contralto voice, which
+is inherited by her second daughter, Ladoga, who recently made her
+_debut_ at the Theatre de la Monnaie, in Brussels.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Poetry of the Ring.
+
+For two pugilists, shaking hands before the knock-out fight begins:--
+
+ "Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
+ Each on each."
+
+ _BROWNING, "Love among the Ruins."_
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "It is interesting to learn that the swans on the lower lake have
+ built a nest and that one of the pairs on the upper lake have
+ followed suit, so that there is some possibility of signets on the
+ lakes presently."
+
+ _Beckenham Journal._
+
+
+We shall be glad to see these freshwater seals.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE UNION OF IRISH HEARTS.
+
+(_How the prospect strikes an Englishman._)
+
+ ["In ancient times ... the Devlins were the hereditary horseboys of
+ the O'Neills. (Loud laughter.)"--_From the "Times'" report of Mr.
+ TIMOTHY HEALY'S speech in the House._]
+
+ I love to fancy, howsoe'er remote
+ The fiery dawn of that millennial future,
+ That some fine day the rent in Ireland's coat
+ Will be adjusted with a saving suture,
+ And one fair rule suffice
+ For lamb and lion, babe and cockatrice.
+
+ In her potential Kings I clearly trace
+ Ground for this hope; no bickering there, no jostling;
+ If HEALY cares to hint that DEVLIN'S race
+ Subsisted by hereditary ostling,
+ That's just the family fun
+ Brothers can well afford whose hearts are one.
+
+ No less the picture of O'BRIEN'S fist
+ Clenched playfully beneath a colleague's nose-piece
+ Lets me foresee--a sanguine optimist--
+ That Union which shall bring to ancient foes peace,
+ When all who lap the Boyne
+ Beg on their knees to be allowed to join.
+
+ Still (to be frank) 'tis not alone the dream
+ Of leagued Hibernians kissing lips with Ulster
+ That warms my heart; there is another scheme
+ That with a livelier motion makes my pulse stir;
+ And this can never be
+ Till we have posted REDMOND oversea.
+
+ But, when he's planted on his local throne,
+ The Federal Plan should find him far less sniffy;
+ We shall have Parliaments to call our own
+ Modelled from that high sample on the Liffey,
+ And crown the patient years
+ With joy of "England for the English" (_Cheers_).
+
+ Meanwhile, amid the present rude hotch-potch,
+ We natives must forgo this satisfaction,
+ For still the cry is "England for the Scotch"
+ (Or else some other tribe of Celt extraction);
+ That's why I shan't be happy
+ Till Erin's tedious Isle is off the tapis.
+
+ O. S.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE BOMB.
+
+I was rather glad to spend my eighteenth birthday in Germany, because I
+knew my people would make a special effort in the matter of presents.
+They did, and I turned the other girls at the _pension_ green with envy
+when I wore them. The only thing that spoilt my day was that there was
+nothing at all from Cecil, which was rather a blow.
+
+However, the next morning I received an official document referring to a
+parcel waiting for me at the Customs House, and lost no time in getting
+there.
+
+It was a long, low building, strewn with packing cases, cardboard boxes
+and dirt, with a row of pigeon-holes--some big enough to take an
+ostrich--on one side, and a counter defending a row of haughty officials
+on the other. Several people were wandering aimlessly about, but no one
+took the least notice of me, or appeared to realize I was in my
+nineteenth year. So I approached an official in a green uniform with
+brass buttons, standing behind the counter. He was tall and stout, and
+his hair, being about one millimetre long, showed his head shining
+through. He had a fierce fair moustache, and, owing to overwork or
+influenza coming on, was perspiring freely.
+
+Trusting he would prove more fatherly than he looked, I held out my
+paper. He drew back haughtily, ejaculating: "_Nein!_" and jerked his
+head towards a kind of letter-box on the counter. I pushed my paper in
+the slot, hoping the etiquette of the thing was all right now; and, as
+apparently it was, in his own good time he took the paper from the back
+of the box, looked at it, glanced sternly at me, looked at the paper
+again, and said severely:
+
+"_Vee--ta--hay--ad?_"
+
+I didn't know what he was driving at till I remembered my name was
+Whitehead. So I replied, "_Ja_," thinking his pronunciation not bad for
+the first shot. He turned to a pigeon-hole and laid a small square
+parcel on the counter addressed to me in Cecil's scrawl. I held out my
+hand, but he ignored it, and, picking up a fearsome-looking instrument
+consisting of blades, hooks and points--which turned out to be the
+official cutter--severed the silly little bit of string, unwrapped the
+paper and disclosed a white wooden box with a sliding lid.
+
+I bent forward, but he glared at me and moved it further away, slid back
+the lid, removed some shavings and looked inside. His official manner
+underwent a change; such a look of sudden human interest showed on his
+fat clammy face that I thought he must have found some quite new kind of
+sausage. But instead he drew out very gingerly a curious square black
+box with a sloping front, two round holes at one side, and a handle at
+the other. He put it down on the counter and glared at me.
+
+"_Was ist das?_" he demanded.
+
+"_Ich weiss nicht_," I replied, shaking my head.
+
+It was clear he didn't believe me, and he kept it out of my reach,
+turning it carefully about, and in response to a jerk of his chin two or
+three of his colleagues came up and glared, first, at me, and than at
+the suspicious object. However, he would not let them touch it, but,
+squaring his chin and taking a deep breath, he turned the handle.
+
+There was a faint ticking noise, but nothing happened, and I suggested
+timidly that he should look through the peep-holes and see what was
+going on inside. He frowned at my interference, but taking my advice all
+the same, raised the box nearer his fierce eye and turned the handle
+once more and with greater force. Instantly there was a loud whirr, and
+a bright green trick-serpent leapt through the lid, caught him full on
+the nose and sent him back sprawling among his packing cases, carrying
+two of his friends with him.
+
+I gave a bit of a squeak, but it was lost among the "_Ach Gotts_" and
+"_Himmels_" all round me. Cecil in his wildest dreams had never hoped
+for this. Whatever the consequences might be I meant to have my snake,
+and while I was collecting it from the floor and cramming it back in the
+box I discovered my defence.
+
+Smiling my very best smile, I turned and faced the angry officials the
+other side of the counter and, holding the box towards them, pointed to
+three printed words underneath: "Made in Germany."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "The Prime Minister left Cupar by the 5.29 train.... The motor
+ arrived at the station at 5.55 and the party went in leisurely
+ fashion down the station steps."--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+What it is to be a Prime Minister! Ordinary mortals arrive at 5.28 and
+go down the steps three at a time.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "It is, of course, impossible to dogmatise without conclusive
+ evidence."--_Times._
+
+You should hear our curate.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: THE FIGHT FOR THE BANNER.
+
+JOHN BULL. "THIS TIRES ME. WHY CAN'T YOU CARRY IT BETWEEN YOU? NEITHER
+OF YOU CAN CARRY IT ALONE."]
+
+[Illustration: "AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MOSES?"
+
+"PLEASE, TEACHER, IT'S MY FIRST SUNDAY HERE AND I DON'T KNOW ANYBODY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A NONENTITY.
+
+He was a tramp, a mere tramp, clearly a man of no importance to you or
+me or anyone else in the world. The evening was warm, the place secluded
+and remote, and, other things being equal, he climbed over the hedge,
+chose a comfortable position against a haystack, pulled from his pocket
+a fragment of a newspaper and a fragment of a pipe and settled down.
+
+A tramp, the merest tramp, seven miles from anywhere, sitting in a field
+smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper--what can such a one matter to
+the world at large?
+
+The portion of the newspaper was that containing the law reports, not a
+prime favourite with the tramp. The lengthy report which had squeezed
+out other matter that might have been worth reading was a proceeding
+before the Lords of Appeal, in which Sir Rupert Bingley, K.C., M.P., was
+being very explicit and very firm about the exact limitations of the
+power of the Divisional Court to commit for contempt. This was hardly
+fit matter for the reading of a young and susceptible tramp, our man was
+telling himself, when the name of a district which he had once traversed
+cropped up in the case and caught his wandering attention.
+
+The spot in question was on the wild Welsh border, and it was at a
+remote farm thereabouts that the trouble first began over which their
+Lordships and Sir Rupert, together with innumerable other senior
+counsel, junior counsel, solicitors, law reporters, lay reporters,
+ushers, and what-nots were so troubling themselves and each other. The
+farmer's stack of clover had been destroyed by fire, and the farmer,
+feeling that this was rather the affair of the Insurance Company than
+himself, had asked for solatium. The Insurance Company asked who set the
+stack on fire; the farmer didn't know; the Insurance Company, having
+regard to the size and the recent creation of the policy, were prepared
+to guess. The case was heard at Presteign Assizes and the farmer lost
+it, the jury who tried it being not quite so sure as was the farmer of
+his innocence in the matter.
