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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+March 11, 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, March 11, 1914
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2007  [eBook #23726]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 146, MARCH 11, 1914***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Matt Whittaker, Malcolm Farmer, 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 23726-h.htm or 23726-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/7/2/23726/23726-h/23726-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/7/2/23726/23726-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+VOL. 146
+
+MARCH 11, 1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+A contemporary describes one of the deported Nine as the Brain of the
+party. This is a distinction which just eluded Mr. BAIN.
+
+       * * *
+
+The Admiralty has decided that, in the place of the grand manoeuvres this
+year, there shall be a surprise mobilisation. Last year's manoeuvres were,
+we believe, something of a fiasco, but to ensure the success of the
+surprise mobilisation five months' previous notice is given.
+
+       * * *
+
+"Every man," says the Bishop of LONDON, "must be his own Columbus and find
+the continent of truth." This is the first time that we had heard America
+called the continent of truth, and one wonders where the present fashion of
+flattery is going to end.
+
+       * * *
+
+We read that a Russian writer named LUNATCHARSKY has been expelled from
+Germany. Is it possible that he is a relative of Mr. MAX BEERBOHM'S friend
+Kolniyatchi?
+
+       * * *
+
+At the Grand Military Meeting at Sandown Park, two young millionaires
+figured as amateur jockeys. We understand now the meaning of the expression
+"putting money on a horse."
+
+       * * *
+
+"Futurist frocks," we are told, were a feature of the Chelsea Arts Club
+ball. Just as in these days "Fancy Dress" often seems to mean that the
+dress is left to the fancy, Futurist frocks, we presume, are frocks that
+may appear in the future.
+
+       * * *
+
+An American journalist has been pointing out how London lags behind other
+great cities in the matter of shop-window dressing. There would seem to be
+no limit to our decadence. Even our shop-windows are inadequately clothed.
+
+       * * *
+
+A meeting has been held at Kingston to consider the possibility of
+providing "some counter attraction" for the young people who frequent the
+streets on Sunday evenings. Seeing that most of them are at the counter
+during the week--you catch the idea?
+
+       * * *
+
+"Monkey nuts are dangerous," said Dr. ROUND at an inquest last week.
+Judging by the mild-looking specimens one sees walking about in the streets
+appearances are certainly deceptive.
+
+       * * *
+
+A contemporary, by the way, propounds the question: Why does the "nut"
+always wear his headgear on the back of his head? This custom is certainly
+queer, for, if he really cared about his personal appearance, he would wear
+the hat over his face.
+
+       * * *
+
+We regret to learn that an attempt to teach a modern Office Boy manners has
+failed. A friend of ours met his Office Boy in the street, and the lad
+merely nodded to him. To shame him the Master raised his hat with mock
+solemnity, at which the lad said, "That's all right, but you needn't do
+it."
+
+       * * *
+
+The fashion, which originated on the Continent, of having the face and neck
+painted with miniature works of art is reported to be spreading to London.
+And the practical Americans are said to be considering a further
+development in the form of advertisements on the face by means of neat
+inscriptions, such as "Complexion by Rouge et Cie," "Teeth by Max Gumberg,"
+and "Dimples excavated by the American Face Mining Co."
+
+       * * *
+
+"England," says General CARRANZA, "is the world's bully." The General must
+please have patience with us, for there are signs that we are improving. In
+the same issue of the evening paper which reported this dictum of his the
+following announcement appeared under the heading "LATEST NEWS":--"There
+were no bullion operations reported at the Bank of England to-day."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Curate_ (_forte_). "... TO HAVE-AND-TO-HOLD."
+
+_Bridegroom_ (_deaf_). "EH?"
+
+_Curate_ (_fortissimo_). "TO--HAVE--AND--TO--HOLD."
+
+_Bridegroom._ "TO 'AVE AND TO 'OLD."
+
+_Curate._ "FROM--THIS--DAY--FORWARD."
+
+_Bridegroom._ "TILL THIS DAY FORTNIGHT!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BYLES FOR THE BILL.
+
+     [In a letter addressed to _The Times_, headed "PASS THE BILL AND TAKE
+     THE CONSEQUENCES," Sir WILLIAM BYLES makes the statement:--"I for one
+     will take the risk without hesitation."]
+
+  Darkling I sing. Ere Tuesday's hour for tea
+    Shall set this doggerel in the glare of day,
+  He who adjured us still to "wait and see,"
+    He will have tweaked the mystic veil away,
+  And you will know--whatever it may be.
+
+  You, but not I; for I have yet to wait.
+    Far South, beneath (I hope) a stainless sky
+  The pregnant news shall find me, rather late,
+    Powerless to watch the ball with steadfast eye
+  Through sheer distraction as to Ulster's fate.
+
+  Fain would I have upon my well-pricked ear
+    Such tidings fall as prove that party pride
+  Yields with a mutual grace. And yet I fear
+    These desperadoes on the Liberal side--
+  BILL BYLES (for one), the Bradford Buccaneer.
+
+  "Pass"--so he boldly writes--"the Bill and take
+    (His conscience will not let him run to "damn")
+  "The Consequences." That is why I shake
+    Even as when the shorn and shivering lamb
+  Observes the wolf advancing in his wake.
+
+  I see him bear, this dreadful man of gore,
+    A brace of battleaxes at the slope;
+  I see him fling his gauntlet on the floor,
+    And (shouting, "BYLES for REDMOND and the POPE!")
+  Let loose the Nonconformist Dogs of War.
+
+  Ah! take and hide me in some hollow lair,
+    Red hills of Var! and ye umbrella-pines,
+  Cover me like a gamp! I cannot bear
+    This Apparition with its armed lines
+  Humming the strain, "_Sir BYLES s'en va-t-en guerre_."
+
+  _March 7._
+
+  O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE END OF IT ALL.
+
+It was the opening of the new Parliament of 1919 A.D.
+
+They had got IT.
+
+If you can't guess what they had got you must be obtuse.
+
+The great procession of Women M.P.'s formed in Trafalgar Square. Behind
+them were the ruins of the National Gallery (the work of the immortal Miss
+Podgers, B.Sc.); before them were the fragments of the Nelson Column (Miss
+Tunk's world-famous feat).
+
+The free fight concerning the leadership of the procession was settled by
+the intervention of mounted police. They decided that all the would-be
+leaders should march abreast with two armed policemen between each pair of
+them to prevent casualties by the way. So the head of the procession
+started off sixty abreast down Whitehall.
+
+It was a magnificent spectacle. All the M.P.'s wore green-and-white wigs
+because it was the fashion, and in addition green-and-white whiskers to
+assert their equality with men. Each processionist carried a model of her
+greatest work. There was Mrs. Spankham with a superb model of Westminster
+Abbey--its petrolling had been the greatest stroke in convincing the voters
+of the pure motives of the feminists. Miss Sylvia Spankham bore aloft the
+City Temple, Miss Christabel Spankham the Albert Hall, whilst Mrs. Lawrence
+Pothook waved triumphantly a lovely representation of King's Cross Station.
+Magnificent too was Mrs. Drummit riding astride a fire-engine as an emblem
+of peace and goodwill.
+
+The crowd viewed the procession with awed silence, only breaking into
+cheers when Miss Blithers, blushing modestly, held up a cardboard
+representation of the Albert Memorial she had nitro-glycerined. Miss Bliggs
+marched triumphantly in a bishop's mitre bearing a pastoral staff, in
+recognition of her great feat in forcibly feeding a wicked bishop who had
+written a letter to the Press against forcible, feeding. Misunderstood by
+the crowd was Mrs. Trudge, who wheeled a perambulator containing two
+babies. The onlookers thought that Mrs. Trudge was about to take her
+innocent offspring to the House of Commons, and those out of hat-pin range
+murmured, "Shime," "Give the kids a chawnce." They did not know that Mrs.
+Trudge was no base slave of man, that she had no children of her own, and
+that the wax babies she wheeled in the perambulator merely indicated that
+she was the heroine who had doped a nursemaid with drugged chocolate and
+abducted a Cabinet Minister's twins.
+
+Unhappily Miss Bolland also passed unidentified, though she held a
+cardboard tube aloft. Not even a taxi-driver cheered as the intrepid lady
+passed who had blown up the electrical-generation station of the Tubes and
+made London walk for a month. There too was Mrs. Tibbs, brave in her
+misfortunes. She had missed her election by one vote just because, when she
+came to the booth to vote for herself, lifelong habit had been too strong
+for her and she had phosphorused the ballot box.
+
+An unfortunate breeze from the river played havoc with the processionists'
+whiskers, and one or two of the weaker spirits in the ranks argued that
+some of the Government offices in Whitehall ought to have been left
+standing for protection--at any rate till the procession was over.
+
+On they went, each of the twenty leaders in front explaining how SHE had
+led the movement to triumph. On the top of the fire-engine Mrs. Drummit
+danced a futurist dance, symbolic of the subjection of man. At last they
+reached the portals of the House. The leaders broke into a run to secure
+front places on the Government benches.
+
+"Stop," cried a police superintendent, rushing from the building.
+
+"The days of man's tyranny are over!" shouted twenty voices together.
+
+"Maybe," said the police superintendent, "but some of 'em are catching up
+to you. They've dynamited the Houses of Parliament, and if you go inside
+you'll pop like roasted chestnuts."
+
+And as they watched the flame the leaders realised the sad fact that they
+had not left a building standing in London roomy enough for a Parliament.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Commercial Candour.
+
+     "---- Tooth Brushes are so constructed that the bristles get right
+     into the smallest crevices of the teeth. Moreover the bristles
+     positively won't come out."--_Advt. in "London Opinion."_
+
+That has sometimes been our bitter experience.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Choir Inaudible.
+
+     "The chorus gave ample evidence of having made great strides since
+     their last appearance in public, all the items for which they were
+     responsible being well sustained and rendered in first-class style.
+     Special mention should be made, however, of their rendering of 'A
+     Spring Song,' which was given in quite a professional manner, the
+     chorus dispensing with both music and words, and the audience evinced
+     their appreciation of this really fine effort by long continued
+     applause, to which the chorus responded by repeating it."
+
+     _Avalon Independent._
+
+There would probably be no words to the applause and very little music; so
+the chorus could easily repeat it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: GIFT FOR GIFT.
+
+GENERAL BOTHA. "WELL, I SUPPOSE ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER; WE MUST
+GIVE HIM A WARM RECEPTION."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE BRUTE AGAIN.
+
+_Weary Hostess._ "YES, I'VE BEEN HAVING SUCH TROUBLE WITH BABY. EVERY NIGHT
+I HAVE TO GET UP ABOUT TWENTY TIMES, GETTING HIS THINGS----"
+
+_Visitor._ "WHY DON'T YOU MAKE YOUR HUSBAND DO SOMETHING?"
+
+_Hostess._ "OH, I DAREN'T WAKE MY HUSBAND; IF I DO HE ALWAYS DRINKS BABY'S
+MILK."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+STUDIES IN DISCIPLESHIP.
+
+_THE TIMES'_ THIRD LEADER.
+
+The statement made in these columns by a well-informed correspondent that
+the incomparable NIJINSKY is so delicate that by his doctor's decree he is
+obliged to abstain from all forms of exercise save that involved in his
+beloved art, gives us, in the vivid phrase of our neighbours, "furiously to
+think." At the first blush incredulity prevails, but recourse to the annals
+of history, ancient and modern alike, furnishes us with abundant
+confirmation of this strange anomaly. HANNIBAL was a martyr to indigestion,
+while his great rival, SCIPIO AFRICANUS, suffered from sea-sickness even
+when crossing the Tiber. Wherever we look we are confronted with the
+spectacle of genius fraying its way to the appointed goal in spite of
+physical drawbacks which would have paralysed meritorious mediocrity. WOLFE
+was a _poitrinaire_, and NELSON would never have passed the medical
+examination to which the naval cadets of to-day are subjected. But the case
+of NIJINSKY is more tragic because abstinence from skating and riding, of
+which he was passionately fond, entails greater anguish on so sensitively
+organised a temperament than it would on a mere man of action, and the
+suffering of a great artist may lead to international complications which
+it is terrible to complicate. Russian dancing is as necessary to the
+well-being of our social system as standard bread, yet when we think of the
+sacrifices which its hierophants undergo in order to minister to our
+pleasure the sturdiest Hedonist cannot escape misgivings. Still, we may
+find consolation in the thought that sacrifice is necessary to perfection.
+Such sacrifices take various forms. In the case of NIJINSKY we see a man of
+immense brain power specialising in a most exhausting form of physical
+culture to remedy his extreme delicacy. At the opposite extreme we find
+cases of men so extraordinarily powerful that they are obliged to abandon
+all exercise and lead a purely sedentary life in order to counteract their
+abnormal muscularity. Thus Lord HALDANE, who in his earlier days thought
+nothing of walking to Cambridge one day and back to London on the next, has
+now become more than reconciled to the immobility imposed on the occupant
+of the Woolsack.
+
+It needs no little exercise of the imagination to form a mental picture of
+Lord HALDANE as a member of the Russian ballet, or, to put it in a more
+concrete form, making the famous flying exit in _Le Spectre da la Rose_.
+Could fancy be translated into fact, the drawing power of such a spectacle
+would be prodigious. On the other hand, and in view of the notorious
+adaptability of the Slavonic temperament, we can well imagine NIJINSKY
+proving an admirable Lord Chancellor. Exchanges of this sort would add to
+the comity of nations besides enhancing the amenities of public life, and
+it is perhaps not too much to hope that provision for carrying this out may
+be in the Government's scheme for the Reform of the House of Lords.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "New Zealand mutton was yearly increasing in public
+     flavour."--_Times._
+
+It mustn't get too powerful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an advertisement of a land sale in _Ceylon Morning Leader_:--
+
+     "An undivided 1/3 + 1/36 + 1/2 of 3/80 + 1/24 + 1/2 of 1/18 parts of
+     the land called Vitarmalage Gamwasama at Yatawala in extent 500
+     amunams paddy sowing."
+
+A chance for a newly-created peer who wants a family seat from which to
+take his title and quarterings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meeting of ANTONY and CLEOPATRA as described in HUTCHINSON'S _History
+of the Nations_:--
+
+     "When they met first he was twenty-nine and she was sixteen; now he
+     was forty-two and she was twenty-seven."
+
+Anyhow she would say so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Kind Old Gentleman._ "WHAT A DELIGHTFUL LITTLE PET! I HAVE
+ALWAYS A SOFT PLACE FOR ANIMALS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A LOST LEADER.
+
+"Enid," I said, "we must offer something to somebody."
+
+"You don't mean Squawks?" she pleaded piteously.
+
+"I wish I did," I sighed. Squawks is a Pomorachshund--at least I think so;
+though Enid inclines towards the Chowkingese theory. Anyhow, he himself has
+always realised that someone had blundered, and has worked steadily to make
+a dog of himself.
+
+"Well, if it's not Squawks, I don't care," remarked Enid.
+
+"I wish you'd take some interest."
+
+"What in?"
+
+"In what I say."
+
+"What _did_ you say?"
+
+"We must," I repeated, "offer something to somebody."
+
+"That's not very enthusey. Unless"--and her whole face brightened--"you
+mean what you call your reading-chair. It threw me on to the floor and
+knelt on me only yesterday; and I know Aunt Anne----"
+
+"Enid," I said sternly, "that's not the point."
+
+"I was afraid not."
+
+"The thing is, one must be in the swim. Everybody is offering things right
+and left now. Look at SUTHERLAND, DERBY--even LLOYD GEORGE."
+
+"I didn't know they were friends of yours."
+
+"Not exactly; but----"
+
+"Then why so familiar?"
+
+"My dear," I explained, "that _is_ the point. Once get your name in the
+papers at the end of a two-column letter and you are the friend of all the
+world--it gives one an _entrée_ to the castle of the Duke and the cottage
+of the crofter."
+
+"Even before you've written it?"
+
+"I have written it!"
+
+"Oh, how splendid! Where?"