+
+Encouraged by this, the Insurance Company prosecuted the farmer for
+perjury; but the jury that tried this case took almost a stronger view
+of the farmer's virtue than he did himself and found a verdict of "Not
+Guilty," adding a rider very depreciatory of the Insurance Company.
+Encouraged by this verdict, the farmer sued the Insurance Company for
+malicious prosecution, but the jury that tried this case had no faith in
+either party and disagreed. Another jury were then put in their stead
+and they as good as disagreed by finding for the farmer but assessing
+the damages at one farthing.
+
+It will be observed that their Lordships have not yet appeared in the
+matter, whereas the haystack, the cause of all the trouble, had as good
+as disappeared. Meanwhile our tramp, who had seen better days and was
+something of a mathematician, calculated that the total sum spent on
+counsels' fees alone up to this point was well over two hundred guineas.
+
+Social reformers get mixed up in everything nowadays, and one appeared
+in the affair at this juncture. Having chanced to be in court at the
+hearing of the Malicious Prosecution suit, he had formed an opinion of
+the last-mentioned jury, and in an extremely witty speech, had included
+them specifically in the long list of people and things that were no
+better than they should, be. One of the jurors had unhappily been among
+his audience and, possibly because his experience of another's cause had
+endeared him to litigation, he must needs start his action for slander.
+By the time that action had been tried, and appealed, and a new trial
+ordered and held, and the legal proceedings in the respective
+bankruptcies of the social reformer and the juror were completed, the
+total of counsels' guineas must have been well on the other side of a
+thousand.
+
+Everybody had now forgotten that there ever was a stack involved and no
+one would have recollected that the Insurance Company had had anything
+to do with it, had not the social reformer, in the course of his public
+examination, ingenuously attributed his financial downfall to the
+original misbehaviour of that company in disbelieving their
+policy-holders when they declared that they were not incendiaries.
+Thereupon, after a number of applications by counsel to a number of
+courts, the Insurance Company got itself inserted in the Bankruptcy
+proceedings, but not before an enterprising newspaper had taken upon
+itself to assert that there was an element of truth in the contention of
+the social reformer. And then it was that the Contempt proceedings
+began, and were fought strenuously stage by stage, each side briefing
+more and more counsel as they went along, until at last, when the case
+came before their Lordships, there were more barristers involved than
+could be seated in the limited accommodation provided at the bar of
+their Lordships' House.
+
+To calculate even roughly the final total of counsels' fees was no easy
+sum to be done on the fingers. After wrestling with it a little, the
+tramp leant back and puffed hard at his pipe--so hard that the sparks
+flew and the smoke became thick around him--so thick that "Bless my
+soul," said the tramp, rising hurriedly, "there's another stack I've
+been and gone and set afire!"
+
+A tramp, a mere tramp going about the country and setting fire to
+stacks, is not even he to be reckoned with in the order of things?
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Professor (to novice during his first lesson)._ "WHAT ON
+EARTH ARE YER DOIN' OVER THERE? YER KNOW YOU'LL 'AVE TO COME AN' DO A
+BIT OF IN-FIGHTING IF YER WANT TO FIND MY WEAK SPOT."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+APRIL FOR THE EPICURE.
+
+(_An effort to emulate the gustatory enthusiasm of "The P.M.G."_)
+
+April, though regarded as somewhat suspect by meteorologists, appeals
+with a peculiar force to gastronomic experts, owing to the number of
+delicacies associated with the month.
+
+FISH.
+
+Oysters, like the poor, are still with us, but only till the end of the
+month; hence, ostreophils should make the most of their opportunities.
+But, besides the "king of crustaceans," as Colonel NEWNHAM-DAVIS happily
+termed the oyster, the sea provides us with a quantity of other
+succulent denizens of the deep. Foremost among these is the turbot; a
+fish held in high honour since the time of the Roman emperors. Nor must
+we omit honourable mention of lobster, whitebait, mullet and eels. It is
+true that some people have an insuperable aversion from eels, but it is
+the mark of the enlightened feeder to conquer these prejudices. Besides,
+no one is asked to eat conger-eel at the best houses.
+
+MEAT.
+
+Beef, mutton and pork are in good condition, or, if they are not, they
+ought to be. But the ways of the animal world are inscrutable,
+especially pigs. Lambs, again, show a strange want of consideration for
+the consumer, for, though April 12th is called "Lamb and Gooseberry-Pie
+Day," lamb, like veal, is dear just now and shows no signs of becoming
+less expensive. This is one of the things which independent back-bench
+Members should ask a question about in the House of Commons, or, failing
+that, they might write to _The Times_.
+
+VERDANT STUFF.
+
+Lovers of salads should now be conscious of a pleasing titillation, for
+this is the green season _par excellence_. Watercress is at its
+cressiest; and lettuce springs from the earth for no other reason than
+to invite the attentions of those two culinary modistes, oil and
+vinegar--the Paquins of the kitchen--and so be "dressed", with highest
+elegance.
+
+_LES PETITS OISEAUX._
+
+Pheasants and partridges are, alas! not now obtainable except from cold
+storage. But let us not grumble over-much. Let us rather remember that
+the more they are neglected by the diner during the mating season the
+more of them there will be to eat when the horrid period of restriction
+is over. Among the rarer birds which are now on the market to compensate
+us may be mentioned the bobolink, the dwarf cassowary, the Bombay
+duckling and the skewbald fintail. The last-named bird, which comes to
+us from Algeria, is renowned for its savoury quality and is cooked in
+butter and madeira, with a _soupcon_ of cayenne. The effect of the
+cayenne is to merge the too prominent black and white of the flesh into
+an appetising grey. The Rhodesian sparrow is another highly esteemed
+delicacy, which does itself most justice when seethed in a casserole
+with antimony, garlic and a few drops of eau-de-Cologne.
+
+RHUBARB.
+
+This is an extremely painful subject. Let us hurriedly pass to something
+more congenial.
+
+EXOTIC FRUIT.
+
+An agreeable seasonal feature is the widening of the horizon to the
+fruit lover. All sorts of delightful foreign species and sub-species may
+now be bad for cash or (if one is lucky) credit--such as bomboudiac,
+angelica, piperazine, zakuska, shalloofs and pampooties. A delicious
+pampootie fool can be made quite cheaply as follows: 3 lb. of
+pampooties, 8 oz. of angelica paregoric, 1 imperial pint of sloe gin, 1
+gill of ammoniated quinine, 9 oz. of rock salt. Boil the sloe gin and
+quinine to a frazzle, put in the pampooties, cut in thin slices, and
+take out an insurance policy.
+
+PLOVERS' EGGS.
+
+These eggs by a strange freak of nature are more easily obtainable in
+April and May than in any other month. In fact in December they are
+worth their weight in gold, and are then to be found on the tables only
+of Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY, Mr. ROCKEFELLER, Mr. HARRY LAUDER and Mr. JOHN
+BURNS. To-day they are anything from ninepence to a shilling each, and
+in a fortnight's time they will be sixpence each, with the added
+pleasure to the consumer of now and then finding a young plover inside.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: "BUY A PUZZLE, SIR?"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ "On Wednesday of last week an express train dashed into a flock of
+ sheep being driven over a level crossing at Northallerton to-day."
+
+ _Meat Trades' Journal._
+
+Only an express train could arrive a week early; the other ones are
+always late.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From a calendar:--
+
+ "April 6th. Dividends due. 'We needs must love the highest when we
+ see it.'"
+
+Unfortunately we don't often see it.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+NOCTURNE.
+
+(_A Golf-match has recently been played at Bushey by night._)
+
+ Not in the noontide's horrid glare
+ When nervousness and lunch combined
+ And James's shoes and well-oiled hair
+ Perturb me, but when Cynthia fair
+ In heaven is shrined,
+ I show my perfect form, and play
+ Big brassie-shots like EDWARD RAY.
+ By night I am _plus_ four. By day----
+ Well, never mind.
+
+ With elfin stance I stride the tee
+ And deal my orb an amorous slap
+ In the mid-moonshine's mystery,
+ And Puck preserves the stroke for me
+ From foul mishap;
+ Pan saves me from the casual pot
+ And Dryad nymphs upbear my shot
+ Outstripping James's (James has got
+ No soul, poor chap).
+
+ The little pixies of the wood
+ Come thronging round him while he putts;
+ They do his game no kind of good
+ But many an unseen toadstool-hood
+ Their craft unshuts;
+ They turn his eye-balls to and fro
+ And make marsh-lanterns round him glow;
+ He is all off, whilst I am--oh!
+ One of the nuts.
+
+ The gossips by the club-room fire
+ Applaud my game with constant din:
+ "Approach-work never was so dire,
+ No mashies on this earth expire
+ So near the tin;
+ You ought to watch his tee-shots whizz
+ At number nine. Hot stuff he is.
+ The captain's lunar vase is his,
+ If he goes in."
+
+ And so I do. My argent sphere
+ Goes speeding through the night's opaque;
+ No hazards of the sand I fear,
+ The heavenly huntress keeps me clear
+ Of thorn and brake;
+ Not Dionysus' spotted ounce
+ More featly on the sward may bounce;
+ I hover like a hawk at pounce,
+ Putt out----and wake.
+
+ EVOE.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Spring Fashions.
+
+ "A waistcoat of tan and a limp lawn collar flowing over the
+ shoulders make a good suit."
+
+ _Times._
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ORANGES AND LEMONS.
+
+VI.--THE RECORD OF IT.
+
+"I shall be glad to see Peter again," said Dahlia, as she folded up her
+letter from home.
+
+Peter's previous letter, dictated to his nurse-secretary, had, according
+to Archie, been full of good things. Cross-examination of the proud
+father, however, had failed to reveal anything more stirring than "'I
+love mummy,' and--er--so on."
+
+We were sitting in the loggia after what I don't call breakfast--all of
+us except Simpson, who was busy with a mysterious package. We had not
+many days left; and I was beginning to feel that, personally, I should
+not be sorry to see things like porridge again. Each to his taste.
+
+"The time has passed absurdly quickly," said Myra. "We don't seem to
+have done _anything_--except enjoy ourselves. I mean anything specially
+Rivierish.' But it's been heavenly."
+
+"We've done lots of Rivierish things," I protested. "If you'll be quiet
+a moment I'll tell you some."
+
+These were some of the things;
+
+(1) We had been to the Riviera. (Nothing could take away from that. We
+had the labels on our luggage.)
+
+(2) We had lost heavily (thirty francs) at the Tables. (This alone
+justified the journey.)
+
+(3) Myra had sat next to a Prince at lunch. (Of course she might have
+done this in London, but so far there has been no great rush of Princes
+to our little flat. Dukes, Mayors, Companions of St. Michael and St.
+George, certainly; but, somehow, not Princes.)
+
+(4) Simpson had done the short third hole at Mt. Agel in three. (His
+first had cleverly dislodged the ball from the piled-up tee; his second,
+a sudden nick, had set it rolling down the hill to the green; and the
+third, an accidental putt, had sunk it.)
+
+(5) Myra and I had seen Corsica. (Question.)
+
+(6) And finally, and best of all, we had sat in the sun, under a blue
+sky, above a blue sea, and watched the oranges and lemons grow.
+
+So, though we had been to but few of the famous beauty spots around, we
+had had a delightfully lazy time; and as proof that we had not really
+been at Brighton there were, as I have said, the luggage labels. But we
+were to be able to show further proof. At this moment Simpson came out
+of the house, his face beaming with excitement, his hands carefully
+concealing something behind his back.
+
+"Guess what I've got," he said eagerly.
+
+"The sack," said Thomas.
+
+"Your new vests," said Archie.
+
+"Something that will interest us all," helped Simpson.
+
+"I withdraw my suggestion," said Archie.
+
+"Something we ought to have brought with us all along."
+
+"More money," said Myra.
+
+The tension was extreme. It was obvious that our consuming anxiety would
+have to be relieved very speedily. To avoid a riot, Thomas went behind
+Simpson's back and took his surprise away from him.
+
+"A camera," he said. "Good idea."
+
+Simpson was all over himself with bon-hommy.
+
+"I suddenly thought of it the other night," he said, smiling round at
+all of us in his happiness, "and I was just going to wake Thomas up to
+tell him, when I thought, I'd keep it a secret. So I wrote to a friend
+of mine and asked him to send me out one, and some films and things,
+just as a surprise for you."
+
+"Samuel, you _are_ a dear," said Myra, looking at him lovingly.
+
+"You see, I thought, Myra, you'd like to have some records of the place,
+because they're so jolly to look back on, and--er, I'm not quite sure
+how you work it, but I expect some of you know, and--er----"
+
+"Come on," said Myra, "I'll show you." She retired with Simpson to a
+secluded part of the loggia and helped him put the films in.
+
+"Nothing can save us," said Archie. "We are going to be taken together
+in a group. Simpson will send it to one of the picture papers, and we
+shall appear as 'Another Merry Little Party of well-known Sun-seekers.
+Names from left to right: Blank, blank, Mr. Archibald Mannering, blank,
+blank.' I'd better go and brush my hair."
+
+Simpson returned to us, nervous and fully charged with advice.
+
+"Right, Myra, I see. That'll be all right. Oh, look here, do you--oh
+yes, I see. Right. Now then--wait a bit--oh yes, I've got it. Now then,
+what shall we have first? A group?"
+
+"Take the house and the garden and the village," said Thomas. "You'll
+see plenty of _us_ afterwards."
+
+"The first one is bound to be a failure," I pointed out. "Rather let him
+fail at us, who are known to be beautiful, than, at the garden, which
+has its reputation yet to make. Afterwards, when he has got the knack,
+he will be able to do justice to the scenery."
+
+Archie joined us again, followed by the bull-dog. We grouped ourselves
+picturesquely.
+
+"That looks ripping," said Simpson. "Oh, look here, Myra, do you---- No,
+don't come; you'll spoil the picture. I suppose you have to--oh, it's
+all right, I think I've got it."
+
+"I shan't try to look handsome this time," said Archie; "it's not worth
+it. I shall just put an ordinary blurred expression on."
+
+"Now, are you ready? Don't move. Quite still, please; quite----"
+
+"It's instantaneous, you know," said Myra gently.
+
+This so unnerved Simpson that he let the thing off without any further
+warning, before we had time to get our expressions natural.
+
+"That was all right, Myra, wasn't it?" he said proudly.
+
+"I'm--I'm afraid you had your hand over the lens, Samuel dear."
+
+"Our new photographic series: 'Palms of the Great.' No. 1, Mr. S.
+Simpson's," murmured Archie.
+
+"It wouldn't have been a very good one anyhow," I said encouragingly.
+"It wasn't typical. Dahlia should have had an orange in her hand, and
+Myra might have been resting her cheek against a cactus. Try it again,
+Simpson, and get a little more colour into it."
+
+He tried again and got a lot more colour into it.
+
+"Strictly speaking," said Myra sadly, "you ought to have got it on to a
+new film."
+
+Simpson looked in horror at the back of his camera, found that he had
+forgotten to turn the handle, apologised profusely, and wound up very
+gingerly till the number "2" approached. "Now then," he said, looking up
+... and found himself alone.
+
+ * * *
+
+As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should
+you ever do us the honour of dining with us (as I hope you will), and
+(which seems impossible) should there ever come a moment when the
+conversation runs low, and you are revolving in your mind whether it is
+worth while asking us if we have been to any theatres lately, then I
+shall produce the album, and you will be left in no doubt that we are
+just back from the Riviera. You will see oranges and lemons and olives
+and cactuses and palms; blue sky (if you have enough imagination) and
+still bluer sea; picturesque villas, curious effects of rocks, distant
+backgrounds of mountain ... and on the last page the clever kindly face
+of Simpson.
+
+The whole affair will probably bore you to tears.
+
+But with Myra and me the case of course is different. We find these
+things, as Simpson said, very jolly to look back on.
+
+ A. A. M.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: [_Extract from Sentries' Orders_: "In case of man
+overboard, will throw the ship's life-buoy overboard, and report to the
+ship's officer on the bridge. In case of fire will at once report it
+quietly to the ship's officer on the bridge."]
+
+_Officer of the Watch (on transport)._ "WHAT DO YOU DO IN CASE OF FIRE?"
+
+_Nervous Sentry._ "THROW MESELF OVERBOARD AN' REPORT AT ONCE TO THE
+BLOKE ON THE BALCONY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+IN SEARCH OF PETER.
+
+Martell is one of those men that you might live next door to for
+half-a-century and never know any better. It is entirely owing to his
+wife and her love for Peter that Martell and I have discovered each
+other to be quite companionable fellows with many tastes in common, and
+I am smoking one of his cigars at the present moment.
+
+Peter is the most precious and the most coveted of my possessions. He is
+coveted, or was, chiefly by Mrs. Martell, who fell in love with his name
+and his deep romantic eyes. Apart from these I can see nothing
+remarkable in him. He is certainly the most irresponsible hound that
+ever sat down in front of a motor-car to attend to his personal
+cleanliness, but still I should not like to part with him. "We must have
+a Peter," was the text of Mrs. Martell's domestic monologues, and of
+late, before the great disillusionment--that is, after hinting
+delicately to me that she would like best of all to have _the_
+Peter--she took to sallying forth, armed with the name, into the
+purlieus of dog-fanciers to find a criminal that would fit the
+punishment.