+
+"In here," I said, tapping the best bit of my head.
+
+"Oh, _that_!" And then, pensively: "Next time Mary Jane has a brainstorm,
+I'll tell her to call you 'Charley.' Poor girl!"
+
+"I don't think you quite appreciate," I remarked.
+
+"I don't. What exactly do we stand to gain?"
+
+"There's the rub. Not lucre. Perish the thought! But one begins to be a
+power, an influence. People whisper in the Tube, 'Who's that?' '_That!_
+Don't you know? Why Him--He! The man who is making the Government a
+laughing-stock. The man who holds the Empire in the palm of his hand. The
+man who----'"
+
+"Thanks," said Enid. "We had better buy a gramophone. I thought you were
+getting fidgety at home."
+
+"Dearest," I explained, "it is not that. It is because I feel in me a
+spirit that will not be denied. Give me the opportunity and I will make
+this land, this England----"
+
+"Hush, Squawks. Was'ms frightened then, poor darling!"
+
+"That dog----"
+
+"Hush!" said Enid to me. "How are you going to begin?"
+
+"It is quite simple. Somebody writes something to the papers."
+
+"Yes; so far it sounds easy."
+
+"Now that something is hideously disparaging to my class and calling. I
+promptly answer him."
+
+"That is, if you can be funnier at his expense than he at yours."
+
+"I shan't be funny at all."
+
+"No?" said Enid thoughtfully.
+
+"Mine will be a scathing indictment, and of course I shall bring in the
+political situation. He writes back, evading the point at issue. I crush
+him with figures and statistics, and make him a practical offer--a few
+deer-forests, a paltry township, or my unearned increment, as the case may
+be."
+
+"The mowing-machine is out of order," Enid remarked.
+
+"I quote passages in his letter as the basis of negotiation. He pretends to
+accept. I point out how, when and why he has been guilty of paltry
+quibbling, and show that the Party he supports fosters such methods and
+manners."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"No. And that is just where I shall differ from everybody else. I shall go
+on where they have stopped. Having made one individual ridiculous, I shall
+broaden the basis of operation. With consummate skill I shall gradually
+draw the public officials down into the arena."
+
+"Don't forget the gas-man; he was very rude last month."
+
+"Not that kind," I explained. "Cabinet Ministers, Secretaries of State, the
+whole machinery of government shall writhe under the barbed shafts of my
+mockery. Ridicule is the power of the age. Ridicule in my hands shall be as
+bayonets to NAPOLEON, as poison to a BORGIA." I gasped.
+
+"Help!" said Enid, taking up _The Daily Most_. "Here's the very
+thing," she went on. "Somebody called 'A. Lethos'----"
+
+"Pah! A pseudonym."
+
+"Well, anyhow, he says that all political writers are worthless sycophants.
+You might begin on that."
+
+"I will," I cried. "But craven anonymity is not my part. My name shall
+stand forth boldly. Fate's linger points the way. How do you spell
+'sycophant'? The type has gone a bit dizzy over it."
+
+And I plunged into the fray.
+
+"Sir," I began; and there followed 2,000 words of closely-woven argument,
+down to "I remain, Sir, your obedient Servant."
+
+I read it through carefully, looked up "sycophant" in the dictionary, and
+wrote it all out again.
+
+Then I showed it to Enid.
+
+"Why have you spelt 'sycophant' like that?" she asked.
+
+"I----"
+
+"No, 'y.'"
+
+"It _is_ a 'y.'"
+
+"Oh!" (Pause.) "What about the offer? Mr. Lethos says that ninetenths of
+what is written nowadays is only worth the ink and paper."
+
+"The offer," I reminded her, "will come later."
+
+"Oh! I just thought---- You might get rid of those articles on 'Happiness
+in the Home' at cost price. They're running up to quite a lot in stamps."
+
+I posted the letter to the Editor.
+
+Next morning I seized the paper nervously. There was my name at the end of
+a column and a half. I had begun.
+
+I sat down to wait for the next step. It came with the mid-day post in a
+letter from Saxby, who is--or was--my friend.
+
+"Good old Tibbles," it ran; "I knew some juggins would rise, whatever I
+wrote. But fancy landing you!--Yours ever, BEEFERS."
+
+Now how _can_ a man save his country on a thing like that?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SMILES AND LAUGHTER.
+
+  On days of gloom and sadness,
+    When nothing brings relief,
+  When men are moved to madness
+    And women groan with grief;
+  Though growing daily dafter,
+    I might, as once I did,
+  Have cheered myself with laughter,
+    But laughter is forbid.
+
+  If I should treat of CARSON,
+    His guns and rataplan,
+  It's something worse than arson
+    To smile at such a man;
+  Since chaff would make his pulse stir--
+    And this he cannot brook--
+  The more he talks of Ulster
+    The solemner we look.
+
+  Then, should I meet a CECIL,
+    (Lord ROBERT or Lord HUGH),
+  His manifest distress'll
+    Be very sad to view
+  Unless I'm in a proper,
+    A gloomy frame of mind,
+  And put a heavy stopper
+    On mirth of any kind.
+
+  Next POUTSEA brings his quota
+    For giving me delight,
+  Who wants to punish BOTHA
+    By living in his sight;
+  Or, foiled of such a strife-time,
+    Decides to have a blow
+  And spend a briny lifetime
+    In sailing to and fro.
+
+  And SEDDON, who gave greetings
+    To those deported nine,
+  Invited them to meetings
+    And asked them out to dine,
+  And begged of them and prayed them
+    To be no longer banned,
+  But hardly could persuade them
+    To leave the ship and land.
+
+  These two, the gloom beguiling,
+    Might make me greatly dare,
+  Might set my face a-smiling
+    And win my soul from care;
+  The fêted and the feeders
+    Might well provoke some chaff;
+  But no--they're Labour Leaders,
+    And so we mustn't laugh.
+
+  And, last, there's LAW, our BONAR,
+    Who in a burst of tact
+  Is minded to dishonour
+    The loathed Insurance Act;
+  With opposites agreeing,
+    He faces North by South,
+  And keeps the Act in being
+    And kills it with his mouth.
+
+  He too might smooth a wrinkle,
+    Although he's stern and grim,
+  And make my eyes to twinkle
+    By seeing fun in him;
+  Cursed be that cheerful vision,
+    And cursed all sense of fun:
+  It is a foul misprision
+    To smile at anyone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: REVERIE.
+
+"NO, DARLING, NOT IN THE STUDY. YOUR FATHER WENT ROUND IN BOGEY TO-DAY AND
+WANTS TO HAVE A NICE LONG THINK ABOUT IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HAVE YOU ANYTHING TO SELL?
+
+(_With acknowledgments to "The Daily Mail."_)
+
+Have you anything you think of burning as useless, but would naturally
+prefer to sell? Why not try one of our small advertisements? Every day we
+receive thousands of letters testifying to their power. Here is one, picked
+up at random:--
+
+"Please discontinue my advertisement of a half-pair of bellows and a
+stuffed canary, as the first insertion has had such remarkable results. On
+looking out of my bedroom window this morning I observed a queue of some
+hundreds of people extending from my doorstep down to the trams in the main
+road. They included ladies on campstools, messenger boys, a sad-looking
+young man in an ulster who was reading SWINBURNE'S poems, and others. Only
+with difficulty could the milkman fight his way through to place the can on
+the doorstep, and the contents were quickly required to restore a lady who
+had turned faint for want of a camp-stool. While I was shaving, a motor
+mail-van dashed up and left seven sacks of postal replies to the
+advertisement. One by one, eighty-three people were admitted to view the
+goods, and a satisfactory bargain was made with the last of these. I then
+telephoned for the police to come and remove the disappointed thousands,
+who were disposed to be riotous. My garden gate is off its hinges, the
+garden itself has the lawn inextricably mixed with the flower-beds, my
+marble step is cracked in three places, and my stair-carpet is caked with
+mud. I do not know any other paper in this country in which a two-shilling
+advertisement could produce such encouraging results."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ORANGES AND LEMONS.
+
+I.--THE INVITATION.
+
+     "DEAR MYRA," wrote Simpson at the beginning of the year,--"I have an
+     important suggestion to make to you both, and I am coming round
+     to-morrow night after dinner about nine o'clock. As time is so short I
+     have asked Dahlia and Archie to meet me there, and if by any chance
+     you have gone out we shall wait till you come back.
+
+     Yours ever,
+     SAMUEL.
+
+     P.S.--I have asked Thomas too."
+
+"Well?" said Myra eagerly, as I gave her back the letter.
+
+In deep thought I buttered a piece of toast.
+
+"We could stop Thomas," I said. "We might ring up the Admiralty and ask
+them to give him something to do this evening. I don't know about Archie.
+Is he----"
+
+"Oh, what do you think it is? Aren't you excited?" She sighed and added,
+"Of course I know what Samuel _is_."
+
+"Yes. Probably he wants us all to go to the Wonder Zoo together ... or he's
+discovered a new way of putting, or---- I say, I didn't know Archie and
+Dahlia were in town."
+
+"They aren't. But I expect Samuel telegraphed to them to meet him under the
+clock at Charing Cross, disguised, when they would hear of something to
+their advantage. Oh, I wonder what it is. It _must_ be something real this
+time."
+
+Since the day when Simpson woke me up at six o'clock in the morning to show
+me his stance-for-a-full-wooden-club shot I have distrusted his
+enthusiasms; but Myra loves him as a mother; and I--I couldn't do without
+him; and when a man like that invites a whole crowd of people to come to
+your flat just about the time when you are wondering what has happened to
+the sardines on toast, and why doesn't she bring them in--well, it isn't
+polite to put the chain on the door and explain through the letter-box that
+you have gone away for a week.
+
+"We'd better have dinner a bit earlier to be on the safe side," I said, as
+Myra gave me a parting brush down in the hall. "If any further developments
+occur in the course of the day ring me up at the office. By the way,
+Simpson doesn't seem to have invited Peter. I wonder why not. He's nearly
+two, and he ought to be in it. Myra, I'm sure I'm tidy now."
+
+"Pipe, tobacco, matches, keys, money?"
+
+"Everything," I said. "Bless you. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Myra lingeringly. "What do you think he meant by 'as time
+is so short'?"
+
+"I don't know. At least," I added, looking at my watch, "I do know. I shall
+be horribly late. Good-bye."
+
+I fled down the stairs into the street, waved to Myra at the window ... and
+then came cautiously up again for my pipe. Life is very difficult on the
+mornings when you are in a hurry.
+
+At dinner that night Myra could hardly eat for excitement.
+
+"You'll be sorry afterwards," I warned her, "when it turns out to be
+nothing more than that he has had his hair cut."
+
+"But even if it is I don't see why I shouldn't be excited at seeing my only
+brother again--not to mention sister-in-law."
+
+"You only want to see them so that you can talk about Peter."
+
+"Oh, Fatty, darling"--(I am really quite thin)--"oh, Fatty," cried
+Myra--("lean and slender" would perhaps describe it better)--cried Myra,
+clasping her hands together--(in fact the very last person you could call
+stout)--"I haven't seen the darling for ages! But I shall see Samuel," she
+added hopefully, "and he's almost as young." ("Svelte"--that's the word for
+me.)
+
+"Then let's move," I said. "They'll be here directly."
+
+Archie and Dahlia came first. We besieged them with questions as soon as
+they appeared.
+
+"Haven't an idea," said Archie. "I wanted to bring a revolver in case it
+was anything really desperate, but Dahlia wouldn't let me."
+
+"It would have been useful too," I said, "if it turned out to be something
+merely futile."
+
+"You're not going to hurt my Samuel, however futile it is," said Myra.
+"Dahlia, how's Peter, and will you have some coffee?"
+
+"Peter's lovely. You've had coffee, haven't you, Archie?"
+
+"Better have some more," I suggested, "in case Simpson is merely soporific.
+We anticipate a slumbering audience, and Samuel explaining a new kind of
+googlie he's invented."
+
+Entered Thomas lazily.
+
+"Hallo," he said in his slow voice, "What's it all about?"
+
+"It's a raid on the Begum's palace," explained Archie rapidly. "Dahlia
+decoys the Chief Mucilage; you, Thomas, drive the submarine; Myra has
+charge of the clockwork mouse, and we others hang about and sing. To say
+more at this stage would be to bring about a European conflict."
+
+"Coffee, Thomas?" said Myra.
+
+"I bet he's having us on," said Thomas gloomily, as he stirred his coffee.
+
+There was a hurricane in the hall. Chairs were swept over; coats and hats
+fell to the ground; a high voice offered continuous apologies--and Simpson
+came in.
+
+"Hallo, Myra!" he said eagerly. "Hallo, old chap! Hallo, Dahlia! Hallo,
+Archie! Hallo, Thomas, old boy!" He fixed his spectacles firmly on his nose
+and beamed round the room.
+
+"You haven't said 'Hallo!' to the cook," Archie pointed out.
+
+"We're all here--thanking you very much for inviting us," I said. "Have a
+cigar--if you've brought any with you."
+
+Fortunately he had brought several with him.
+
+"Now then, I'll give any of you three guesses what it's all about."
+
+"No, you don't. We're all waiting, and you can begin your apology right
+away."
+
+Simpson took a deep breath and began.
+
+"I've been lent a villa," he said.
+
+There was a moment's silence ... and then Archie got up.
+
+"Good-bye," he said to Myra, holding out his hand. "Thanks for a very jolly
+evening. Come along, Dahlia."
+
+"But I say, old chap," protested Simpson.
+
+"I'm sorry, Simpson, but the fact that you're moving from the Temple to
+Cricklewood, or wherever it is, and that somebody else is paying the thirty
+pounds a year, is jolly interesting, but it wasn't good enough to drag us
+up from the country to tell us about it. You could have written. However,
+thank you for the cigar."
+
+"My dear fellow, it isn't Cricklewood. It's the Riviera!"
+
+Archie sat down again.
+
+"Samuel!" cried Myra. "How she must love you!"
+
+"I should never lend Simpson a villa of mine," I said. "He'd only lose it."
+
+"They're some very old friends who live there, and they're going away for a
+month, and the servants are staying on, and they suggested that if I was
+going abroad again this year----"
+
+"How did the servants know you'd been abroad last year?" asked Archie.
+
+"Don't interrupt, dear," said Dahlia. "I see what he means. How very jolly
+for you, Samuel."
+
+"For all of us, Dahlia!" "You aren't suggesting we shall all crowd in?"
+growled Thomas.
+
+"Of course, my dear old chap! I told them, and they're delighted. We can
+share housekeeping expenses, and it will be as cheap as anything."
+
+"But to go into a stranger's house," said Dahlia anxiously.
+
+"It's _my_ house, Dahlia, for the time. I invite you!" He threw out his
+hands in a large gesture of welcome and knocked his coffee-cup on to the
+carpet; begged Myra's pardon several times; and then sat down again and
+wiped his spectacles vigorously.
+
+Archie looked doubtfully at Thomas.
+
+"Duty, Thomas, duty," he said, thumping his chest. "You can't desert the
+Navy at this moment of crisis."
+
+"Might," said Thomas, puffing at his pipe.
+
+Archie looked at me. I looked hopefully at Myra.
+
+"Oh-h-h!" said Myra, entranced.
+
+Archie looked at Dahlia. Dahlia frowned.
+
+"It isn't till February," said Simpson eagerly.
+
+"It's very kind of you, Samuel," said Dahlia, "but I don't think----"
+
+Archie nodded to Simpson.
+
+"You leave this to me," he said confidentially. "We're going."
+
+A. A. M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "PORTER, WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE WAITING HERE FOR?"
+
+"YOU'RE WAITIN' TO GO ON, SIR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CHAMELEONS.
+
+(_From "The Gladiator," Nov. 1914._)
+
+ASSOCIATION.
+
+WHITEBROOK ROVERS _V._ BROMVILLE.