+
+I was not altogether surprised, therefore, one afternoon when a note was
+brought in asking me to step round and have a cup of tea. Martell was
+monosyllabic as usual, and we sat and gazed into the fire.
+
+"I don't suppose you would like to part with Peter," he said suddenly.
+
+"I certainly should not," I answered.
+
+Then, after a pause, "Could you tell a good lie?" he asked.
+
+I looked up in astonishment, but just then Mrs. Martell entered and
+plunged _in medias res_. She had just returned from the last of those
+fruitless expeditions, and the slow realization that there can be only
+one Peter in the world had brought her nearly to tears.
+
+"And I've bought such a sweet little collar for him," she said, "with
+'Peter' printed in big letters."
+
+I remembered then that the original dog was in daily danger of being
+arrested, his very aged collar having been chewed to pulp after his last
+castigation therewith.
+
+"And a dear little pair of soft slippers, one for him to play with, and
+the other to smack him with if he's ever naughty, although I don't think
+he could be--your Peter, I mean. Have you slippers for him?"
+
+"Well, not a pair," I said, "and not exactly slippers. One's a
+golf-ball, the other's more in the nature of a boot."
+
+"Oh, but he 's such a sweet-tempered little creature, isn't he?"
+
+I felt Martell's eye upon, me.
+
+"Very," I said; "his early upbringing gave him a healthy body and a
+mellow heart. He was born in a brewery, you know, and never tasted water
+until I flung him into the canal the first day I had him. Since then, as
+often as he has time, he goes to bathe in the scummiest parts, and then
+comes and tells me all about it with any amount of circumstantial
+evidence. Most enthusiastic little swimmer he is."
+
+"What a funny dog! But I should never allow him to go out alone--if he
+were mine, I mean. And what sort of food do you give him?"
+
+"Well, he tried to swallow one of my white ties last night."
+
+"Oh, but I should give him proper food," she said. "He doesn't hate
+cats, does he? I couldn't bear a dog that did."
+
+My eyes met Martell's for one moment, then I cleared my throat. Slowly
+and sadly I opened the history of Peter militant, with unacknowledged
+borrowings from the lives of other Peters with other names. Beginning
+with cats I had seen in my garden looking as if they felt rather blurred
+and indistinct, I passed on through cats speechless and perforated, to
+cats that were. I told sad stories of the deaths of cats. I talked of
+nights of agonising shrieks, and mornings of guilty eyes and
+blood-stained lips. My store of reminiscences lasted five minutes, and
+before Mrs. Martell had recovered from their recitation I pleaded a
+pressing engagement and took my departure.
+
+You will now understand why I count Martell among my friends and am at
+this moment, as I said before, smoking one of his cigars. It came in a
+box of a hundred, with the laconic note, "One for each."
+
+As I write, my dog and my black kitten are barging in perfect accord all
+round my legs in pursuit of a brand-new collar with "Peter" printed in
+big letters.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: A NEW CRAZE.
+
+"WHAT A TRAGIC FACE YOU HAVE, MISS POOTLE."
+
+"YES, YOU SEE, I _ADORE_ MISERY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Notice outside a station of the Wirral Railway Co.:--
+
+ "Loiterers on the Company's premises or annoying passengers will be
+ prosecuted."
+
+The passenger who annoys us most and seems worthiest of prosecution is
+the fifth on our side of the carriage.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ANNABEL LEE.
+
+ Up and down on the fresh-ploughed levels,
+ All for the sake of their lady fair,
+ Two cock-partridges fought like devils,
+ Hammer-and-tongs and a hop in the air;
+ And I and "Basket" Annabel Lee--
+ Elderly tinking gyp is she--
+ We leaned on the paling and watched it go;
+ And "Eh," said she, "now a fight 'tis cruel,
+ But of all the compliments 'tis the jewel!
+ May I die to-day, but I know, I know
+ There's naught as a young maid's 'eart takes better
+ Than a couple o' big chaps out to get her
+ Through a dozen o' dustin' rounds or so.
+
+ "Bet my bonnet it strikes you funny,
+ Seein' I'm risin' seventy-three,
+ To think o' me once as sweet as honey;
+ Lor' how their fists went 'long o' me!
+ Jake Poltevo and Pembroke Bill,
+ I saw 'em then, and I sees 'em still,
+ Eh, how their fists went--_thud! crack! thud!_
+ None o' your booze-house scraps, Lor' love 'em;
+ Turf to their feet and the sky above 'em--
+ Stripped, bare-knuckle and mucked wi' blood;
+ Queer thing, ain't it, I still thinks pleasure
+ In the strength o' a man, bein' old, by measure,
+ And plain, you'd say, as a pint o' mud?
+
+ "Scared me fine at the time, though; weepin'
+ I 'id my face in the 'azels low;
+ Tip-toe soon I was back a-peepin',
+ Couldn't 'a' helped were it never so;
+ Each as good as the other chap--
+ Bad old woman I be, may'ap;
+ But eh, I loved 'em, the fine young men.
+ Marry a one of 'em? Why no, never;
+ They wasn't a-marryin' me whatever;
+ But I likes to think of 'em now and then;
+ For, of all the compliments, _that_ was candy,
+ And--ain't them dicky-birds at it dandy?
+ I knows the pride o' their pretty 'en!
+ Eh, but I loved 'em, me fine young men!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: FROM FIFE TO HARP.
+
+MR. ASQUITH. "ONE MORE BONNIE TOOTLE, AND THEN BACK TO THAT DREARY OLD
+HARP."]
+
+[Illustration: A FORETASTE OF HOME RULE HARMONY
+
+"Mr. Devlin here interposed with a remark which was not heard in the
+gallery, and Mr. W. O'Brien, turning round to where the hon. member was
+sitting, called out in an angry tone something which was not clearly
+heard."--"_Times'" Report._]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: If only Sir EDWARD CARSON belonged to some other
+oppressed nationality--Armenia, for instance!]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+(EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.)
+
+_House of Commons, Monday, April 6._--At third time of asking Home Rule
+Bill read a second time. Odd feature, in curious sitting that hotly
+contested measure passed crucial stage without a division. House divided
+on WALTER LONG'S amendment for its rejection. When thereupon SPEAKER put
+the question that "the Bill be now read a second time" there was none to
+say him nay. Some folk of hopeful habit see in this incident a forecast
+of the end.
+
+Debate unexpectedly decorous, not to say decidedly dull. TIM HEALY did
+something to lift it out of rut. But he was more concerned to belabour
+JOHN REDMOND and to dig DEVLIN in the ribs than to argue merits of
+measure. Taunted his much-loved fellow-patriot and countryman with
+facing both ways on question of exclusion of Ulster. ATTORNEY-GENERAL
+declared that PREMIER'S offer of exclusion for period of six years was
+still open. REDMOND, believing it was dead, had, TIM said, prepared its
+coffin, "and now the ATTORNEY-GENERAL comes along and forces fresh
+oxygen into the corpse."
+
+As for DEVLIN, he was introduced accidentally at end of harangue. Had
+interposed comment inaudible to main body of House, but safely assumed
+not to be complimentary. WILLIAM O'BRIEN turned round with angry retort.
+
+"There is," mused TIM, "one gentleman from whom on historical grounds I
+had expected firmness in regard to Ulster. It is the gentleman who has
+just interrupted me, and the grounds of expectation are that in ancient
+time downward from the flight of the earls the DEVLINS were the
+hereditary horse-boys of the O'NEILLS."
+
+Remark perhaps scarcely relevant to Home Rule Bill or motion for its
+Second Reading. But it soothed TIM and didn't hurt DEVLIN.
+
+BIRRELL having made cheery speech on situation generally, PETO rose with
+amiable intention of continuing debate. House had had enough of it.
+Persistently cried aloud for division. Amid hubbub PETO shouted
+dissatisfaction at top of his voice. Unequal contest maintained for only
+a few minutes, when MCKENNA in charge of business of House during
+absence of his elders nipped in with motion for Closure.
+
+This carried, LONG'S amendment negatived by 356 votes against 276.
+Majority for Government, 80. Motion for Second Reading unchallenged;
+amid prolonged cheering from Ministerialists and Irish Nationalists Bill
+read a second time.
+
+_Business done._--For third time in course of three successive sessions
+Home Rule Bill passes Second Reading stage.
+
+_Tuesday._--BROWNING, longing to be in England "now that April's there,"
+would have been disappointed had it been possible for him to turn up
+to-day. So dark and dank that at three o'clock, when Questions opened,
+electric light was turned on. Revealed dreary array of half-empty
+benches. Had Closure been promptly moved a count out inevitable.