+
+The meeting of these teams on Saturday last produced a struggle of titanic
+dimensions worthy of the best traditions of the famous combinations
+engaged. On the one hand we saw the machine-like precision, the subtle
+finesse so characteristic of the Whitebrook men, while at the same time we
+revelled in the dash and speed, the consummate daring displayed by their
+doughty opponents. We have witnessed many games, but for keenness and
+enthusiasm this one must rank.... In a game where every man acquitted
+himself well it is difficult to particularise; but Brown, Jones, Green and
+McSleery for the Rovers, and Gray, Smith, Black and McSkinner for the
+Broms, may be mentioned as being shining lights in their respective
+positions.
+
+(_From "The Gladiator," Nov. 1915._)
+
+ASSOCIATION.
+
+WHITEBROOK ROVERS _V._ BROMVILLE.
+
+Before a huge crowd exceeding 60,000 these historic combinations met on
+Saturday, and provided a rich treat for those who had the privilege to be
+there. The officials of both clubs have been busy team-building, and the
+sides differed in many instances from those antagonizing on the same ground
+a year ago. That the changes have been judicious and beneficial Saturday's
+game abundantly proved. The men played with great earnestness, evincing
+much local patriotism, and in their contrasted styles--the polished
+artistry, the scientific precision of the Rovers, and the dash and forceful
+intrepidity of the Broms--were at their very best. We have seen many games,
+but this must rank.... While every man did himself justice, it may not be
+invidious to mention, for the Rovers, Gray, Smith, Black and McSkinner, and
+for the Broms, Brown, Jones, Green and McSleery, as being bright particular
+stars in their respective departments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a literary weekly:--
+
+     "It is a terribly accurate saying about the loud laugh and the vacant
+     mind--Pope never got down surer to the bare bones of the truth."
+
+Nor did GOLDSMITH when he pointed out the danger of "a little learning."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From two consecutive items of "News in a Nutshell" in the _North-Eastern
+Daily Gazette_:--
+
+     "Lieut. ----, of an infantry regiment at Lemburg, Austria, fell fast
+     asleep on February 14, and all efforts to wake him have proved futile
+     ever since.
+
+     A sleeper weighing 8 cwt. was found on the Great Western Railway near
+     Banbury just before the arrival of a train from the north."
+
+However, it was not the lieutenant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THINGS THAT ONE MIGHT HAVE PUT DIFFERENTLY.
+
+"HOW DE DO, LADY SMYTHE? I'VE JUST DRIVEN THE MOTOR OVER TO FETCH MY WIFE
+AWAY."
+
+"HOW NICE OF YOU, ADMIRAL; BUT I DO WISH YOU'D COME SOONER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FORGIVENESS.
+
+(_A Dream after losing a Dog._)
+
+  Methought I saw the man that stole our Tim
+    In a night vision; and "Behold!" he cried,
+  "This was a task too easy for my whim,
+    A job of little worth and little pride,
+    An Irish terrier." Then his pal replied,
+  "I know a place where you may pinch with ease
+  One of these here carnation Pekinese.
+
+  "You see them nasty spikes on that there wall?
+    Climb it, and you shall find a little yard;
+  An unlatched casement leads you to a hall,
+    Thence to the crib where, odorous with nard,
+    Slumbers the petted plaything; 'twere not hard
+  Out of his cushioned ease (and gorged belike
+  With sweetmeats) to appropriate the tyke."
+
+  So, filled with high ambition and the hope
+    Of gaining huge emolument, this man
+  Hung to the toothed battlements a rope,
+    Climbed and leapt down to execute his plan--
+    But even as he leapt a noise began
+  As when the Arctic icebergs break and grind;
+  This was because his pants were caught behind.
+
+  Awhile they tore, then stayed. And helpless there
+    Betwixt the silvery moonlight and the ground
+  He hung convulsive, grasping at the air,
+    For two full hours it may be, whilst a hound
+    Of the Great Danish breed, that made no sound
+  Save a deep snarl, below him watching stood
+  (This portion of my dream was very good).
+
+  And much he vowed because of his great pain
+    That he was the most dashed of all dashed fools
+  And never would he steal a dog again,
+    No (strite!) he would not. He recalled the rules
+    That teachers taught him in the Sunday Schools
+  And thought on serious happenings and the grave;
+  And with dawn's earliest flush his trousers gave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  And having waited for a time I went
+    To see him in the hospital. And hours
+  Of earnest converse with the man I spent,
+    Told him of Nemesis and what dark powers
+    Punish our mortal crimes, and brought him flowers,
+  Dog-roses and dog-violets, and read
+  The Eighth Commandment out beside his bed.
+
+EVOE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Daily Telegraph_ on the next Drury Lane melodrama:--
+
+     "We are able to say on the very best authority that the idea at the
+     root of the story is of a quite unusual nature; indeed, if secrecy
+     were not for the moment imposed, one might even go a step further and
+     declare it to be of startling originality."
+
+As it is, one doesn't; for if once the secret got about that the play was
+to be original there would be riots in Fleet Street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Song, 'March of the Men of Garlick' (Tune, Welsh melody)."
+
+     _Ripon Observer._
+
+A pardonable mistake. The national emblem is of course the leek.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE WOOING.
+
+MISS ULSTER. "AN' WHAT'S THE GOOD OF HIM SENDIN' ME FLOWERS WHEN I'VE
+TOLD HIM 'NO' ALREADY?"
+
+MR. PUNCH. "WELL NOW, COME, MY DEAR--WON'T YOU JUST TAKE A GOOD LOOK
+AT THEM BEFORE YOU START TURNING UP YOUR PRETTY NOSE?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "A HOLLOW DEMONSTRATION."
+
+(_With acknowledgments to GILLRAY'S caricature of NAPOLEON as Gulliver
+among the Brobdingnagians._)
+
+     [Mr. D. M. MASON'S motion for the reduction of the Supplementary Navy
+     Estimates was defeated by 237 votes to 34.]]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+(EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.)
+
+_House of Commons, Monday, March 2._--In speech of flawless lucidity
+displaying perfect command of columnar figures upon which strength of
+British Navy is based, the WINSOME WINSTON moved Supplementary Estimates
+amounting to two and a-half millions. These raise total expenditure of year
+on the Navy to forty-eight millions. "A serious event," he admitted amid
+sympathetic cheers from below Gangway to his right. Necessity arises from
+increased expenditure on oil reserves; from demand for a quarter of a
+million for the new aircraft programme, an item unknown to OLD MORALITY or
+CHILDERS when successively at the Admiralty; from increment of wages and
+acceleration of ship-building.
+
+He might have mentioned that of grand total close upon two millions is
+legacy left by former Ministry on account of liabilities incurred before
+1905. Whilst present Government, austerely-minded, pay their way as they
+go, meeting increased expenditure out of revenue, PRINCE ARTHUR, with
+characteristically light heart, built ships and strengthened
+fortifications, raising the money by loan, which he gaily left to posterity
+to pay off. Posterity has this pleasant task in hand now, and will continue
+to be engaged upon it for next twenty years.
+
+WINSTON judiciously refrained from pressing the point. Had enough on his
+hands with discontented supporters below Gangway, who resent
+ever-increasing burden of Naval expenditure. RAMSAY MACDONALD lodged
+protest on behalf of Labour Members; stopped short of moving reduction of
+vote. This done by DAVID MASON of Coventry.
+
+"A hollow demonstration," was GILBERT PARKER'S terse description of the
+revolt. On a division Estimates were carried by a majority of 203. Only 34
+voted for reduction.
+
+Prolongation of debate plainly boring. By exception, one listener sat it
+out with unwearied attention. Nothing precisely cherubic in face or figure
+of Lord FISHER OF KILVERSTONE, better known on sea and land by the
+affectionate diminutive JACKY FISHER. Nevertheless, as he sat perched in
+Peers' Gallery immediately over the clock, a place ever associated with the
+genial presence of EDWARD PRINCE OF WALES, there flashed across the mind a
+familiar couplet sung by DIBDIN:--
+
+  "There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft
+  To keep watch for the life of poor Jack."
+
+[Illustration: JACK'S JACK.
+
+(Lord FISHER).]
+
+Whilst jealous for maintenance of Naval power, no Admiral or Sea Lord did
+more to improve conditions of life on the lower deck than did JACKY FISHER.
+Retired from active service, his multiform commissions under hatches,
+to-night his body has gone aloft to a seat in Peers' Gallery. There he
+heard expounded biggest Navy vote submitted since days of the "Great
+Harry." Exceptionally swollen by provision for reserves of oil fuel, a new
+departure, for which he in his capacity as Chairman of a Royal Commission
+has, as WINSTON testified, been chiefly responsible.
+
+_Business done._--Naval Estimates discussed.
+
+_Tuesday._--Another scene testifying to electricity of atmosphere. As
+usual, explosion from unexpected quarter. House in committee on Naval
+Estimates. Lord ROBERT CECIL, ever alert in interests of working-man with a
+vote, moved reduction in order to call attention to housing accommodation
+provided for men employed at Rosyth. Chairman ruled debate out of order on
+Supplementary Estimates. Lord BOB nevertheless managed to sum up purport of
+intended speech by denouncing state of things as "a scandal and disgrace to
+the Government." At this stage Opposition Whips, counting heads, discovered
+that, if not at the moment in actual minority, Government would, if
+division were rushed, find themselves in parlous state. The word--it was
+"Mum"--went round Opposition benches.
+
+Unfortunately for success of plot Ministerial Whips also alive to
+situation.
+
+"After your ruling, Sir," said Lord BOB with ominous politeness, "I cannot
+develop my argument, but I propose to persist in my motion, and will divide
+the Committee."
+
+Not if LEIF JONES knew it. For him, as for all good Ministerialists,
+subject suddenly developed interest, urgently demanded consideration. This
+he proposed to bestow upon it. A Bengal tiger about to lunch off a
+toothsome native, discovering the anticipated meal withdrawn from his
+reach, could not be more sublimely wrathful than were gentlemen on
+Opposition benches. And LEIF JONES, too! The mildest-mannered man that ever
+turned on a water-tap.
+
+After a moment of petrified pause, natural to Bengal tiger on discovering
+reality of his discomfiture, there burst forth roar of "'Vide! 'Vide!
+'Vide!" From appearance of LEIF JONES'S lips, he was continuing his
+remarks. Not a syllable rose above the storm. After it had raged for some
+moments CHAIRMAN pointed out that, whilst divigation in direction of Rosyth
+was out of order, it was competent to any Member to discuss the vote as a
+whole.
+
+This too much for A. S. WILSON, who has been surprisingly reticent since
+Session opened.
+
+"Is it right for the CHAIRMAN," he asked, "to protect the Government from
+what may be an inconvenient position?"
+
+"A grossly disorderly observation," the CHAIRMAN retorted.
+
+A. S. withdrew the remark, the more willingly since designed effect gained.
+
+COUSIN HUGH, for some time moving uneasily in corner seat below Gangway,
+bounded to his feet. Member near him simultaneously rose. With sweep of
+left arm, after manner of RICHARD III. directing the cutting off of the
+head of BUCKINGHAM, he waved the appalled Member down. Was getting on
+nicely with what he had to say when, like GRAND CROSS on historical
+occasion, he "heard a smile."
+
+It came from WINSTON.
+
+"I notice," said COUSIN HUGH glaring on the Treasury bench, "that the FIRST
+LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY, who is very ignorant on many matters, is amused at
+this observation."
+
+WINSTON explained that what he had laughed at was "the lordly gesture with
+which the noble Lord swept away another honourable gentleman."
+
+LEIF JONES, proposing to continue his remarks, presented himself again.
+Greeted with fresh yell of execration. Battled for some moments with the
+storm. Too much for him. Reached forth hand; seized imperceptible tankard
+of invisible stout; gratefully wetted his parched lips withal. Refreshed,
+he tried again; no articulate word dominated the din.
+
+After further ten minutes of uproar, through which from time to time A. S.
+WILSON tried to get in more or less relevant remark and was instantly
+extinguished by the CHAIRMAN, who masterfully managed difficult situation,
+WINSTON interposed. A bird of the air had brought news from Whips' Room
+that all was well. Accordingly the FIRST LORD graciously conceded division
+clamoured for.
+
+Its result profound surprise. So far from Government lacking support, the
+amendment was negatived by more than two to one. Majority rushed up to 140.
+
+Evidently been a mistake somewhere.
+
+_Business done._--Supplementary votes agreed to.
+
+_Thursday._--Dramatic turn in position of Home Rule Bill. PREMIER hitherto
+steadfast in deferring Second Reading till close of financial year. As
+result of confabulation between two Front Benches arranged that
+Supplementary Estimates shall be hurried up so as to make opening for
+immediate debate on Second Reading.
+
+Accordingly ST. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL to-day brought in Bill for First Reading.
+No need of persuasion of silver tongue to carry this stage. Proceeding
+purely formal. Fight opens on Monday, when PREMIER, moving Second Reading,
+will explain his "suggestions" of amendment.
+
+_Business done._--Home Rule brought in, being third time of asking. Welsh
+Church Disestablishment Bill and Plural Voting Bill also read amid
+vociferous cheering by Ministerialists.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "I understand you have only one Welsh saint. Well, there'll
+soon be another; it will be Saint Lloyd George. I would canonise him right
+away."--_The Rev. Dr. CLIFFORD at Westbourne Park Chapel._]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "His brilliant flashes of wit and humour evoked hearty applause, and
+     sometimes even laughter."--_Teesdale Mercury._
+
+Almost the last thing you would have expected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "One of the strongest traits in Mrs. Barclay's character is a love of
+     all creatures, great and small--thrushes, wagtails and robins come to
+     her when she calls, and she keeps a little box of worms to feed
+     them."--_Woman at Home._
+
+Sometimes the worms must wish she wasn't quite so loving.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE DOWNWARD TREND.
+
+    Come, Nora, Nance and Nellie,
+    Let us study BOTTICELLI
+  When we feel the gnawing craving to be smart;
+    If we want to be _de rigueur_
+    We must educate the figure
+  To show the downward trend of "plastic art."
+    The outline should be slack,
+    Slippy-sloppy, front and back,
+  Till bodice, skirt and tunic--every stitch--
+    Seems to call for the support
+    Of the handy-man's resort--
+  That naval gesture termed the "double hitch."
+    The shoulders must be drooping.
+    The knees a trifle stooping,
+  And the widest waist, remember, takes the prize;
+    When motoring or shopping
+    The _coatee_ must be flopping
+  Through a belt that's sagging downward to the thighs.
+    But the evening toilette scheme
+    Shows the opposite extreme,
+  And, when for dance or dinner you're equipped,
+    A clinging "mermaid's tail"
+    The nether limbs must veil,
+  While the corsage is the only part that's slipped.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "At the close of the match, Mr. Burnett, Kenmay, announced the result
+     and called for cheers for the winners. Mr. J. Fulton, President
+     English Province R.C.C.C., responded."--_Field._
+
+We are sorry that Mr. FULTON was the only one. After his opening
+"Hip--hip--hip" even the most timid or indifferent should have joined in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Tickets purchased before the date will admit holders at 2 p.m. to
+     view the machine used when 'looping the loop,' and the passenger
+     carrying machine."
+
+     _Advt. in "The Varsity."_
+
+At the risk of embarrassing this anonymous Samson we shall go early and
+view him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Councillor Johnson said the Bye Laws wore not in a satisfactory
+     state, and suggested that Councillor Bayman be added to the number."
+
+     _Mossel Bay Advertiser._
+
+Henceforward the penalty for breaking Councillor BAYMAN is forty shillings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Report received by a South African mine-manager:--
+
+     "The mule being experimented with by feeding on bad mealies is still
+     being carried out, but up to date the animal seems to keep in normal
+     condition."
+
+They must carry him out again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LANGUAGE À LA MODE.
+
+"WHAT DO YOU THINK? ISN'T IT _RATHER_ NICE?"
+
+"MY DEAR, HOW _UTTERLY SUCCULENT_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"THE TWO VIRTUES."
+
+The news, which ran like wildfire through the town on Wednesday morning,
+that Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER had signed the Covenant, must have stirred many
+hearts; but those of us who saw him on the next night as the hero of Mr.