+
+As in time of war the cutting off of superior officers brings
+comparatively young ones to chief command, MCKENNA (in the absence of
+PREMIER, CHANCELLOR OF EXCHEQUER, and FOREIGN SECRETARY) sits in the
+seat of the mighty in charge of Government business. Fills the part
+excellently. Ten days ago SPEAKER cheered House by announcement that
+there should be no more Supplementary Questions. Welcome resolution
+either forgotten or deliberately ignored. Supplementary Questions,
+almost exclusively argumentative, assertive, or personally offensive,
+buzzed about Treasury bench like bees at mouth of hive. HOME SECRETARY,
+alert, self-possessed, deftly parried attack.
+
+While Questions on printed paper were being duly picked up, put and
+answered, midway in melancholy proceeding there entered Distinguished
+Strangers' Gallery a small group of gorgeously clad princes from the
+storied East. They surveyed the scene with keen interest. In their
+far-off home they had read and talked of the House of Commons, the
+central controlling force of wide-spread Empire, whereof their
+possessions were as a bit of fringe. They had travelled far to look upon
+it. And here in this comparatively small chamber, scantily peopled, they
+beheld it.
+
+ Is this the face that launched a thousand ships
+ And stormed the topmost towers of Ilium?
+
+Fortunately for reputation of the House ROWLAND HUNT chanced to be to
+the fore. The other day, burning with patriotism, he issued a circular
+letter addressed to non-commissioned officers of the Army, advising them
+how to act in certain contingencies relating to Ulster. It happens that
+one CROWSLEY had previously circulated amongst soldiers at Aldershot a
+handbill urging the men to disobey orders when on duty. He was
+prosecuted for inciting to mutiny, convicted and sentenced. Members in
+Radical stronghold below Gangway want to know wherein the two cases
+differ, and why, if CROWSLEY is in gaol, the Member for South Shropshire
+should go free?
+
+ATTORNEY-GENERAL, to whom questions were addressed, diplomatically
+discriminated. Came to conclusion not to employ services of PUBLIC
+PROSECUTOR. So ROWLAND HUNT remains with us.
+
+_Business done._--A couple of small Government Bills advanced a stage.
+House talked out at eleven o'clock.
+
+_Wednesday._--Adjournment for brief Easter Holiday. Back on Tuesday.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: Sir EDWARD GREY (_in Sutherlandshire on the day of the
+final debate on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill_). "Ireland?
+Ireland? Where have I heard that name?"]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE COWL.
+
+ _Murdoch McWhannel, 3, Poynings Avenue, Glasgow, N.W._, to _Messrs.
+ Fairley and Willing, house-factors there_.
+
+ _January 3, 191--._
+
+ I have been seriously annoyed for some weeks now by a noisy
+ chimney-cowl on your property at 15, Poynings Road. It is on the
+ stack of chimneys at the rear of your property, and within about
+ fifty yards of the back windows of this house. During the recent
+ high winds the cowl has kept up a continual shrieking, day and
+ night, which has been extremely destructive to "Nature's sweet
+ restorer, balmy sleep." I trust that you will be so good as to have
+ the cowl overhauled, and this cause of disturbance removed.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _January 6, 191-._
+
+ _Re_ your letter of 3rd curt., the chimney cowl at 15, Poynings
+ Road shall have our immediate attention.
+
+ _Murdoch McWhannel_ to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_.
+
+ _January 7, 191-._
+
+ I have to thank you for your prompt and courteous reply to my
+ letter of 3rd January, and am glad to know that the noisy cowl will
+ have your immediate attention.
+
+ _The Same_ to _the Same_.
+
+ _January 14, 191-._
+
+ May I remind you that in your letter of 6th January you were good
+ enough to promise that the noisy cowl at 15, Poynings Road would
+ have your immediate attention? Of course I know that it is
+ difficult to get tradesmen to work so soon after the New Year
+ holidays, but they should now be available, and the cowl is having
+ a very serious effect on the health and nerves of the residents
+ here.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _January 17, 191-._
+
+ _Re_ chimney cowl at 15, Poynings Road and your letter of 14th
+ curt., we are surprised to receive same. We sent out a tradesman on
+ January 11, who reported same date that he had oiled and adjusted
+ the cowl, and that it would give no further trouble. If you are
+ still troubled, some other cowl must be causing it now. We
+ understand, from enquiries made on the spot, that there is a noisy
+ one, not on our property at all, but on Hathaway Mansions. We hope
+ you will find this explanation satisfactory.
+
+ _Murdoch McWhannel_ to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_.
+
+ _January 19, 191-._
+
+ I am surprised by the contents of your letter of 17th, for which I
+ am much obliged. If your tradesman attended to a cowl on the back
+ stack of your property at 15, Poynings Road, on January 11, he must
+ have attended to the wrong cowl. One can readily understand that if
+ he adjusted and oiled a cowl which had not been making any noise it
+ would continue to be silent. The error might easily occur,
+ especially so soon after the New Year holidays. This is the only
+ explanation I can think of, for the noise has been as bad as ever.
+ I trust you will have the matter further looked into, as the
+ situation, especially in regard to my wife's nerves, is becoming
+ more and more serious.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _January 23, 191-._
+
+ _In re_ chimney cowl at 15, Poynings Road and your letter of
+ January 19, we can only say that it surprises us very much. We
+ employ only the most competent tradesmen, who could not possibly
+ make the kind of mistake you suppose. We beg to refer you to the
+ part of our letter of January 17 referring to Hathaway Mansions.
+
+ _Murdoch McWhannel_ to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_.
+
+ _January 24, 191-._
+
+ I regret very much the tone of your letter of January 23. It is
+ hardly courteous to suggest, as your letter does, that I cannot
+ distinguish between the noise of a cowl on Hathaway Mansions, which
+ are fully 150 yards away, and one which is practically just above
+ my bedroom. As I write this letter, seated at a table at the window
+ of my study, I can actually see the cowl shrieking--if you will
+ pardon a figure of speech which has perhaps a Hibernian flavour. As
+ my study is built out to the back of this house, it is parallel
+ with your property at 15, Poynings Road. I am within fifty yards of
+ the offending cowl. The noise it makes rises and falls in
+ shrillness according to the speed at which the cowl revolves under
+ the pressure of the wind. We are not disturbed at all by any cowl
+ on Hathaway Mansions, but by this one of yours, about which I wrote
+ you first so long ago as January 3. I have kept a diary of the cowl
+ since then and for some days earlier, showing the number of hours
+ per day that we have been annoyed by it, the number of times it has
+ prevented us from getting to sleep at the usual time, the number of
+ nights we have been wakened from the same cause, and the number of
+ mornings when we have been prematurely wakened, often as early as
+ seven o'clock, and prevented from getting to sleep again. I shall
+ be glad to send you a copy of this document for your information.
+ The original I must retain, in case any legal proceedings should be
+ necessary, as I have had each item in the diary certified by my
+ wife and our house-tablemaid, a very intelligent and observant
+ girl. I hope, however, it may not be necessary to take any legal
+ steps, such as an action of interdict and damages at my instance,
+ or a prosecution for nuisance at the instance of the public
+ authority, which in this case would be the City Council, to a
+ number of which body I am not altogether unknown. In fact I may say
+ I took the opportunity of mentioning the matter to Bailie McPartan
+ at a municipal conversazione to which my wife and I were invited
+ last week. I do not wish to trouble you by writing at any undue
+ length on this subject, but I think it right and only fair to tell
+ you that owing to the actual noise of the cowl, and perhaps even
+ more (as our doctor says) to the mental strain of listening to hear
+ whether it is going to begin again, my wife is on the verge of a
+ complete nervous collapse, which seems likely to necessitate some
+ weeks' rest cure in a nursing home, and possibly a trip to the
+ Canaries. I am advised by my lawyer that these are contingent
+ liabilities, the burden of which would fall upon you as the owner
+ of the cowl. In these circumstances I feel sure you will favour the
+ immediate removal of this nuisance.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _January 27, 191-._
+
+ Your letter of 24th curt. will receive immediate attention at the
+ hands of our solicitors. Messrs. Samson and Samuel, 114, North
+ Regent Street, to whom perhaps you will kindly address any further
+ communications you may think necessary _re_ cowl.
+
+ _Gilbert Macdonald, 5, Poynings Avenue, Glasgow, N.W._, to _George
+ Willing, house factor_.
+
+ _February 3, 191-._
+
+ DEAR WILLING,--For Heaven's sake, as an old friend, spike or remove
+ the chimney cowl that McWhannel at No. 3 has written you about. He
+ has called on me twice and written three long letters, "to enlist
+ my sympathy and support." He is the most poisonous kind of bore,
+ and I'll gladly pay for the removal of the cowl, if that's the only
+ way of muzzling him.
+
+ _Reply by telephone, summarised._ _Willing_ to _Macdonald_.
+
+ _February 4, 191-._
+
+I would do so, for friendship's sake, but I've just sold the property. I
+preferred that to having any more letters from him.
+
+ _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.