+ALFRED SUTRO'S comedy are hoping that, at any rate, there will be no
+fighting on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and that sentry duty in the
+evenings may be performed by less valuable signatories. For in _Jeffery
+Panton_ he has really found a part to suit him, and a part which should
+keep him busy for some months. Comedy is certainly his medium.
+
+It is not, alas, Miss MARTHA HEDMAN'S, nor is English her language. Her
+pretty foreign accent and tearful manner became her as a French girl in
+_The Attack_, but it won't do for every part she plays. It didn't do in the
+least for _Mrs. Guildford_. The difficulty of understanding what she said
+was made greater by a surprising catarrh amongst the first-night audience,
+so that her scenes had a way of going like this:--
+
+_Jeffery Panton_ (_clearly_). But I must just talk to you a moment.
+
+_Stall on left._ Honk--honk! Honk! H'r'r'm!
+
+_Dress circle._ HONK! HONK!!
+
+_Mrs. Guildford._ No, no, I must get on with my work.
+
+_Stall just behind._ WHAT DID SHE SAY?
+
+_Her neighbour._ Something about her work.
+
+_Her other neighbour._ Honk--honk! H'r'm! Honk--honk!
+
+_Gallery boy._ HONK--HONK--HONK!
+
+_Several voices._ Sh'sh!
+
+_Mrs. Guildford._ No ... I ... you ...
+
+_Second gallery boy._ Stop that coughing there!
+
+_Injured voice._ _I_ can't 'elp coughing!
+
+_Several voices._ Sh'sh!
+
+But I'm afraid the coughing was not always the fault of the microbes but
+sometimes of Mr. SUTRO, who seemed to be exploiting a wonderful talent for
+starting his Acts dully. The opening scene of the Second Act, between _Mrs.
+Guildford_ and _Alice Exern_, was particularly tiresome. It went on a long
+time, and seemed when audible to be only a recapitulation of Act I. We
+simply had to cough.
+
+I have said nothing of the story, for the reason that a summary of it would
+hardly do it justice. It is slight, and yet just strong enough to carry two
+or three pleasant creations and much happy dialogue. The important thing is
+that Sir GEORGE is on the stage most of the time, has many delightful
+things to say, and says them delightfully. There are also Miss HENRIETTA
+WATSON, Miss ATHENE SEYLER, and Mr. HERBERT WARING, all excellent.
+
+It remains to be said that the Two Virtues are Chastity and Charity; that
+_Mrs. Guildford_ lacked (I think--but they were coughing a good deal just
+then) the first virtue, and the other ladies the second; and that the
+reclining chair in Act I. was kindly lent by--but the name of the generous
+fellow will be revealed to you in your programme when you go.
+
+M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "'Paphnutius' was given its first public performance in London
+     recently. Miss Ellen Terry appeared in it as an abbcess."
+
+     _Hong Kong Telegraph._
+
+Our impersonation of a nasty sore throat "off" is still the talk of China.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ONE WAY WITH THEM.
+
+Leeson is the best of living creatures (as so many of us are), but he has
+one detestable foible--he always wants to read something aloud. Now,
+reading aloud is a very special gift. Few men have it, and even of those
+few there are some who do not force it upon their friends; the rest have it
+not, and Leeson is of the rest.
+
+In fact, it is really painful to listen to him, because he not only reads,
+but acts. If it is a woman speaking, he pipes a falsetto such as no woman
+outside a reciter's brain ever possessed. If it is a rustic, he affects a
+dialect from no known district. In emotional passages one does not dare to
+look at him at all, but we all cower with our heads in our hands, as though
+we were convicted but penitent criminals. So much for dramatic or dialogue
+pieces. When it comes to lyric poetry--his favourite form of
+literature--Leeson sings, or rather cantillates, swaying his body to the
+rhythm of the lines. If any of the poets could hear him they would become
+'bus-conductors at once; it is as bad as that.
+
+Otherwise Leeson is excellent company and one likes dining with him. But
+there's always hanging over one the dread that he may have alighted on
+something new and wonderful, and at any moment....
+
+Directly I entered the house last week I was conscious that this had
+happened--Leeson had made another discovery. I had not been in the
+drawing-room for more than a minute, and had barely shaken hands with Mrs.
+Leeson, when he pulled from his pocket a thin book. I knew the worst at
+once: it had about it all the stigmata of new poetry. It was of the right
+deadly hue, the right deadly size, the right deadly roughness about the
+edges.
+
+"I've got something here, my boy," he said. "The real stuff. Let me----"
+
+Just at this moment the door opened and some guests entered.
+
+"Never mind," he remarked to me, as he approached to welcome them; "later.
+It's wonderful--wonderful!"
+
+Other guests arriving occupied him, and then a servant came in to say that
+he was wanted on the telephone.
+
+He returned with the message that Captain Cathcart was sorry to say he
+could not possibly be there until a quarter-past eight. But please don't
+wait.
+
+It was now five minutes past eight.
+
+"What I suggest," said Leeson, "is that we do wait, and that we fill up the
+time by reading one or two poems by a new man that I've just discovered?
+They're simply wonderful!"
+
+He drew out the book and we all composed ourselves to the ordeal; Mrs.
+Gaston, who is the insincerest creature on earth and has no thoughts beyond
+Auction Bridge, even going so far as to say, ecstatically, "A new poet! How
+heavenly!"
+
+But Mrs. Leeson stopped it. "Oh, no," she said, "don't let us wait. Very
+likely Captain Cathcart will be later still." And with a sigh of relief
+that was almost audible we marched down to dinner.
+
+I thought that Leeson cut the time over our cigars rather short, and we had
+no sooner returned to the drawing-room than he began again. "I won't keep
+you more than a few moments," he said, "but I very much want your opinion
+of a new poet I have discovered. I have his work here," and out came the
+deadly book, "and I want to read one or two brief things."
+
+"Oh, George, dear," said Mrs. Leeson, "do you mind postponing that for a
+little? Miss Langton is very kindly going to sing for us, and she has to
+leave early."
+
+Leeson accepted the situation with as much philosophy as he could muster.
+
+As a rule I am bored by amateur, or indeed any, singing after dinner, but I
+looked at Miss Langton with an expression which a Society paper reporter
+might easily have misconstrued.
+
+Long before she had finished we were all calling out, "Thank you! Thank
+you! Encore! Encore!"
+
+Leeson alone was faint in his praises and his face fell to a lower depth
+when she began again.
+
+No sooner had she finished and gone than he was planning another effort,
+but during the opportunity afforded by her departure we had, with great
+address, divided ourselves into such animated groups that Mrs. Leeson, like
+a tactful hostess, laid her hand on his arm and caused him again to
+postpone it.
+
+He wandered forlornly from chair to chair, seeking an opening, and at last
+ventured to clear his throat and again ask if we would like to hear his new
+poet. "I assure you he's wonderful!"
+
+But at this moment old Lady Thistlewood uttered a little cry and at once
+bells were rung for sal-volatile. Her ladyship, it seems, is subject to
+attacks of faintness.
+
+When next Leeson made his proposal the Buntons rose and, expressing every
+variety of sorrow and regret, stated that they had no idea it was so late
+and they must really tear themselves away; Mrs. Bunton tactfully taking
+down the title of this dear new poet's book and its publisher.
+
+This being the signal for the others to leave, I soon found myself alone.
+
+"Now!" said Leeson with a triumphant expression. "Thank goodness they're
+out of the way and we're quiet and snug. Now you shall hear my poet." He
+felt for the book. "I tell you----" He stopped in dismay.
+
+"I could have sworn it was in my pocket," he said, and began to hunt about
+the room.
+
+"Where on earth can it be?" he said.
+
+I helped him to look for it, but in vain.
+
+"Perhaps Mrs. Bunton took it?" I suggested.
+
+"I'm sure she didn't," he replied.
+
+"Perhaps Mrs. Leeson has it?" I said.
+
+But she had not. The last time she had seen it it was on the table after
+Mrs. Bunton copied the title.
+
+Leeson was so utterly dejected that I felt almost sorry for him.
+
+"Well," he said at last, "that's the strangest thing I ever heard of. What
+a disappointment! I did want you to hear it."
+
+But it was precisely because I didn't that in my own pocket was the
+volume's present hiding-place. When the front door had closed behind me
+half-an-hour later, I slipped it into the letter-box.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE FOX.
+
+  The birds see him first, jay and blackbird and thrush;
+    They shriek at his coming and curse him, each one;
+  With the clay of the vale on his pads and his brush,
+    It's the Fallowfield fox and he's pretty near done;
+  It's a couple of hours since a whip tally-ho'd him;
+  Now the rookery's stooping to mob and to goad him;
+  There's an earth on the hill, but he's cooked past believing,
+  And his tongue's hanging out and his wet ribs are heaving.
+  Here he comes up the field at a woebegone trot;
+    He's stiff as a poker, he's done all he knows;
+  Now the ploughmen'll view him as likely as not;
+    There--they run to the paling and yell as he goes:
+  Here's an end, if we live to be two minutes older;
+  See, he turns a glazed eye o'er a mud-spattered shoulder;
+  There's a hound through the hedgerow....
+  Game's up, and he's beaten,
+  And he faces about with a snarl to be eaten.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S GALLERY OF BRAVE DEEDS. No. 1.
+
+THE HERO WHO TOOK OUT A PARTY OF LADIES FERRETING.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE RING.
+
+KEEKS _v._ COCKLES.
+
+I.--OLD STYLE.
+
+_By Tony Shovell._
+
+The much-boomed fight between Nobby Keeks and Bill Cockles ended in
+something of a _fiasco_, the last named being knocked out with a terrific
+uppercut in the first round.
+
+The men stripped well, and appeared in excellent fettle. The fight
+commenced precisely at 11.22, only fifty-two minutes after the advertised
+time.
+
+_1st Round._--Both men opened warily, sparring for an opening. Presently
+Cockles stepped in and drove his left hard to the nose, drawing blood.
+Keeks drew back, and Cockles, following up his advantage, got in a
+nicely-judged left hook on the eye, which began to swell ominously. Though
+his supporters were obviously chagrined, Keeks kept his head admirably, and
+cleverly ducked under a right swing and clinched. At the breakaway Cockles
+got his left home on the ribs, but in doing so left himself open, and Keeks
+shook him up badly with a jab to the jaw. Cockles' hands dropped
+momentarily, and Keeks, whipping in a smashing right uppercut, had his man
+down and out.
+
+A poor struggle, lost solely through carelessness.
+
+
+II.--NEW STYLE.
+
+_By Philip Keppermann._
+
+At twenty-two and a-half minutes past eleven last night a man stood looking
+wistfully over a sea of faces looming whitely through a thin blue haze of
+tobacco smoke. At his feet lay stretched the limp body of his antagonist.
+The disappearance of one eye; under a large red swelling, combined with a
+patulous and rubescent nose, detracted to some extent from the dignity of
+his appearance. An ugly patch of crimson over his left ribs held the
+attention fantastically, morbidly. It was blood, human blood, his own
+blood. The thought fascinated me....
+
+Somewhere a voice was counting slowly, steadily,
+unhesitatingly--_one_--_two_--_three_.... The voice had in it the
+inexorable quality of Fate; it brought tears to the eyes like the wail of
+the Chorus in some Greek drama.
+
+I looked at the man by my side. His regard was fixed intently on the
+prostrate figure in the ring. His fingers played uneasily with his
+watch-chain. He wore evening dress, and I noticed that his tie was a little
+crooked.
+
+Away outside we caught the distant hoot of a motorcar. A dog barked. Then a
+woman in the audience sneezed; it seemed unwarrantable, impertinent, almost
+a desecration....
+
+The voice that was counting ceased. The limp figure did not move. The one
+wistful eye of the victor closed for a moment in relief. There was a sudden
+incursion of hurrying figures into the ring....
+
+The great fight was over. Nobby Keeks had beaten Bill Cockles.
+
+
+_By Theresa Chingles._
+
+I was one of forty-four women who witnessed the great battle last night.
+There were, it was said, over three thousand men.
+
+On my left sat a young girl in a rose-pink evening dress, with a
+dove-colour opera cloak covering her bare shoulders. Her eyes followed
+intently the struggling figures on the stage, and I observed that she wore
+an engagement ring with three diamonds.
+
+A few seats away, surrounded by a swarm of men in evening dress, sat a
+grey-haired woman, watching the fight with interest through a gold-rimmed
+lorgnette. Her eyes twinkled as heavy blows were delivered, and when one of
+the men began to bleed copiously from the nose, she uttered an exclamation
+of delight. She wore black.
+
+So far as I could observe, no woman present showed any sign of repulsion.
+It seemed to me significant of the times. I whispered to my neighbour, "_O
+tempora! O mores!_" but she replied coldly, "Not at all!" I checked my
+impulse to add "_Autres temps, autres moeurs!_"
+
+Of the actual fight I am not competent to speak. I was most interested in
+the referee, whose strong mobile face reminded me occasionally of Lord
+BYRON, at other times of Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL.
+
+
+_By the Rev. Robert Shackleberry._
+
+I had never seen a boxing contest before I was invited by the enterprising
+editor of _The Daily Gong_ to witness the encounter last night between
+"Nobby" Keeks and William Cockles.
+
+I found an excellent seat reserved for me. It was nearing midnight when the
+two men mounted the platform. Cockles came first, wearing a scarlet
+dressing-gown with yellow collar and cuffs. He seemed to me a bluff,
+hearty, good-tempered-looking man, though perhaps unduly prominent in the
+lower jaw. Keeks, who followed, wore a bright green dressing-gown with a
+pink sash, and shook hands with six or seven members of the audience. He
+was taller and heavier than his opponent, and his features, to my mind,
+more intelligent but less amiable.
+
+There was a long delay, during which I was given to understand that the
+men's hands were being bandaged for some reason. At length the swarm of
+seconds and advisers disappeared to the sound of a gong, and the combatants
+stood up and advanced upon one another. I was embarrassed to observe that
+they were nearly nude, but my embarrassment did not seem to be shared by
+any of the ladies present, so perhaps I have no right to complain.
+
+The actual boxing did not last nearly so long as the preliminaries. This
+was perhaps just as well, since Keeks, afterwards announced the victor,
+unfortunately sustained considerable damage to his right eye and was also
+losing blood from his nose--nasty injuries which, in my opinion, should
+have led to the competition being stopped while he received medical
+attention. No doubt the injuries were undesigned.
+
+Cockles soon afterwards fell down, and refused to rise while some
+individual slowly counted ten. This, I was told, indicated that he was
+desirous of withdrawing from the contest before his antagonist sustained
+any further damage. In my judgment this generosity merited the award of
+victory; but no doubt the authorities know their business.
+
+I was glad to have an opportunity of gaining a new experience, but on the
+whole I must say I prefer a quiet rubber of whist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE OPPORTUNIST.
+
+The personal distinctions, experiences, successes, opinions, anecdotes and
+statistics of Dr. Peterson, F.R.C.S., M.R.C.P., are too many for me to
+mention here, but are never too many for him to mention anywhere. That was
+the difficulty with which the Governors of the St. Barnabas Throat and Ear
+Hospital were confronted from the beginning to the end of their business of
+administration. As member of their honorary staff he performed his fair
+share of successful operations, but when it came to speech-making he had no
+consideration either for his own throat or for anybody else's ears.
+
+"It's my belief," said the Chairman, at the special meeting of the Board
+called to arrange the programme for the opening of the new wing, "that the
+whole of this project originated in Peterson's desire to make himself
+heard."
+
+"I certainly remember his introducing the matter to the Board," said
+Thompson, "with a brief sketch of his own career."
+
+"And if the foundation stone could only speak," said Vernon-White, "it
+probably wouldn't be able to recall the name of the man who laid it, but
+would repeat from memory the whole of Peterson's private history."
+
+"Proposed, seconded and carried unanimously," reported the Secretary, "that
+at the opening of the new wing no speech be made by Dr. Peterson."
+
+"So much for our resolution," said Bainbridge. "Nevertheless the company
+will have barely got seated before it hears Peterson wondering whether he
+may occupy a moment of their valuable time with a little experience which
+happened to him the other day."
+
+"Even he will give way to Sir Thingummy," said Thompson, referring to the
+great man who had been invited to make the great speech.
+
+Bainbridge was always a pessimist. "Whether," he said, "the context be the
+opening of the new wing or the duty of gratitude to the man that opened it,
+the one subject the meeting will hear all about will be the son of Peter."
+
+"Proposed, seconded and carried unanimously," reported the Secretary, "that
+the vote of thanks to Sir Frederick Gorton be moved by the Chairman."
+
+"I see myself," said the Chairman, "resuming my seat after a few moments of
+inaudible confusion, and I hear a ringing voice crying forth: 'In rising on
+behalf of the Medical and Surgical Staff to propose a vote of thanks to our
+dear Chairman, I may perhaps be permitted to remind you that I joined that
+staff in 1887, and that since I----?'"
+
+"Who's the senior member of the staff?" asked the Chairman.
+
+"Peterson," said Bainbridge.
+
+"Who's the oldest in mere age?"
+
+"Peterson."
+
+The Chairman thought hard. "The event is fixed for April 29th," said he.
+"Whose week on duty is that?"
+
+The Secretary looked up the books. His face fell. "Peterson's," he said.
+
+"Proposed, seconded and carried unanimously," said the Chairman hurriedly,
+without troubling to take the vote, "that Dr. Wilkes be appointed tomorrow
+the vote of thanks to the Chairman, and that the Secretary be instructed to
+explain the matter, with due tact and circumspection, to Dr. Peterson."
+
+"Dear Peterson," wrote the Secretary,--"At the ceremony of the opening of
+the new wing, my Board is particularly anxious that everything should go
+with a swing, and that there shall be no possibility of any hitch. I am
+instructed to ask you if you will be so good as to hold yourself in
+readiness to make the big technical speech of the day in the unhappy event
+of Sir Frederick Gorton failing to turn up. One is never safe with these
+London men, and it is for that reason that the Board hopes you will not
+mind putting yourself to trouble which may prove wasted. Some of the less
+eloquent members of the Staff can be got to make the short formal
+speeches."
+
+Sir Frederick turned up all right, as the Secretary had taken care that he
+should, and declared the wing open, and thanked the Board for asking him.
+Thereupon the Board, by its Chairman, thanked him, and he rose again and
+very briefly thanked the Board for thanking him. Then Dr. Wilkes got up and
+thanked the Chairman even more briefly still, and the Chairman got up again
+and thanked Dr. Wilkes for thanking him. In fact, only one man didn't get
+his share of formal gratitude, for no one thanked Dr. Peterson for rising
+(if he might) to express a few words of thanks to Dr. Wilkes.
+
+Anticipating this possibility, Dr. Peterson devoted the larger part of his
+speech to thanking himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Grannie._ "AND WIT'S THE MATTER WI' ME RIGHT LEG, DOCTOR?"
+
+_Doctor._ "OH, JUST OLD AGE, MRS. MACDOUGALL."
+
+_Grannie._ "HOOTS, MAN; YE'RE HAVERIN'. THE LEFT LEG'S HALE AND SOOND, AND
+THEY'RE _BAITH_ THE SAME AGE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+To read _An Englishman Looks at the World_ (CASSELL), a collection of
+"unrestrained remarks on contemporary matters"--aeroplanes, CHESTERTON and
+BELLOC, libraries, labour unrest, the Great State, and the like--by Mr. H.
+G. WELLS, is to be delighted or infuriated according to your natural habit
+of mind. If established in tolerable comfort in a world which you judge,
+for all its blemishes, to be on the whole rather well run, you will resent
+exceedingly this pert young man (for Mr. WELLS is still astonishingly
+young) with his preposterous eagerness, his insane passion for questioning
+and tinkering and most unfairly putting you and your kind in the wrong. You
+will no doubt find excellent grounds for doubting his ability to
+reconstruct; for suspecting what you will feel to be his pretentious
+breadth of view, his assumed omniscience. But if, on the other hand,
+thinking life in your sombre moments a nightmare of imbecility and in your
+more expansive moments a high adventure of immeasurable possibilities, you
+are straitened between cold despairs and immense hopes, you will readily
+forgive this irreverent, self-confident critic-journalist any crude things
+he may have said in his haste for sake of his flashes of perception, his
+happily descriptive phrases, his inspiring anticipations, his uncalculating
+candour, and above all his generous preoccupation with things that matter
+enormously. "What we prosperous people who have nearly all the good things
+of life and most of the opportunities have to do now is to justify
+ourselves." That is a sentiment and a challenge repeated or implied
+throughout the book. This Englishman looking at his world looks with quick
+eyes. He is himself so intensely interested that he can only fail to
+interest such as find his whole attitude an outrage upon their finally
+adopted convictions and conventions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Have you noticed the way in which certain stories bear the mark of a
+particular place or period? If ever there was a novel that vociferated
+"Cambridge" in every line, _The Making of a Bigot_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON)
+is that one. Well indeed may its paper wrapper display a drawing of King's
+Chapel, though as a matter of fact only the action of the first chapter
+passes in the University town. Miss ROSE MACAULAY has based her story upon
+a quaintly attractive theme. Her hero, _Eddy Oliver_, is a type new to
+fiction. _Eddy_ saw good in everything to such an extent that he allowed
+himself to be persuaded into active sympathy with the aims of practically
+everyone who was aiming at anything, however mutually irreconcilable the
+aims might be. "He went along with all points of view so long as they were
+positive; as soon as condemnation or rejection came in, he broke off."
+Consequently, as you may imagine, his career was pleasantly involved. It
+embraced the Church, various forms of Socialism, and at one time and
+another some devotion to the ideals of Nationalism, Disarmament, Imperial
+Service and the Primrose League. But please don't imagine that all this is
+told in a spirit of comedy. Miss MACAULAY is, if anything, almost too dry
+and serious; this, and her disproportionate affection for the word
+"rather," a little impaired my own enjoyment of the book. It contains some
+happily sketched types of modernity--all of them Cambridge to the
+back-bone; and _Eddy's_ final discovery (which makes the bigot), that one
+can't achieve anything in life without some wholesale hatreds, is genuine
+enough--more so than the system of card-cutting by which he settles his
+convictions. Miss MACAULAY has already, I am told, won a thousand pounds
+with a previous book; this one proves her the possessor of a gift of
+originality that is both rare and refreshing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I could imagine a novel with which I could sympathise deeply, based upon
+the theme of England's regeneration by means of the right type of Tory
+squire, but it would be a novel with a more credible hero and conceived in
+a less petty spirit of party bias than Mr. H. N. DICKINSON has given us in
+_The Business of a Gentleman_ (HEINEMANN). For, in the first place, _Sir
+Robert Wilton_, who figured of course in _Keddy_ and _Sir Guy and Lady
+Rannard_--he has, in fact, by this time married _Marion_, late _Sir Guy's_
+widow--is far too jumpy and nervy a person to fit my ideal of a paternal
+landlord, and what is, after all, more important, I feel convinced that his
+tenants and stable-lads would have thought the same. Secondly, I refuse to
+believe that a spinster, however soured, however much devoted to the cause
+of Labour and misguided crusades for social purity, would have behaved as
+_Miss Baker_ does in this book; and deliberately attempted to father a
+false scandal on _Sir Robert_ merely because she hated his type. And if the
+author replies that he knows of such an instance I maintain that it was
+just one of those things which the art of selection should have prompted
+him to leave out. I have, of course, no fault to find with Mr. DICKINSON'S
+style, which as usual is curiously simple yet at the same time attractive,
+nor with his powers of character-sketching. His schoolboy of seventeen,
+_Eddie Durwold_, is in this book particularly good. It is the things that
+these people do that bothers me. And if I might venture to rename _The
+Business of a Gentleman_ the title I should choose is "The Escapade of an
+Egoist."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. SIDNEY LOW has paid some visits to Egypt and the Sudan, has kept his
+eyes very wide open and has written _Egypt in Transition_ (SMITH, ELDER) in
+consequence. The Earl of CROMER, who has also been there or thereabouts,
+introduces the book to the notice of the public with an appreciative
+preface. Am I then in a position to pass judgment? Yes, I am; for I can
+claim to be literally more informed on the subject than most people, having
+above my share of friends and relations who have been there. I have the
+clearest possible picture of the country--a stretch of sand, some pyramids
+in the background, and, in the centre foreground, smiling
+enigmatically--not the Sphinx, but my friend or relation. I at once gave
+Mr. LOW five marks out of ten upon discovering that none of his
+illustrations reproduced himself on either on or off a camel. On less
+personal grounds, I have no scruple in giving him the remaining five for
+the vastly interesting facts, political, international, social and racial,
+with which he entertained me. It requires no small skill in a dispenser of
+such facts to make them entertaining. Twice only was I minded to quarrel
+with him; once when he expressed a general contempt, based upon one
+egregious example, for the foreign exports of Oxford and Cambridge, and
+again when he got on to the subject of tourists, who include my nearest and
+dearest, and abused them from the standpoint of a "visitor." In the first
+case he was absurd, in the second, common-place; but he made ample
+compensation for both by his memorable chapter of "Conclusions," in which
+he gave me clearly to understand why East, being East, will never be joined
+to West, always West, but yet how the twain have got within measurable
+distance of one another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There must have been moments when NAPOLEON found St. Helena a little quiet
+for a man of his temperament; when the monotony of his life there pressed
+somewhat hardly upon him. On these occasions I like to think of him saying
+philosophically to himself, as he remembered what Mr. RUDOLF PICKTHALL
+calls "the last phase but two," "Well, after all, this isn't Elba. I've got
+that much to be thankful for." In _The Comic Kingdom_ (LANE) Mr. PICKTHALL
+shows how everybody on the island struggles to make a bit out of their
+visitors. Little children rallied round with posies of wild flowers,
+demanding large sums in payment. Bogus monks waved crosses at him, and, if
+he pretended not to notice them, rolled in the dust under his carriage
+wheels. There was never a moment when somebody was not calling with a bust
+of the Emperor or Empress, price three hundred francs. And itinerant bands
+played under his windows into the small hours of the morning. I can imagine
+him saying, in the words of ORESTES, "Dis is a dam country." ORESTES was
+the guide who conducted Mr. PICKTHALL through the island. It revolted him,
+but he did it. "I tink we better leave to-morrow," was a sort of refrain
+with ORESTES. He had a poor opinion of Elba, which I for one do not share.
+After reading _The Comic Kingdom_ I feel that one of my coming holidays
+must be spent climbing its hills and supplying its thirsty inhabitants with
+wine. The scenery is apparently worth while, and the natives appear a
+friendly lot. I like their enthusiasm for literature. They turned out in
+their hundreds and insisted on Mr. PICKTHALL'S standing treat, just because
+they mistook him for a great historian. When I tell them I write for
+_Punch_ they will be all over me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A WORLD'S WORKER.
+
+LADY OF TITLE TAKING LESSONS IN BUILDING-CONSTRUCTION PRIOR TO PERFORMING
+THE CEREMONY OF LAYING A FOUNDATION-STONE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a notice of "The New Standard Dictionary" in _The London Teacher_:--
+
+     "The Dictionary is arranged in alphabetical order, thus being a great
+     time saver, and one can find what is required with the greatest ease."
+
+Otherwise it is so awkward, when you want to know how to spell "parallel"
+in a hurry, to have to go through one volume after another until you come
+to it.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   Changed "there" to "three" in the second to last paragraph
+   of "At the play" on page 195.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+146, MARCH 11, 1914***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 23726-8.txt or 23726-8.zip *******
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+March 11, 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, March 11, 1914</p>
+<p>Author: Various</p>
+<p>Editor: Owen Seaman</p>
+<p>Release Date: December 3, 2007  [eBook #23726]</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, MARCH 11, 1914***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Matt Whittaker, Malcolm Farmer,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pg" />
+
+<h1>PUNCH,<br />
+
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI</h1>
+
+<h2>VOL. 146.</h2>
+
+
+<h2>March 11, 1914.</h2>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181"></a>[pg 181]</span><div class="figright" style="width:55%;"><a href="images/181.png"><img width="100%" src="images/181.png" alt="" /></a><p><i>Curate</i> (<i>forte</i>). "... <span class="sc">to have-and-to-hold</span>."</p>
+
+<p><i>Bridegroom</i> (<i>deaf</i>). "<span class="sc">Eh?</span>"</p>
+
+<p><i>Curate</i> (<i>fortissimo</i>). "TO&mdash;HAVE&mdash;AND&mdash;TO&mdash;HOLD."</p>
+
+<p><i>Bridegroom.</i> "<span class="sc">To 'ave and to 'old</span>."</p>
+
+<p><i>Curate.</i> "FROM&mdash;THIS&mdash;DAY&mdash;FORWARD."</p>
+
+<p><i>Bridegroom.</i> "<span class="sc">Till this day fortnight</span>!"</p></div>
+
+<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+
+<p>A contemporary describes one of
+the deported Nine as the Brain of the
+party. This is a distinction which just
+eluded Mr. <span class="sc">Bain</span>.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>The Admiralty has decided that, in
+the place of the grand man&oelig;uvres this
+year, there shall be a surprise mobilisation.
+Last year's man&oelig;uvres were, we
+believe, something of a fiasco, but to
+ensure the success of the surprise mobilisation
+five months' previous notice is
+given.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"Every man," says the Bishop of
+<span class="sc">London</span>, "must be his own Columbus
+and find the continent of truth." This
+is the first time that we had heard
+America called the continent of truth,
+and one wonders where the present
+fashion of flattery is going to end.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>We read that a Russian writer
+named <span class="sc">Lunatcharsky</span> has been expelled
+from Germany. Is it possible that he
+is a relative of Mr. <span class="sc">Max Beerbohm's</span>
+friend Kolniyatchi?</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>At the Grand Military Meeting at
+Sandown Park, two young millionaires
+figured as amateur jockeys. We understand
+now the meaning of the expression
+"putting money on a horse."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"Futurist frocks," we are told, were
+a feature of the Chelsea Arts Club ball.
+Just as in these days "Fancy Dress"
+often seems to mean that the dress is
+left to the fancy, Futurist frocks, we
+presume, are frocks that may appear
+in the future.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>An American journalist has been
+pointing out how London lags behind
+other great cities in the matter of shop-window
+dressing. There would seem
+to be no limit to our decadence. Even
+our shop-windows are inadequately
+clothed.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A meeting has been held at Kingston
+to consider the possibility of providing
+"some counter attraction" for the
+young people who frequent the streets
+on Sunday evenings. Seeing that most
+of them are at the counter during the
+week&mdash;you catch the idea?</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"Monkey nuts are dangerous," said
+Dr. <span class="sc">Round</span> at an inquest last week.
+Judging by the mild-looking specimens
+one sees walking about in the streets
+appearances are certainly deceptive.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>A contemporary, by the way, propounds
+the question: Why does the
+"nut" always wear his headgear on
+the back of his head? This custom is
+certainly queer, for, if he really cared
+about his personal appearance, he
+would wear the hat over his face.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>We regret to learn that an attempt
+to teach a modern Office Boy manners
+has failed. A friend of ours met his
+Office Boy in the street, and the lad
+merely nodded to him. To shame him
+the Master raised his hat with mock
+solemnity, at which the lad said,
+"That's all right, but you needn't do
+it."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>The fashion, which originated on the
+Continent, of having the face and neck
+painted with miniature works of art is
+reported to be spreading to London.
+And the practical Americans are said
+to be considering a further development
+in the form of advertisements on the
+face by means of neat inscriptions, such
+as "Complexion by Rouge et Cie,"
+"Teeth by Max Gumberg," and
+"Dimples excavated by the American
+Face Mining Co."</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p>"England," says General <span class="sc">Carranza</span>,
+"is the world's bully." The General
+must please have patience with us, for
+there are signs that we are improving.