+
+ _February 14, 191-._
+
+ _Re_ your letters to Messrs. Samson and Samuel of January 29th and
+ 31st, and February 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th, and your telegrams of 12th
+ and 13th, we have now pleasure in advising you that we have sold
+ the property at 15, Poynings Road, including the cowl, to the
+ Corporation. We understand that the Corporation propose to use the
+ premises as a reception house in connection with their Home for
+ Lost Dogs, and we trust that this arrangement will be satisfactory
+ to you.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: HINTS TO ARTISTS AND WRITERS WHO NEED TO ADVERTISE
+THEMSELVES BY SOME ECCENTRICITY OF COSTUME.
+
+WHILE THE MOST ELABORATE ATTEMPTS TO DRAW ATTENTION OFTEN FALL FLAT,
+SOMETIMES THE SMALLEST DEVIATION FROM THE USUAL MAY PROVE
+IRRESISTIBLE.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Commercial Candour.
+
+From an Oxford Street wine merchant's advt.:--
+
+ "Equal to the so-called First Quality brands."
+
+ * * *
+
+ "He was defended by Mr. Macbottle of whisky."--_Scotch paper._
+
+The Macbottles (of whisky) are a very well-known Highland clan.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"At Sapphire Lodge in Vincent Square, W. A. Randall Wells has lately
+painted two rooms in a manner which combines novelty very successfully
+with a sound tradition." Speaking of the bedroom, _The Times_ goes on to
+say that "there are passages from the 'Sensitive Blast' finely written
+on vellum in every panel." Certainly this variation on the title of
+SHELLEY'S poem seems to "combine novelty very successfully with a sound
+tradition."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A VILLAIN IN REVOLT.
+
+ I have been in a fair dust-up in Denver City,
+ Made many a baresark rush;
+ I have bluffed with Death in my time and scooped the kitty,
+ Smashing a cool straight flush;
+ I have gouged my jack-knife deep in a victim's thorax
+ (Golly, how the blood did gush!);
+ I have scalped some dozens of skulls with an Indian war-axe
+ Without being put to the blush.
+
+ I've killed with stilettos at times and with crude sandbagging,
+ Or a brute belaying-pin;
+ With a twisted cord I have frequently done my scragging,
+ And doped with devilish gin;
+ I remember once in a boarding-house racket at Rio
+ How my snickersnee snicked clean in;
+ And I booted a blackguard to death with consid'rable _brio_
+ One evening in Tien-tsin.
+
+ I've run amok with a kris and sent men howling;
+ With a kukri I've killed my prey;
+ I'm an amateur still--I admit it--at disembow'ling,
+ But I've settled a few that way;
+ And I mind me well (for I still can sniff the aroma
+ Of that particular fray)
+ How I quartered and cut into ribbons some beggars at Boma
+ On rather a busy day.
+
+ But I'm blowed--being really a rabid humanitarian,
+ And a vegetarian too--
+ If I mean to devour an unfortunate fellow Aryan
+ In the Island of Oahu.
+ I have done dire deeds by request, without any evasion,
+ But this thing I will not do;
+ If they won't be content with a "fake" for this single occasion,
+ My cinema job is through.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From a list of popular novels:--
+
+ "_The Beloved Premier_, by H. MAXWELL.
+ _The Greater Law_, by VICTORIA CROSS."
+
+Politicians can take their choice.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Latest Cinema Poster.
+
+ "Our Sea Rooms now open.
+ No Finer Death."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Men that Matter.
+
+ Sound the clarion, FILSON, FYFE,
+ To all the reading world proclaim
+ One signed half-column, straight from life,
+ Is worth a page without a name.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE ART OF CONVERSATION.
+
+I had a terrible experience yesterday, one of life's inky black hours
+which will bring a shudder whenever in future days memory seizes an idle
+moment to refresh herself. I had been dining with Scarfield and his
+mother at Hampstead, and with the entry of the coffee he had pleaded a
+sudden dyspepsia and withdrawn. So his mother, a dear colourless old
+lady, undertook to entertain me. By her desire I lighted a cigar.
+
+She mentioned that she had just returned from a visit to Glasgow, and I
+remarked intelligently that Glasgow was a fine place. Considering for a
+moment, she observed that she thought the weather in Glasgow was colder
+than that of the South of England; and I said, Yes, very likely, I had
+heard so. In about two minutes she qualified her statement by informing
+me that the South of England was as a rule milder than Glasgow. I
+replied that it appeared to me very possible, adding recklessly that
+they had peculiarly mixed weather in Glasgow, which she seemed to think
+rather a questionable presentment of the case for the North, for she
+kept silent and ruminated for seven or eight minutes. My mind took a
+little excursion to Putney, where I have friends. But, before I had
+really settled at Putney, the lady's voice intimated that perhaps they
+had more rain in Glasgow than in the South of England.
+
+I came back from Putney with a slight mental wrench, yet sufficiently
+clear-headed to say decidedly that Glasgow, on the whole, had a much
+better climate than the South, because I had once spent a day there, and
+the sun shone the whole time, so I ought to know. Then I started off
+again, and had just reached Walham Green (one does not speak of these
+places, but I may tell you that it is a station on the way to Putney,
+where I have a friend), when she responded with lightning-like swiftness
+that it couldn't be healthy to live in Glasgow. This bordered on
+repartee, so I countered rapidly with the brilliant suggestion that a
+good many people managed to live there, hoping she would not score by
+the obvious rejoinder that a good many people died there. If she had, I
+can't imagine how I should have extricated myself. Luckily she merely
+murmured, "Ah, yes," and reflected. I was just stepping off the train at
+a station (Putney--to be explicit, it is a lady friend) when there
+seemed to be a collision, and I caught myself saying, "Indeed!" though I
+don't know why. She nodded approval, however, and I ventured on a
+meditative "Ye-es."
+
+"But they don't seem to mind," she said, glancing at me blandly through
+her spectacles. "_Do_ they?"
+
+"You see," I answered, chancing it, "they are so used to it." She smiled
+and agreed.
+
+"That must be the reason," she said. For what, I hadn't the remotest
+idea; but this just shows what presence of mind will do for one in an
+emergency.
+
+"What a difference they must find," I went on boldly, and lapsed into a
+muse. She sighted it, however, and replied in less than five minutes--
+
+"You mean now that the old-fashioned ones are coming in again?"
+
+Here was a catastrophe. Did she refer to hats, or skirts, or Christmas
+cards? What sudden original observation had I unfortunately missed
+during that last journey South-westward? At all costs I must keep cool.
+I pulled myself together and plunged.
+
+"Yes," I said. "You see the old-fashioned ones were so awfully tight,
+weren't they?"
+
+"Tight?" she echoed. "Not _tight_."
+
+"Well, not exactly _tight_," I answered, feeling rather distracted. "I
+meant large."
+
+She looked at me suspiciously, I thought. "_I_ think they're too long,"
+she said, "and such a lot of people in them."
+
+This was growing too complicated, and I wished heartily we had stuck to
+Glasgow and its weather.
+
+"One finds them," she added, "so hard to follow."
+
+I racked my miserable brain for anything that was lengthy, populous, and
+difficult to follow; in vain.
+
+"Still," I gasped, glancing at the door, "one can always ... one can
+generally ... one can sometimes sit down ... for a rest ... if one is
+dreadfully tired," I explained.
+
+She gazed at me reproachfully.
+
+"I don't usually stand at the back of the pit," she said. "The last time
+Fred took me we had stalls."
+
+"How--how _jolly_!" I murmured. "I was thinking of--of----"
+
+"If you please, Mr. Fred would like some soda-water and a few biscuits
+taken up, Ma'am," said the servant, entering softly.
+
+I rose.
+
+"Must you go?" protested my conversationalist. "Oh, I am so sorry! But
+come again soon--you have kept me quite lively. Good-bye."
+
+I took the tube to Charing Cross and changed there for Putney and Ethel.
+(Did I mention that her name was Ethel?) But when I told Ethel about it
+afterwards she said she thought sarcasm in elderly ladies was very
+objectionable.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+COMMERCIAL ART.
+
+ Across the sundering gulf of time
+ I lift a song to you,
+ Melodious as a minster chime,
+ Loud, I expect, as two.
+ Years have flown swiftly since we met;
+ Do you, remembered one, forget
+ The rapturous moment and sublime
+ When I drew near to you? I bet
+ A half-a-crown you do.
+
+ Your name I never learned--Helene,
+ Beryl, perhaps Marie,
+ Phyllis, Estelle, or merely Jane--
+ It makes no odds to me.
+ I hymn you, maiden, none the less;
+ I toil in rhyme and metre; yes,
+ From noon till eve I bear the pain
+ Of this prolonged poetic stress
+ (With half-an-hour for tea).