+In the same issue of the evening paper
+which reported this dictum of his
+the following announcement appeared
+under the heading "<span class="sc">Latest News</span>":&mdash;"There
+were no bullion operations reported
+at the Bank of England to-day."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id="page182"></a>[pg 182]</span><h2>BYLES FOR THE BILL.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>[In a letter addressed to <i>The Times</i>, headed "<span class="sc">Pass the Bill and
+Take the Consequences</span>," Sir <span class="sc">William Byles</span> makes the statement:&mdash;"I
+for one will take the risk without hesitation."]</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Darkling I sing. Ere Tuesday's hour for tea</p>
+<p class="i2">Shall set this doggerel in the glare of day,</p>
+<p>He who adjured us still to "wait and see,"</p>
+<p class="i2">He will have tweaked the mystic veil away,</p>
+<p>And you will know&mdash;whatever it may be.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>You, but not I; for I have yet to wait.</p>
+<p class="i2">Far South, beneath (I hope) a stainless sky</p>
+<p>The pregnant news shall find me, rather late,</p>
+<p class="i2">Powerless to watch the ball with steadfast eye</p>
+<p>Through sheer distraction as to Ulster's fate.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>Fain would I have upon my well-pricked ear</p>
+<p class="i2">Such tidings fall as prove that party pride</p>
+<p>Yields with a mutual grace. And yet I fear</p>
+<p class="i2">These desperadoes on the Liberal side&mdash;</p>
+<p><span class="sc">Bill Byles</span> (for one), the Bradford Buccaneer.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>"Pass"&mdash;so he boldly writes&mdash;"the Bill and take</p>
+<p class="i2">(His conscience will not let him run to "damn")</p>
+<p>"The Consequences." That is why I shake</p>
+<p class="i2">Even as when the shorn and shivering lamb</p>
+<p>Observes the wolf advancing in his wake.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>I see him bear, this dreadful man of gore,</p>
+<p class="i2">A brace of battleaxes at the slope;</p>
+<p>I see him fling his gauntlet on the floor,</p>
+<p class="i2">And (shouting, "<span class="sc">Byles</span> for <span class="sc">Redmond</span> and the <span class="sc">Pope</span>!")</p>
+<p>Let loose the Nonconformist Dogs of War.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>Ah! take and hide me in some hollow lair,</p>
+<p class="i2">Red hills of Var! and ye umbrella-pines,</p>
+<p>Cover me like a gamp! I cannot bear</p>
+<p class="i2">This Apparition with its armed lines</p>
+<p>Humming the strain, "<i>Sir <span class="sc">Byles</span> s'en va-t-en guerre</i>."</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p><i>March 7.</i></p>
+<p>O. S.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE END OF IT ALL.</h2>
+
+<p>It was the opening of the new Parliament of 1919 <span class="sc">a.d.</span></p>
+
+<p>They had got IT.</p>
+
+<p>If you can't guess what they had got you must be obtuse.</p>
+
+<p>The great procession of Women M.P.'s formed in Trafalgar
+Square. Behind them were the ruins of the National
+Gallery (the work of the immortal Miss Podgers, B.Sc.);
+before them were the fragments of the Nelson Column
+(Miss Tunk's world-famous feat).</p>
+
+<p>The free fight concerning the leadership of the procession
+was settled by the intervention of mounted police. They
+decided that all the would-be leaders should march abreast
+with two armed policemen between each pair of them to
+prevent casualties by the way. So the head of the procession
+started off sixty abreast down Whitehall.</p>
+
+<p>It was a magnificent spectacle. All the M.P.'s wore
+green-and-white wigs because it was the fashion, and in
+addition green-and-white whiskers to assert their equality
+with men. Each processionist carried a model of her
+greatest work. There was Mrs. Spankham with a superb
+model of Westminster Abbey&mdash;its petrolling had been the
+greatest stroke in convincing the voters of the pure motives
+of the feminists. Miss Sylvia Spankham bore aloft the
+City Temple, Miss Christabel Spankham the Albert Hall,
+whilst Mrs. Lawrence Pothook waved triumphantly a lovely
+representation of King's Cross Station. Magnificent too
+was Mrs. Drummit riding astride a fire-engine as an emblem
+of peace and goodwill.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd viewed the procession with awed silence, only
+breaking into cheers when Miss Blithers, blushing modestly,
+held up a cardboard representation of the Albert Memorial
+she had nitro-glycerined. Miss Bliggs marched triumphantly
+in a bishop's mitre bearing a pastoral staff, in recognition
+of her great feat in forcibly feeding a wicked bishop
+who had written a letter to the Press against forcible,
+feeding. Misunderstood by the crowd was Mrs. Trudge,
+who wheeled a perambulator containing two babies. The
+onlookers thought that Mrs. Trudge was about to take her
+innocent offspring to the House of Commons, and those
+out of hat-pin range murmured, "Shime," "Give the kids
+a chawnce." They did not know that Mrs. Trudge was
+no base slave of man, that she had no children of her own,
+and that the wax babies she wheeled in the perambulator
+merely indicated that she was the heroine who had doped a
+nursemaid with drugged chocolate and abducted a Cabinet
+Minister's twins.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily Miss Bolland also passed unidentified, though
+she held a cardboard tube aloft. Not even a taxi-driver
+cheered as the intrepid lady passed who had blown up the
+electrical-generation station of the Tubes and made London
+walk for a month. There too was Mrs. Tibbs, brave in her
+misfortunes. She had missed her election by one vote just
+because, when she came to the booth to vote for herself,
+lifelong habit had been too strong for her and she had
+phosphorused the ballot box.</p>
+
+<p>An unfortunate breeze from the river played havoc with
+the processionists' whiskers, and one or two of the weaker
+spirits in the ranks argued that some of the Government
+offices in Whitehall ought to have been left standing for
+protection&mdash;at any rate till the procession was over.</p>
+
+<p>On they went, each of the twenty leaders in front explaining
+how <span class="sc">she</span> had led the movement to triumph. On the
+top of the fire-engine Mrs. Drummit danced a futurist dance,
+symbolic of the subjection of man. At last they reached
+the portals of the House. The leaders broke into a run to
+secure front places on the Government benches.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop," cried a police superintendent, rushing from the
+building.</p>
+
+<p>"The days of man's tyranny are over!" shouted twenty
+voices together.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," said the police superintendent, "but some of
+'em are catching up to you. They've dynamited the Houses
+of Parliament, and if you go inside you'll pop like roasted
+chestnuts."</p>
+
+<p>And as they watched the flame the leaders realised the
+sad fact that they had not left a building standing in London
+roomy enough for a Parliament.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Commercial Candour.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>"&mdash;&mdash; Tooth Brushes are so constructed that the bristles get
+right into the smallest crevices of the teeth. Moreover the bristles
+positively won't come out."&mdash;<i>Advt. in "London Opinion."</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That has sometimes been our bitter experience.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>The Choir Inaudible.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The chorus gave ample evidence of having made great strides
+since their last appearance in public, all the items for which they
+were responsible being well sustained and rendered in first-class style.
+Special mention should be made, however, of their rendering of 'A
+Spring Song,' which was given in quite a professional manner, the
+chorus dispensing with both music and words, and the audience
+evinced their appreciation of this really fine effort by long continued
+applause, to which the chorus responded by repeating it."</p>
+
+<p><i>Avalon Independent.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There would probably be no words to the applause and very
+little music; so the chorus could easily repeat it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>[pg 183]</span><div class="figcenter" style="width:45%;"><a href="images/183.png"><img width="100%" src="images/183.png" alt="" /></a><h3>GIFT FOR GIFT.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="sc">General Botha.</span> "WELL, I SUPPOSE ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER; WE MUST
+GIVE HIM A WARM RECEPTION."</p></div>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id="page184"></a>[pg 184]</span><hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>[pg 185]</span><div class="figcenter" style="width:40%;"><a href="images/185.png"><img width="100%" src="images/185.png" alt="" /></a><h3>THE BRUTE AGAIN.</h3>
+
+<p><i>Weary Hostess.</i> "<span class="sc">Yes, I've been having such trouble with baby. Every night I
+have to get up about twenty times, getting his things&mdash;&mdash;</span>"</p>
+
+<p><i>Visitor.</i> "<span class="sc">Why don't you make your husband do something?</span>"</p>
+
+<p><i>Hostess.</i> "<span class="sc">Oh, I daren't wake my husband; if I do he always drinks baby's milk.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>STUDIES IN DISCIPLESHIP.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="sc"><i>The Times'</i> Third Leader.</span></p>
+
+<p>The statement made in these columns
+by a well-informed correspondent that
+the incomparable <span class="sc">Nijinsky</span> is so delicate
+that by his doctor's decree he is obliged
+to abstain from all forms of exercise
+save that involved in his beloved art,
+gives us, in the vivid phrase of our
+neighbours, "furiously to think." At
+the first blush incredulity prevails, but
+recourse to the annals of history,
+ancient and modern alike, furnishes us
+with abundant confirmation of this
+strange anomaly. <span class="sc">Hannibal</span> was a
+martyr to indigestion, while his great
+rival, <span class="sc">Scipio Africanus</span>, suffered from
+sea-sickness even when crossing the
+Tiber. Wherever we look we are confronted
+with the spectacle of genius
+fraying its way to the appointed goal
+in spite of physical drawbacks which
+would have paralysed meritorious
+mediocrity. <span class="sc">Wolfe</span> was a <i>poitrinaire</i>,
+and <span class="sc">Nelson</span> would never have passed
+the medical examination to which the
+naval cadets of to-day are subjected.
+But the case of <span class="sc">Nijinsky</span> is more tragic
+because abstinence from skating and
+riding, of which he was passionately
+fond, entails greater anguish on so sensitively
+organised a temperament than
+it would on a mere man of action, and
+the suffering of a great artist may lead
+to international complications which
+it is terrible to complicate. Russian
+dancing is as necessary to the well-being
+of our social system as standard
+bread, yet when we think of the
+sacrifices which its hierophants undergo
+in order to minister to our pleasure
+the sturdiest Hedonist cannot escape
+misgivings. Still, we may find consolation
+in the thought that sacrifice is
+necessary to perfection. Such sacrifices
+take various forms. In the case of
+<span class="sc">Nijinsky</span> we see a man of immense
+brain power specialising in a most exhausting
+form of physical culture to
+remedy his extreme delicacy. At the
+opposite extreme we find cases of men
+so extraordinarily powerful that they
+are obliged to abandon all exercise and
+lead a purely sedentary life in order to
+counteract their abnormal muscularity.
+Thus Lord <span class="sc">Haldane</span>, who in his earlier
+days thought nothing of walking to
+Cambridge one day and back to London
+on the next, has now become more than
+reconciled to the immobility imposed
+on the occupant of the Woolsack.</p>
+
+<p>It needs no little exercise of the
+imagination to form a mental picture
+of Lord <span class="sc">Haldane</span> as a member of the
+Russian ballet, or, to put it in a more
+concrete form, making the famous
+flying exit in <i>Le Spectre da la Rose</i>.
+Could fancy be translated into fact, the
+drawing power of such a spectacle
+would be prodigious. On the other
+hand, and in view of the notorious
+adaptability of the Slavonic temperament,
+we can well imagine <span class="sc">Nijinsky</span>
+proving an admirable Lord Chancellor.
+Exchanges of this sort would add to
+the comity of nations besides enhancing
+the amenities of public life, and it is
+perhaps not too much to hope that
+provision for carrying this out may be
+in the Government's scheme for the
+Reform of the House of Lords.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>"New Zealand mutton was yearly increasing
+in public flavour."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It mustn't get too powerful.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From an advertisement of a land sale
+in <i>Ceylon Morning Leader</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"An undivided <span class="frac"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>3</sub></span> + <span class="frac"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>36</sub></span> + <span class="frac"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></span> of <span class="frac"><sup>3</sup>/<sub>80</sub></span> + <span class="frac"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>24</sub></span> + <span class="frac"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></span>
+of <span class="frac"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>18</sub></span> parts of the land called Vitarmalage
+Gamwasama at Yatawala in extent 500
+amunams paddy sowing."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A chance for a newly-created peer who
+wants a family seat from which to take
+his title and quarterings.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The meeting of <span class="sc">Antony</span> and <span class="sc">Cleopatra</span>
+as described in <span class="sc">Hutchinson's</span>
+<i>History of the Nations</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"When they met first he was twenty-nine
+and she was sixteen; now he was forty-two
+and she was twenty-seven."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Anyhow she would say so.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id="page186"></a>[pg 186]</span><div class="figcenter" style="width:75%;"><a href="images/186.png"><img width="100%" src="images/186.png" alt="" /></a><p class="center"><i>Kind Old Gentleman.</i> "<span class="sc">What a delightful little pet! I have
+always a soft place for animals.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>A LOST LEADER.</h2>
+
+<p>"Enid," I said, "we must offer something
+to somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean Squawks?" she
+pleaded piteously.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I did," I sighed. Squawks
+is a Pomorachshund&mdash;at least I think
+so; though Enid inclines towards the
+Chowkingese theory. Anyhow, he himself
+has always realised that someone
+had blundered, and has worked steadily
+to make a dog of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if it's not Squawks, I don't
+care," remarked Enid.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd take some interest."</p>
+
+<p>"What in?"</p>
+
+<p>"In what I say."</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>did</i> you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"We must," I repeated, "offer something
+to somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not very enthusey. Unless"&mdash;and
+her whole face
+brightened&mdash;"you mean
+what you call your reading-chair.
+It threw me on to
+the floor and knelt on me
+only yesterday; and I know
+Aunt Anne&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Enid," I said sternly,
+"that's not the point."</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid not."</p>
+
+<p>"The thing is, one must
+be in the swim. Everybody
+is offering things right and
+left now. Look at <span class="sc">Sutherland,
+Derby</span>&mdash;even <span class="sc">Lloyd
+George</span>."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know they were
+friends of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly; but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then why so familiar?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," I explained, "that <i>is</i> the
+point. Once get your name in the
+papers at the end of a two-column
+letter and you are the friend of all the
+world&mdash;it gives one an <i>entr&eacute;e</i> to the
+castle of the Duke and the cottage of
+the crofter."</p>
+
+<p>"Even before you've written it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have written it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how splendid! Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"In here," I said, tapping the best
+bit of my head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>that</i>!" And then, pensively:
+"Next time Mary Jane has a brainstorm,
+I'll tell her to call you 'Charley.'
+Poor girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you quite appreciate,"
+I remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't. What exactly do we stand
+to gain?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's the rub. Not lucre.
+Perish the thought! But one begins
+to be a power, an influence. People
+whisper in the Tube, 'Who's that?'
+'<i>That!</i> Don't you know? Why
+Him&mdash;He! The man who is making
+the Government a laughing-stock.
+The man who holds the Empire in
+the palm of his hand. The man
+who&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said Enid. "We had
+better buy a gramophone. I thought
+you were getting fidgety at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest," I explained, "it is not
+that. It is because I feel in me a
+spirit that will not be denied. Give
+me the opportunity and I will make
+this land, this England&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Squawks. Was'ms frightened
+then, poor darling!"</p>
+
+<p>"That dog&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" said Enid to me. "How
+are you going to begin?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite simple. Somebody writes
+something to the papers."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; so far it sounds easy."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that something is hideously
+disparaging to my class and calling.
+I promptly answer him."</p>
+
+<p>"That is, if you can be funnier at
+his expense than he at yours."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't be funny at all."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" said Enid thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Mine will be a scathing indictment,
+and of course I shall bring in the
+political situation. He writes back,
+evading the point at issue. I crush
+him with figures and statistics, and
+make him a practical offer&mdash;a few deer-forests,
+a paltry township, or my unearned
+increment, as the case may be."</p>
+
+<p>"The mowing-machine is out of
+order," Enid remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"I quote passages in his letter as the
+basis of negotiation. He pretends to
+accept. I point out how, when and why
+he has been guilty of paltry quibbling,
+and show that the Party he supports
+fosters such methods and manners."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. And that is just where I shall
+differ from everybody else. I shall go
+on where they have stopped. Having
+made one individual ridiculous, I shall
+broaden the basis of operation. With
+consummate skill I shall gradually draw
+the public officials down into the
+arena."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget the gas-man; he was
+very rude last month."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that kind," I explained.
+"Cabinet Ministers, Secretaries of
+State, the whole machinery of government
+shall writhe under the barbed
+shafts of my mockery. Ridicule is the
+power of the age. Ridicule in my
+hands shall be as bayonets to <span class="sc">Napoleon</span>,
+as poison to a <span class="sc">Borgia</span>." I gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Help!" said Enid, taking up <i>The
+Daily Most</i>. "Here's the very thing,"
+she went on. "Somebody called 'A.
+Lethos'&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pah! A pseudonym."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, he says that all
+political writers are worthless sycophants.
+You might begin on that."</p>
+
+<p>"I will," I cried. "But craven
+anonymity is not my part. My name
+shall stand forth boldly.
+Fate's linger points the way.
+How do you spell 'sycophant'?
+The type has gone
+a bit dizzy over it."</p>
+
+<p>And I plunged into the fray.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," I began; and there
+followed 2,000 words of
+closely-woven argument,
+down to "I remain, Sir,
+your obedient Servant."</p>
+
+<p>I read it through carefully,
+looked up "sycophant" in
+the dictionary, and wrote it
+all out again.</p>
+
+<p>Then I showed it to Enid.</p>
+
+<p>"Why have you spelt
+'sycophant' like that?" she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, 'y.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a 'y.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" (Pause.) "What about the
+offer? Mr. Lethos says that ninetenths
+of what is written nowadays is
+only worth the ink and paper."</p>
+
+<p>"The offer," I reminded her, "will
+come later."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I just thought&mdash;&mdash; You
+might get rid of those articles on
+'Happiness in the Home' at cost price.
+They're running up to quite a lot in
+stamps."</p>
+
+<p>I posted the letter to the Editor.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning I seized the paper
+nervously. There was my name at the
+end of a column and a half. I had begun.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down to wait for the next step.
+It came with the mid-day post in a
+letter from Saxby, who is&mdash;or was&mdash;my
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Good old Tibbles," it ran; "I knew
+some juggins would rise, whatever I
+wrote. But fancy landing you!&mdash;Yours
+ever, <span class="sc">Beefers</span>."</p>
+
+<p>Now how <i>can</i> a man save his country
+on a thing like that?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id="page187"></a>[pg 187]</span><h2>SMILES AND LAUGHTER.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
+<p>On days of gloom and sadness,</p>
+<p class="i2">When nothing brings relief,</p>
+<p>When men are moved to madness</p>
+<p class="i2">And women groan with grief;</p>
+<p>Though growing daily dafter,</p>
+<p class="i2">I might, as once I did,</p>
+<p>Have cheered myself with laughter,</p>
+<p class="i2">But laughter is forbid.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>If I should treat of <span class="sc">Carson</span>,</p>
+<p class="i2">His guns and rataplan,</p>
+<p>It's something worse than arson</p>
+<p class="i2">To smile at such a man;</p>
+<p>Since chaff would make his pulse stir&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">And this he cannot brook&mdash;</p>
+<p>The more he talks of Ulster</p>
+<p class="i2">The solemner we look.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>Then, should I meet a <span class="sc">Cecil</span>,</p>
+<p class="i2">(Lord <span class="sc">Robert</span> or Lord <span class="sc">Hugh</span>),</p>
+<p>His manifest distress'll</p>
+<p class="i2">Be very sad to view</p>
+<p>Unless I'm in a proper,</p>
+<p class="i2">A gloomy frame of mind,</p>
+<p>And put a heavy stopper</p>
+<p class="i2">On mirth of any kind.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>Next <span class="sc">Poutsea</span> brings his quota</p>
+<p class="i2">For giving me delight,</p>
+<p>Who wants to punish <span class="sc">Botha</span></p>
+<p class="i2">By living in his sight;</p>
+<p>Or, foiled of such a strife-time,</p>
+<p class="i2">Decides to have a blow</p>
+<p>And spend a briny lifetime</p>
+<p class="i2">In sailing to and fro.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>And <span class="sc">Seddon</span>, who gave greetings</p>
+<p class="i2">To those deported nine,</p>
+<p>Invited them to meetings</p>
+<p class="i2">And asked them out to dine,</p>
+<p>And begged of them and prayed them</p>
+<p class="i2">To be no longer banned,</p>
+<p>But hardly could persuade them</p>
+<p class="i2">To leave the ship and land.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>These two, the gloom beguiling,</p>
+<p class="i2">Might make me greatly dare,</p>
+<p>Might set my face a-smiling</p>
+<p class="i2">And win my soul from care;</p>
+<p>The f&ecirc;ted and the feeders</p>
+<p class="i2">Might well provoke some chaff;</p>
+<p>But no&mdash;they're Labour Leaders,</p>
+<p class="i2">And so we mustn't laugh.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>And, last, there's <span class="sc">Law</span>, our <span class="sc">Bonar</span>,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who in a burst of tact</p>
+<p>Is minded to dishonour</p>
+<p class="i2">The loathed Insurance Act;</p>
+<p>With opposites agreeing,</p>
+<p class="i2">He faces North by South,</p>
+<p>And keeps the Act in being</p>
+<p class="i2">And kills it with his mouth.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>He too might smooth a wrinkle,</p>
+<p class="i2">Although he's stern and grim,</p>
+<p>And make my eyes to twinkle</p>
+<p class="i2">By seeing fun in him;</p>
+<p>Cursed be that cheerful vision,</p>
+<p class="i2">And cursed all sense of fun:</p>
+<p>It is a foul misprision</p>
+<p class="i2">To smile at anyone.</p>
+</div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:45%;"><a href="images/187.png"><img width="100%" src="images/187.png" alt="" /></a><h3>REVERIE.</h3>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">No, darling, not in the study. Your father went round in bogey to-day and
+wants to have a nice long think about it.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>HAVE YOU ANYTHING TO SELL?</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>With acknowledgments to "The Daily
+Mail."</i>)</p>
+
+<p>Have you anything you think of
+burning as useless, but would naturally
+prefer to sell? Why not try one of our
+small advertisements? Every day we
+receive thousands of letters testifying
+to their power. Here is one, picked
+up at random:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Please discontinue my advertisement
+of a half-pair of bellows and a
+stuffed canary, as the first insertion
+has had such remarkable results. On
+looking out of my bedroom window
+this morning I observed a queue of
+some hundreds of people extending
+from my doorstep down to the trams
+in the main road. They included ladies
+on campstools, messenger boys, a sad-looking
+young man in an ulster who
+was reading <span class="sc">Swinburne's</span> poems, and
+others. Only with difficulty could the
+milkman fight his way through to
+place the can on the doorstep, and the
+contents were quickly required to
+restore a lady who had turned faint for
+want of a camp-stool. While I was
+shaving, a motor mail-van dashed up
+and left seven sacks of postal replies to
+the advertisement. One by one, eighty-three
+people were admitted to view the
+goods, and a satisfactory bargain was
+made with the last of these. I then
+telephoned for the police to come and
+remove the disappointed thousands,
+who were disposed to be riotous. My
+garden gate is off its hinges, the garden
+itself has the lawn inextricably mixed
+with the flower-beds, my marble step
+is cracked in three places, and my stair-carpet
+is caked with mud. I do not
+know any other paper in this country
+in which a two-shilling advertisement
+could produce such encouraging results."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188" id="page188"></a>[pg 188]</span><h2>ORANGES AND LEMONS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">I.&mdash;<span class="sc">The Invitation.</span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="sc">Dear Myra</span>," wrote Simpson at the
+beginning of the year,&mdash;"I have an important
+suggestion to make to you both,
+and I am coming round to-morrow
+night after dinner about nine o'clock.
+As time is so short I have asked Dahlia
+and Archie to meet me there, and if by
+any chance you have gone out we shall
+wait till you come back.</p>
+
+<p>Yours ever,<br />
+<span class="sc">Samuel</span>.</p>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I have asked Thomas too."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Myra eagerly, as I
+gave her back the letter.</p>
+
+<p>In deep thought I buttered a piece of
+toast.</p>
+
+<p>"We could stop Thomas," I said.
+"We might ring up the Admiralty and
+ask them to give him something to
+do this evening. I don't know about
+Archie. Is he&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what do you think it is?
+Aren't you excited?" She sighed and
+added, "Of course I know what Samuel
+<i>is</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Probably he wants us all to
+go to the Wonder Zoo together ... or
+he's discovered a new way of putting,
+or&mdash;&mdash; I say, I didn't know Archie
+and Dahlia were in town."</p>
+
+<p>"They aren't. But I expect Samuel
+telegraphed to them to meet him under
+the clock at Charing Cross, disguised,
+when they would hear of something
+to their advantage. Oh, I wonder
+what it is. It <i>must</i> be something real
+this time."</p>
+
+<p>Since the day when Simpson woke
+me up at six o'clock in the morning to
+show me his stance-for-a-full-wooden-club
+shot I have distrusted his enthusiasms;
+but Myra loves him as a
+mother; and I&mdash;I couldn't do without
+him; and when a man like that invites
+a whole crowd of people to come to
+your flat just about the time when you
+are wondering what has happened to the
+sardines on toast, and why doesn't she
+bring them in&mdash;well, it isn't polite
+to put the chain on the door and
+explain through the letter-box that you
+have gone away for a week.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better have dinner a bit
+earlier to be on the safe side," I said,
+as Myra gave me a parting brush down
+in the hall. "If any further developments
+occur in the course of the day
+ring me up at the office. By the way,
+Simpson doesn't seem to have invited
+Peter. I wonder why not. He's
+nearly two, and he ought to be in it.
+Myra, I'm sure I'm tidy now."</p>
+
+<p>"Pipe, tobacco, matches, keys,
+money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything," I said. "Bless you.
+Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," said Myra lingeringly.
+"What do you think he meant by 'as
+time is so short'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. At least," I added,
+looking at my watch, "I do know. I
+shall be horribly late. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>I fled down the stairs into the street,
+waved to Myra at the window ... and
+then came cautiously up again for my
+pipe. Life is very difficult on the
+mornings when you are in a hurry.</p>
+
+<p>At dinner that night Myra could
+hardly eat for excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be sorry afterwards," I
+warned her, "when it turns out to be
+nothing more than that he has had his
+hair cut."</p>
+
+<p>"But even if it is I don't see why I
+shouldn't be excited at seeing my only
+brother again&mdash;not to mention sister-in-law."</p>
+
+<p>"You only want to see them so that
+you can talk about Peter."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Fatty, darling"&mdash;(I am really
+quite thin)&mdash;"oh, Fatty," cried Myra&mdash;("lean
+and slender" would perhaps
+describe it better)&mdash;cried Myra, clasping
+her hands together&mdash;(in fact the
+very last person you could call stout)&mdash;"I
+haven't seen the darling for ages!
+But I shall see Samuel," she added
+hopefully, "and he's almost as young."
+("Svelte"&mdash;that's the word for me.)</p>
+
+<p>"Then let's move," I said. "They'll
+be here directly."</p>
+
+<p>Archie and Dahlia came first. We
+besieged them with questions as soon
+as they appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't an idea," said Archie. "I
+wanted to bring a revolver in case it
+was anything really desperate, but
+Dahlia wouldn't let me."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been useful too," I
+said, "if it turned out to be something
+merely futile."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going to hurt my
+Samuel, however futile it is," said Myra.
+"Dahlia, how's Peter, and will you
+have some coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Peter's lovely. You've had coffee,
+haven't you, Archie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Better have some more," I suggested,
+"in case Simpson is merely
+soporific. We anticipate a slumbering
+audience, and Samuel explaining a new
+kind of googlie he's invented."</p>
+
+<p>Entered Thomas lazily.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo," he said in his slow voice,
+"What's it all about?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a raid on the Begum's palace,"
+explained Archie rapidly. "Dahlia
+decoys the Chief Mucilage; you,
+Thomas, drive the submarine; Myra has
+charge of the clockwork mouse, and we
+others hang about and sing. To say
+more at this stage would be to bring
+about a European conflict."</p>
+
+<p>"Coffee, Thomas?" said Myra.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet he's having us on," said
+Thomas gloomily, as he stirred his
+coffee.</p>
+
+<p>There was a hurricane in the hall.
+Chairs were swept over; coats and hats
+fell to the ground; a high voice offered
+continuous apologies&mdash;and Simpson
+came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo, Myra!" he said eagerly.
+"Hallo, old chap! Hallo, Dahlia!
+Hallo, Archie! Hallo, Thomas, old
+boy!" He fixed his spectacles firmly
+on his nose and beamed round the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't said 'Hallo!' to the
+cook," Archie pointed out.</p>
+
+<p>"We're all here&mdash;thanking you very
+much for inviting us," I said. "Have
+a cigar&mdash;if you've brought any with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately he had brought several
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then, I'll give any of you
+three guesses what it's all about."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you don't. We're all waiting,
+and you can begin your apology right
+away."</p>
+
+<p>Simpson took a deep breath and
+began.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been lent a villa," he said.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence ...
+and then Archie got up.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," he said to Myra, holding
+out his hand. "Thanks for a very
+jolly evening. Come along, Dahlia."</p>
+
+<p>"But I say, old chap," protested
+Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Simpson, but the fact
+that you're moving from the Temple
+to Cricklewood, or wherever it is, and
+that somebody else is paying the thirty
+pounds a year, is jolly interesting, but
+it wasn't good enough to drag us up
+from the country to tell us about it.
+You could have written. However,
+thank you for the cigar."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, it isn't Cricklewood.
+It's the Riviera!"</p>
+
+<p>Archie sat down again.</p>
+
+<p>"Samuel!" cried Myra. "How she
+must love you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should never lend Simpson a villa
+of mine," I said. "He'd only lose it."</p>
+
+<p>"They're some very old friends who
+live there, and they're going away for a
+month, and the servants are staying on,
+and they suggested that if I was going
+abroad again this year&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How did the servants know you'd
+been abroad last year?" asked Archie.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't interrupt, dear," said Dahlia.
+"I see what he means. How very jolly
+for you, Samuel."</p>
+
+<p>"For all of us, Dahlia!"
+"You aren't suggesting we shall all
+crowd in?" growled Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, my dear old chap! I
+told them, and they're delighted. We
+can share housekeeping expenses, and
+it will be as cheap as anything."</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189" id="page189"></a>[pg 189]</span><p>"But to go into a stranger's house,"
+said Dahlia anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"It's <i>my</i> house, Dahlia, for the time.