+
+ Carrots your hair was (_i.e._, red;
+ "Carrots" is just my fun);
+ Blue were your eyes, and from them sped
+ A gleam that mocked the sun--
+ I _think_ that's so, but, as I say,
+ Time has moved quickly since that day,
+ And few, too few, the words we said
+ When languidly, as beauty may,
+ You handed me a bun.
+
+ Calmly you took it from the place
+ Where it was used to sit,
+ And I can still recall the grace
+ With which you dusted it.
+ I paid you, and we parted; so
+ Life's rich adventures come and go!
+ And did that brief glimpse of your face
+ Set love within me surging? No,
+ It didn't. Not a bit.
+
+ I only sing because I must;
+ Not mine the fret, the throb
+ Of fevered passion; verse is just
+ My livelihood, or job.
+ Searching for themes, I had a clear,
+ Swift vision of your dial; queer
+ How such things happen, but I trust
+ These lines will bring me in, my dear,
+ L1 or 30s.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: AT THE COSTUMIER'S.
+
+"OH YES, SHE'S SMART, BUT SHE HASN'T AN IDEA IN HER VOCABULARY."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE BURNING QUESTION.
+
+Feeling that not all the representative voices have been heard with
+regard to the question of smoking in theatres, _Mr. Punch_ has been
+making further inquiries. The replies are appended:--
+
+_General VILLA V. VILLA._ I think that smoking should be permitted
+everywhere.
+
+_Mr. MAX PEMBERTON._ I am totally opposed to giving theatres the same
+comfortable rules as the variety halls. If people may smoke at musical
+comedies they are in danger of avoiding revues.
+
+_Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON._ I am in favour of giving the public all they
+want. Let them smoke if they wish to, everywhere and everywhen. Let them
+also chew and take snuff: a private snuff-box should be attached to
+every stall.
+
+_Mr. VICTOR GRAYSON._ I would support smoking in theatres if pipes were
+permitted. But of course they won't be.
+
+_Mr. BERNARD SHAW (to whom no inquiry was addressed, but that did not
+prevent his sending a long letter on the subject, the purport of which
+is that there should be no smoking anywhere)._ Had I ever smoked I
+should not now be the first intellectual in Europe.
+
+_Sir JAMES CRICHTON-BROWNE._ No smoking in theatres for me. And if I go
+to the Gaiety and find that a cigar or cigarette on my right or left
+singes my whiskers I will have the law of Mr. GEORGE EDWARDES.
+
+"_Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch._" Let there be smoking, but let some
+kind of control be kept on the brands of cigars that are smoked.
+
+_Mr. LLOYD GEORGE._ I am in favour of the extension of all taxable
+luxuries.
+
+_Mr. EUSTACE MILES._ Most London theatres are now so grossly
+over-ventilated that I welcome the idea of tobacco as helping to redress
+the balance.
+
+_Master ANTHONY ASQUITH._ Surely if there is smoking in one house of
+entertainment there may be smoking in another. I am sure my poor father
+would agree.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+THE FEDERAL SOLUTION.
+
+(_See the daily papers_ passim.)
+
+I.
+
+ SIR,--At last a ray of sanity has fallen like oil on the troubled
+ waters of the Irish controversy and has given a well-merited cold
+ douche to the extremists on either side. It is now acknowledged
+ that what for want of a better term I may call the Federal Solution
+ holds the field, and any attempt to expel it will only plunge the
+ objector still deeper in the mire and cover him with ridicule from
+ head to foot.
+
+ Long ago I adumbrated in the clearest possible way the fundamental
+ outlines of this solution, and every hour which has passed has only
+ sufficed, to strengthen a conviction which was already so deeply
+ rooted as to be beyond the reach of hostile argument. What is now
+ required to be done may be stated in a nutshell. Let the Government
+ withdraw the present Home Rule Bill. They will thus dispose at once
+ of the opposition of Mr. BONAR LAW, Sir EDWARD CARSON, Mr. J. L.
+ GARVIN and Mr. WILLIAM O'BRIEN, and will provide themselves with a
+ clean slate, which will be a peg on which any subsequent plan may
+ be hung. Then let them bring in a Bill (or four or more Bills, if
+ deemed necessary) for conferring autonomous governments on all the
+ counties of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, every county to
+ have the option of excluding itself for a period of not less than
+ fifty or more than a hundred years by a majority of two-thirds of
+ its electorate, women to count as two on a division. At the same
+ time let the House of Lords be so reconstituted as to become in
+ truth an Imperial Legislature, subject, however, to the veto of a
+ new and impartial body to be composed of Field-Marshals,
+ Archbishops, Judges and retired Lieutenant-Governors. Our Oversea
+ Dominions could come into this scheme at any moment, if so desired.
+ To this plan I can see no objections whatever except, perhaps, that
+ its execution will take time and will stand in the way of other
+ legislation--but anything that is worth doing takes time, and, for
+ my own part, I want no other legislation.
+
+ Yours, etc.,
+
+ JAMES B. HORNBLOWER,
+ Organising Secretary,
+ Society of Federationists.
+
+II.
+
+(_In answer to the above._)
+
+ SIR,--Dr. Hornblower is at his old games. His plan for settling the
+ Irish question is no plan at all, as I have frequently shown.
+ Whenever it has been submitted to the fire of criticism it has been
+ found that it will not wash. It is quite useless to try to mix oil
+ and vinegar in a jug that will not hold water.
+
+ I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am a convinced supporter of a
+ Federal Solution and have for many years endeavoured to remove the
+ public apathy which I have found to exist in regard to this
+ profoundly interesting question. My suggestion is that, in order to
+ sift the matter thoroughly and, if possible, to strike out a new
+ path, we should put our existing constitution into the melting pot
+ and thus clear away the weeds which threaten to choke its fair
+ growth. Let Parliament be a movable institution, sitting for one
+ week in Australia, for one week in Canada, for one week in Ireland,
+ and so on. In the course of a year it will have sat in all the
+ component parts of the Empire, which will then, indeed, be an
+ Empire on which the sun never sets, and in which Parliament always
+ sits. It need not, of course, be the same Parliament in every case,
+ but can be varied, to suit local customs and prejudices. As a
+ symbol of unity His Majesty the King might be conveyed by a special
+ service of air-ships from one country to another, so that he might
+ always open every Parliament in person. England, Scotland, Ireland
+ and Wales would thus take their proper places in the Empire by the
+ side of Barbados, Canada and British Guiana, and there would be no
+ jealousy because all would be treated equally. Only in this way can
+ civil war be avoided and Ulster be satisfied.
+
+ Yours, etc.,
+
+ BENJAMIN WOOLLET,
+ Chairman of the Amalgamated League
+ for the Federation of the Empire.
+
+III.
+
+(_In answer to the two preceding letters._)
+
+ SIR,--Professor Woollet and Dr. Hornblower are both wrong. The only
+ way in which a Federal Solution, such as we all desire, can be
+ brought about is to convert the existing House of Lords--no change
+ being made in its constitution--into the supreme and only
+ legislative assembly of the whole Empire. The House of Commons, of
+ course, would cease to sit, or it might take the place of the
+ present London County Council. This is the true plan. All others
+ are absurd. It is useless for people to say they do not want this.
+ We insist on their having it.
+
+ Yours, etc.,
+
+ JONATHAN FIREDAMP,
+ President of Council of the
+ Federal Association.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A MYTH OF BOND STREET.
+
+(_The latest thing in female head-wear is said to be the "Minerva"
+Hat._)
+
+ Forgive me if my nerves were somewhat shaken;
+ Pardon me if my pulse went pit-a-pat
+ When I observed your tiny head had taken
+ To a "Minerva" hat.
+
+ Love at my heart's closed door, with loudest knockings,
+ Won his admittance as I gazed on you
+ Garbed in the gear of her, of all blue-stockings,
+ The most superbly blue.
+
+ For you seemed nobler far in form and feature;
+ In wisdom, too, I deemed you now divine,
+ And, though I felt myself a worthless creature,
+ I swore to make you mine.
+
+ I said, "I'll win this goddess. Though the siege is
+ Long, I shall learn her wisdom if I can,
+ Until in time she throws her nuptial aegis
+ Over her Super-man."
+
+ And then you spoke, in accents all too human,
+ Glanced at me coyly from beneath your casque;
+ My vision vanished, and I saw the woman
+ Behind that heavenly mask.
+
+ And straight I felt (so flippant was your mien) a
+ Pain as I mused on Pallas and her fowl,
+ And left the phantom of a faked Athena,
+ A disillusioned Owl.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Love's Labour Lost.
+
+ "The Newcastle Fire Brigade were called upon last night to deal
+ with an outbreak at----, where Mr. J. G---- carries on business as
+ a firelighter manufacturer. Before much damage had been done, the
+ firemen were able to extinguish the flames with chemicals."
+
+ _Newcastle Daily Journal._
+
+Once again we see how the economic instinct clashes with the artistic
+temperament.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: A POINT TO POINT IN IRELAND.
+
+_Owner of Rank Bad Horse (who has given the mount to a stranger)._
+"BEGORRA, I DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS A FRIEND OF YER HONOUR'S! TELL HIM TO GET
+DOWN OFF THAT HORSE! SHURE, I THOUGHT HE WAS ONLY A ---- SAXON."]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+A reflection that I could not resist after reading _Love the Harper_
+(SMITH, ELDER) was that the Boy appears in this volume as a very
+indifferent performer upon his instrument. For the muddle into which he
+plunged the amatory affairs of the inhabitants of Downside was terrible.
+Downside was a quiet delightful village, as lovingly described by Miss
+ELEANOR G. HAYDEN, but the number of misplaced attachments it contained
+seemed, as _Lady Bracknell_ once observed, "in excess of that which
+statisticians have laid down for our guidance." There was _John
+Harding_, the hero, who began by courting _Phyllis_, and subsequently
+transferred his suit to _Ruth_. There was _Will_, his brother, an even
+more inconstant lover, whom _Phyllis_ (still nominally betrothed to
+_John_) adored at first sight, and who divided his own heart between
+_Ruth_, _Phyllis_ and the crippled _Miss Mayling_. There was also _Ruth_
+herself, who thought she had a Past (she hadn't, at least it was all
+right really; but just in what sense it would be unfair to explain here)
+and therefore imagined herself for no man. The story begins with a
+wedding on the first page; and what with one thing and another I began
+to fear that this was the last consummation we were likely to get. But,
+of course, in the end---- But I shall not tell you how the couples
+finally re-sort themselves, because this is the author's secret, and one
+that she very craftily preserves till the last moment. It is
+arithmetically inevitable that there must be an odd woman left over in
+the end; but as to her identity I was entirely wrong, and so probably
+will you be. This ending is perhaps the best thing--I don't mean the
+words in an unkind sense--about a pleasant if not very thrilling story
+of a country that Miss HAYDEN evidently knows with the knowledge of
+affection.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Perhaps some of those who remember J. BURGON BICKERSTETH captaining the
+Oxford soccer team four years ago may be surprised to find him serving
+his apprenticeship at sky-piloting in Alberta. And very manfully and
+sincerely and tactfully he does it, to judge by the account which he
+modestly renders in _The Land of Open Doors_ (WELLS, GARDNER). With
+headquarters at Edmonton he rides and drives or swims (when the floods
+are out or the bridges down) across this untidy country from shack to
+shack, holding odd little services in dormitories and kitchens, and
+evidently making friends with the rough pioneer folk, railway men and
+small farmers, of his assorted acquaintance. The discouragements of such
+a task must be immense; indeed, they peep through the narrative,
+reticently enough, for grousing habits are not in the equipment of this
+staunch and cheery young parson. His notes of this land of promise and
+swift achievement are admirably observed. He has the gift of
+characterisation with humour, is clever at reproducing evidently
+authentic and entertaining dialogues, and has caught the Western idiom,
+not only in these set reproductions, but unconsciously in his own
+writing, which is singularly straightforward and attractive, nor
+burdened with the sort of cleverness which the young graduate is apt to
+air. Neither is there anything of the prig in his composition--his book
+abounds in reported words which an earlier generation of clerics would
+certainly have censored--but when he is saddened by the indifference,
+the unplumbed materialism and what he sees as the wickedness of his
+scattered flock he might remember for his comfort that valid and sane
+distinction of the casuists between formal and material sin. Anyway,
+good luck to him for a sportsman!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I have often wondered why so few novelists select the English Lake
+District as a fictional setting. I wonder still more after reading
+_Barbara Lynn_ (ARNOLD), in which it is used with fine and telling
+effect. Miss EMILY JENKINSON'S previous story showed that she had a rare
+sympathy with nature, and a still rarer gift of expressing it. _Barbara
+Lynn_ does much to strengthen that impression. It is a mountain tale,
+the scene of which is laid in an upland farm, girt about by the mighty
+hills and the solitude of the fells. Here, in the dour old house of
+Graystones, is played the drama of _Barbara_ and her sister _Lucy_; of
+_Peter_, who loved one and married the other; of the feckless _Joel_,
+and the old bed-ridden great-grandmother, who is a kind of chorus to it
+all. Practically these five are the only characters. Of them it is, of
+course, _Barbara_ herself who stands out most prominently, a figure of
+an austere yet wistful dignity, of whom any novelist might be proud. I
+should hazard a guess that Miss JENKINSON writes slowly; one feels this
+in her choice of words and her avoidance (even in the final tragic
+catastrophe) of anything approaching sensationalism or melodrama. When
+all, is said, however, it is for its descriptions that I shall remember
+the book. The hot summer, with the flocks calling in the night for
+water; the storm on the slopes of Thundergray; and the end of all things
+(which, pardon me, I do not mean to tell)--these are what live in the
+reader's mind. _Barbara Lynn_, in short, is an unusually imaginative
+novel, which has confirmed me in two previous impressions--first, that
+Miss EMILY JENKINSON is a writer upon whom to keep the appreciative eye;
+secondly, that Westmorland must be a perfectly beastly country to live
+in all the year round. Both of which conclusions are sincere tributes.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I was at school, some years ago, with two brilliant twins called DUFF,
+who between them captured, amongst other trifles, the Porson, two
+Trinity scholarships, a Fellowship, and first place in the examination
+for the Indian Civil Service. I mention them here as an example of the
+minute care with which ALISTAIR and HENRIETTA TAYLER have compiled _The
+Book of the Duffs_ (CONSTABLE). For I find their names and achievements
+duly recorded in the list of (I should think) every male Duff born of
+the stock of ADAM OF CLUNYBEG, _temp_ 1590, from, whom the present
+Duchess of FIFE is ninth or tenth in descent. And that is only one
+branch of the clan, only one of the numerous family-trees that make
+these two bulky volumes a perfect forest of Duffs. I know now exactly
+how _Macbeth_ felt when he saw Birnam Wood descending on Dunsinane. No
+wonder he exclaimed, "The cry is still, _They come_." When I looked at
+all these genealogies and lifelike portraits I had an appalling vision
+of this great army of Duffs of Clunybeg and Hatton and Fetteresso and
+the rest advancing towards me solemnly waving their family-trees. In the
+van, with his Dunsinane honours thick upon him, marched
+MACDUFF--MACDUFF, you know, who was also "Thane of Fife, created first
+Earl, 1057, _m._ Beatrice Banquo." Then followed a long train of other
+warriors--General Sir ALEXANDER, who fought in Flanders; Captain GEORGE,
+who was killed at Trafalgar; Admiral NORWICH and Admiral ROBERT, also
+contemporaries of NELSON; General PATRICK, who slew a tiger in single
+combat with a bayonet; General Commander-in-Chief Sir BEAUCHAMP of our
+own day--and I was afraid. Not, you understand, of their swords, but of
+their trees. And then suddenly the spirit of _Macbeth_ came upon me
+again. With him I shouted, "Lay on, Macduff; and damn'd be he that first
+cries, _Hold, enough_." But, luckier than he, I have lived to tell the
+tale, or rather to tell about it, and to recommend it to all those who
+have arborivorous tastes. I can promise them that they will heartily
+enjoy a good browse in the Forest of Duff.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+When a book is called _The Sea Captain_ (METHUEN) I do not think that
+the hero ought to be the driest of dry-bobs for nearly a quarter of it.
+If, however, Mr. H. C. BAILEY is a slow starter he knows how to make the
+pace when he once gets going; indeed, he travels so fast and so far that
+merely to follow him in fancy is a breathless business. When I have told
+you that _Diccon_ belonged to the spacious times of ELIZABETH, I need
+hardly add that his methods of winning fame and fortune on the sea were
+as rough as they were ready. Mercifully he had a steady head and a very
+strong back, or something must have given way under the strain that his
+creator puts upon him. No hero in modern fiction has jumped so
+frequently from the frying-pan into the fire with so little injury to
+himself. But if I cannot altogether believe in _Diccon_ I admit an
+affection for him. He was as loyal a lover and friend as could be found
+in the Elizabethan or any other age, and although he treated troublesome
+men without mercy his behaviour to women was marked by the extreme of
+propriety; so, though you may insist that he was merely a pirate, I
+shall still go on calling him a gentleman-adventurer, and leave him at
+that.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+[Illustration: OUR CURIO CRANKS.
+
+THE MAN WHO COLLECTS THE CHALK USED BY FAMOUS BILLIARD-PLAYERS.]
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_The Barbados Standard_ on an approaching Royal visit:--
+
+ "The visit it is understood is fixed to begin on April 29 and to
+ last until April 25. The visit is probably unprecedented."
+
+It is.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+146, APRIL 15, 1914***
+
+
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