+I invite you!" He threw out his
+hands in a large gesture of welcome
+and knocked his coffee-cup on to the
+carpet; begged Myra's pardon several
+times; and then sat down again and
+wiped his spectacles vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>Archie looked doubtfully at Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>"Duty, Thomas, duty," he said,
+thumping his chest. "You can't desert
+the Navy at this moment of crisis."</p>
+
+<p>"Might," said Thomas, puffing at
+his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>Archie looked at me. I looked hopefully
+at Myra.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh-h-h!" said Myra, entranced.</p>
+
+<p>Archie looked at Dahlia. Dahlia
+frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't till February," said Simpson
+eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's very kind of you, Samuel,"
+said Dahlia, "but I don't think&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Archie nodded to Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>"You leave this to me," he said
+confidentially. "We're going."</p>
+
+<p>A. A. M.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:45%;"><a href="images/189.png"><img width="100%" src="images/189.png" alt="" /></a><p><span class="sc">"Porter, what on earth are we waiting here for?"</span></p>
+<p><span class="sc">"You're waitin' to go on, Sir."</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE CHAMELEONS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>From "The Gladiator," Nov. 1914.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center">ASSOCIATION.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="sc">Whitebrook Rovers <i>v.</i> Bromville.</span></p>
+
+<p>The meeting of these teams on Saturday
+last produced a struggle of titanic
+dimensions worthy of the best traditions
+of the famous combinations
+engaged. On the one hand we saw
+the machine-like precision, the subtle
+finesse so characteristic of the Whitebrook
+men, while at the same time we
+revelled in the dash and speed, the
+consummate daring displayed by their
+doughty opponents. We have witnessed
+many games, but for keenness
+and enthusiasm this one must rank.... In
+a game where every man
+acquitted himself well it is difficult to
+particularise; but Brown, Jones, Green
+and McSleery for the Rovers, and Gray,
+Smith, Black and McSkinner for the
+Broms, may be mentioned as being
+shining lights in their respective
+positions.</p>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>From "The Gladiator," Nov. 1915.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="center">ASSOCIATION.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="sc">Whitebrook Rovers <i>v.</i> Bromville.</span></p>
+
+<p>Before a huge crowd exceeding 60,000
+these historic combinations met on
+Saturday, and provided a rich treat
+for those who had the privilege to be
+there. The officials of both clubs have
+been busy team-building, and the sides
+differed in many instances from those
+antagonizing on the same ground a
+year ago. That the changes have been
+judicious and beneficial Saturday's game
+abundantly proved. The men played
+with great earnestness, evincing much
+local patriotism, and in their contrasted
+styles&mdash;the polished artistry, the
+scientific precision of the Rovers, and
+the dash and forceful intrepidity of the
+Broms&mdash;were at their very best. We
+have seen many games, but this must
+rank.... While every man did
+himself justice, it may not be invidious
+to mention, for the Rovers, Gray, Smith,
+Black and McSkinner, and for the
+Broms, Brown, Jones, Green and
+McSleery, as being bright particular
+stars in their respective departments.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From a literary weekly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It is a terribly accurate saying about the
+loud laugh and the vacant mind&mdash;Pope never
+got down surer to the bare bones of the truth."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Nor did <span class="sc">Goldsmith</span> when he pointed
+out the danger of "a little learning."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From two consecutive items of "News
+in a Nutshell" in the <i>North-Eastern
+Daily Gazette</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Lieut. &mdash;&mdash;, of an infantry regiment at
+Lemburg, Austria, fell fast asleep on February
+14, and all efforts to wake him have proved
+futile ever since.</p>
+
+<p>A sleeper weighing 8 cwt. was found on the
+Great Western Railway near Banbury just
+before the arrival of a train from the north."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>However, it was not the lieutenant.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190"></a>[pg 190]</span><div class="figcenter" style="width:75%;"><a href="images/190.png"><img width="100%" src="images/190.png" alt="" /></a><h3>THINGS THAT ONE MIGHT HAVE PUT DIFFERENTLY.</h3>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">How de do, Lady Smythe? I've just driven the motor over to fetch my wife away.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">How nice of you, Admiral; but I do wish you'd come sooner.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>FORGIVENESS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>A Dream after losing a Dog.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Methought I saw the man that stole our Tim</p>
+<p class="i2">In a night vision; and "Behold!" he cried,</p>
+<p>"This was a task too easy for my whim,</p>
+<p class="i2">A job of little worth and little pride,</p>
+<p class="i2">An Irish terrier." Then his pal replied,</p>
+<p>"I know a place where you may pinch with ease</p>
+<p>One of these here carnation Pekinese.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>"You see them nasty spikes on that there wall?</p>
+<p class="i2">Climb it, and you shall find a little yard;</p>
+<p>An unlatched casement leads you to a hall,</p>
+<p class="i2">Thence to the crib where, odorous with nard,</p>
+<p class="i2">Slumbers the petted plaything; 'twere not hard</p>
+<p>Out of his cushioned ease (and gorged belike</p>
+<p>With sweetmeats) to appropriate the tyke."</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>So, filled with high ambition and the hope</p>
+<p class="i2">Of gaining huge emolument, this man</p>
+<p>Hung to the toothed battlements a rope,</p>
+<p class="i2">Climbed and leapt down to execute his plan&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">But even as he leapt a noise began</p>
+<p>As when the Arctic icebergs break and grind;</p>
+<p>This was because his pants were caught behind.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>Awhile they tore, then stayed. And helpless there</p>
+<p class="i2">Betwixt the silvery moonlight and the ground</p>
+<p>He hung convulsive, grasping at the air,</p>
+<p class="i2">For two full hours it may be, whilst a hound</p>
+<p class="i2">Of the Great Danish breed, that made no sound</p>
+<p>Save a deep snarl, below him watching stood</p>
+<p>(This portion of my dream was very good).</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>And much he vowed because of his great pain</p>
+<p class="i2">That he was the most dashed of all dashed fools</p>
+<p>And never would he steal a dog again,</p>
+<p class="i2">No (strite!) he would not. He recalled the rules</p>
+<p class="i2">That teachers taught him in the Sunday Schools</p>
+<p>And thought on serious happenings and the grave;</p>
+<p>And with dawn's earliest flush his trousers gave.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<hr style="width: 20%; Margin-left: 2em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p>And having waited for a time I went</p>
+<p class="i2">To see him in the hospital. And hours</p>
+<p>Of earnest converse with the man I spent,</p>
+<p class="i2">Told him of Nemesis and what dark powers</p>
+<p class="i2">Punish our mortal crimes, and brought him flowers,</p>
+<p>Dog-roses and dog-violets, and read</p>
+<p>The Eighth Commandment out beside his bed.</p>
+</div> <div class="stanza">
+<p><span class="sc">Evoe.</span></p>
+</div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><i>The Daily Telegraph</i> on the next Drury Lane melodrama:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"We are able to say on the very best authority that the idea at the
+root of the story is of a quite unusual nature; indeed, if secrecy were
+not for the moment imposed, one might even go a step further and
+declare it to be of startling originality."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As it is, one doesn't; for if once the secret got about that the
+play was to be original there would be riots in Fleet Street.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>"Song, 'March of the Men of Garlick' (Tune, Welsh melody)."</p>
+
+<p><i>Ripon Observer.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A pardonable mistake. The national emblem is of course
+the leek.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191"></a>[pg 191]</span><div class="figcenter" style="width:45%;"><a href="images/191.png"><img width="100%" src="images/191.png" alt="" /></a><h3>THE WOOING.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Miss Ulster.</span> "AN' WHAT'S THE GOOD OF HIM SENDIN' ME FLOWERS WHEN I'VE
+TOLD HIM 'NO' ALREADY?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Mr. Punch.</span> "WELL NOW, COME, MY DEAR&mdash;WON'T YOU JUST TAKE A GOOD LOOK
+AT THEM BEFORE YOU START TURNING UP YOUR PRETTY NOSE?"</p></div>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192" id="page192"></a>[pg 192]</span><hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id="page193"></a>[pg 193]</span><div class="figright" style="width:45%;"><a href="images/193-1.png"><img width="100%" src="images/193-1.png" alt="" /></a><h3>"A HOLLOW DEMONSTRATION."</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>With acknowledgments to <span class="sc">Gillray's</span> caricature of <span class="sc">Napoleon</span> as
+Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians.</i>)</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>[Mr. <span class="sc">D. M. Mason's</span> motion for the reduction of the Supplementary
+Navy Estimates was defeated by 237 votes to 34.]</p></blockquote></div>
+
+<h2>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<span class="sc">Extracted from the Diary Of
+Toby, M.P.</span>)</p>
+
+<p><i>House of Commons, Monday,
+March 2.</i>&mdash;In speech
+of flawless lucidity displaying
+perfect command of
+columnar figures upon which
+strength of British Navy is
+based, the <span class="sc">Winsome Winston</span>
+moved Supplementary
+Estimates amounting to two
+and a-half millions. These
+raise total expenditure of
+year on the Navy to forty-eight
+millions. "A serious
+event," he admitted amid
+sympathetic cheers from
+below Gangway to his right.
+Necessity arises from increased
+expenditure on oil
+reserves; from demand for
+a quarter of a million for
+the new aircraft programme,
+an item unknown to <span class="sc">Old
+Morality</span> or <span class="sc">Childers</span>
+when successively at the
+Admiralty; from increment
+of wages and acceleration
+of ship-building.</p>
+
+<p>He might have mentioned that of
+grand total close upon two millions is
+legacy left by former Ministry on account
+of liabilities incurred before 1905.
+Whilst present Government, austerely-minded,
+pay their way as they go,
+meeting increased expenditure out of
+revenue, <span class="sc">Prince Arthur</span>, with characteristically
+light heart, built ships
+and strengthened fortifications, raising
+the money by loan, which he gaily left
+to posterity to pay off. Posterity has
+this pleasant task in hand now, and
+will continue to be engaged upon it for
+next twenty years.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Winston</span> judiciously refrained from
+pressing the point. Had enough on
+his hands with discontented supporters
+below Gangway, who resent ever-increasing
+burden of Naval expenditure.
+<span class="sc">Ramsay Macdonald</span> lodged protest on
+behalf of Labour Members; stopped
+short of moving reduction of vote.
+This done by <span class="sc">David Mason</span> of Coventry.</p>
+
+<p>"A hollow demonstration," was
+<span class="sc">Gilbert Parker's</span> terse description of
+the revolt. On a division Estimates
+were carried by a majority of 203.
+Only 34 voted for reduction.</p>
+
+<p>Prolongation of debate plainly boring.
+By exception, one listener sat it out
+with unwearied attention. Nothing precisely
+cherubic in face or figure of Lord
+<span class="sc">Fisher of Kilverstone</span>, better known
+on sea and land by the affectionate
+diminutive <span class="sc">Jacky Fisher</span>. Nevertheless,
+as he sat perched in Peers' Gallery
+immediately over the clock, a place ever
+associated with the genial presence of
+<span class="sc">Edward Prince of Wales</span>, there
+flashed across the mind a familiar
+couplet sung by <span class="sc">Dibdin</span>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>"There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft</p>
+<p>To keep watch for the life of poor Jack."</p>
+</div> </div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width:30%;"><a href="images/193-2.png"><img width="100%" src="images/193-2.png" alt="" /></a><h3>JACK'S JACK.</h3>
+<p class="center">(Lord <span class="sc">Fisher</span>).</p></div>
+
+<p>Whilst jealous for maintenance of
+Naval power, no Admiral or Sea Lord
+did more to improve conditions of life
+on the lower deck than did <span class="sc">Jacky
+Fisher</span>. Retired from active service,
+his multiform commissions under
+hatches, to-night his body
+has gone aloft to a seat
+in Peers' Gallery. There
+he heard expounded biggest
+Navy vote submitted since
+days of the "Great Harry."
+Exceptionally swollen by
+provision for reserves of oil
+fuel, a new departure, for
+which he in his capacity
+as Chairman of a Royal
+Commission has, as <span class="sc">Winston</span>
+testified, been chiefly
+responsible.</p>
+
+<p><i>Business done.</i>&mdash;Naval
+Estimates discussed.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday.</i>&mdash;Another scene
+testifying to electricity of
+atmosphere. As usual, explosion
+from unexpected
+quarter. House in committee
+on Naval Estimates.
+Lord <span class="sc">Robert Cecil</span>, ever
+alert in interests of working-man
+with a vote, moved
+reduction in order to call
+attention to housing accommodation
+provided for men
+employed at Rosyth. Chairman
+ruled debate out of
+order on Supplementary
+Estimates. Lord <span class="sc">Bob</span> nevertheless
+managed to sum up purport of
+intended speech by denouncing state of
+things as "a scandal and disgrace to the
+Government." At this stage Opposition
+Whips, counting heads, discovered that,
+if not at the moment in actual minority,
+Government would, if division were
+rushed, find themselves in parlous
+state. The word&mdash;it was "Mum"&mdash;went
+round Opposition benches.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately for success of plot
+Ministerial Whips also alive to situation.</p>
+
+<p>"After your ruling, Sir," said Lord
+<span class="sc">Bob</span> with ominous politeness, "I cannot
+develop my argument, but I propose
+to persist in my motion, and will divide
+the Committee."</p>
+
+<p>Not if <span class="sc">Leif Jones</span> knew it. For
+him, as for all good Ministerialists,
+subject suddenly developed interest,
+urgently demanded consideration. This
+he proposed to bestow upon it. A
+Bengal tiger about to lunch off a toothsome
+native, discovering the anticipated
+meal withdrawn from his reach, could
+not be more sublimely wrathful than
+were gentlemen on Opposition benches.
+And <span class="sc">Leif Jones</span>, too! The mildest-mannered
+man that ever turned on a
+water-tap.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment of petrified pause,
+natural to Bengal tiger on discovering
+reality of his discomfiture, there burst
+forth roar of "'Vide! 'Vide! 'Vide!"
+From appearance of <span class="sc">Leif Jones's</span> lips,
+he was continuing his remarks. Not a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194" id="page194"></a>[pg 194]</span>syllable rose above the storm. After it
+had raged for some moments <span class="sc">Chairman</span>
+pointed out that, whilst divigation in
+direction of Rosyth was out of order, it
+was competent to any Member to
+discuss the vote as a whole.</p>
+
+<p>This too much for <span class="sc">A. S. Wilson</span>, who
+has been surprisingly reticent since
+Session opened.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width:35%;"><a href="images/194.png"><img width="100%" src="images/194.png" alt="" /></a><p>"I understand you have only one Welsh saint. Well,
+there'll soon be another; it will be Saint Lloyd George.
+I would canonise him right away."&mdash;<i>The Rev. Dr. <span class="sc">Clifford</span>
+at Westbourne Park Chapel.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>"Is it right for the <span class="sc">Chairman</span>," he
+asked, "to protect the Government
+from what may be an inconvenient
+position?"</p>
+
+<p>"A grossly disorderly observation,"
+the <span class="sc">Chairman</span> retorted.</p>
+
+<p>A. S. withdrew the remark, the
+more willingly since designed effect
+gained.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Cousin Hugh</span>, for some time
+moving uneasily in corner seat
+below Gangway, bounded to his
+feet. Member near him simultaneously
+rose. With sweep of
+left arm, after manner of <span class="sc">Richard
+III.</span> directing the cutting off of
+the head of <span class="sc">Buckingham</span>, he
+waved the appalled Member down.
+Was getting on nicely with what
+he had to say when, like <span class="sc">Grand
+Cross</span> on historical occasion, he
+"heard a smile."</p>
+
+<p>It came from <span class="sc">Winston</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"I notice," said <span class="sc">Cousin Hugh</span>
+glaring on the Treasury bench,
+"that the <span class="sc">First Lord of the
+Admiralty</span>, who is very ignorant
+on many matters, is amused at
+this observation."</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Winston</span> explained that what
+he had laughed at was "the lordly
+gesture with which the noble
+Lord swept away another honourable
+gentleman."</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Leif Jones</span>, proposing to continue
+his remarks, presented himself
+again. Greeted with fresh
+yell of execration. Battled for
+some moments with the storm. Too
+much for him. Reached forth hand;
+seized imperceptible tankard of invisible
+stout; gratefully wetted his
+parched lips withal. Refreshed, he
+tried again; no articulate word dominated
+the din.</p>
+
+<p>After further ten minutes of uproar,
+through which from time to time <span class="sc">A. S.
+Wilson</span> tried to get in more or less
+relevant remark and was instantly extinguished
+by the <span class="sc">Chairman</span>, who
+masterfully managed difficult situation,
+<span class="sc">Winston</span> interposed. A bird of the air
+had brought news from Whips' Room
+that all was well. Accordingly the
+<span class="sc">First Lord</span> graciously conceded division
+clamoured for.</p>
+
+<p>Its result profound surprise. So far
+from Government lacking support, the
+amendment was negatived by more than
+two to one. Majority rushed up to 140.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently been a mistake somewhere.</p>
+
+<p><i>Business done.</i>&mdash;Supplementary votes
+agreed to.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday.</i>&mdash;Dramatic turn in position
+of Home Rule Bill. <span class="sc">Premier</span>
+hitherto steadfast in deferring Second
+Reading till close of financial year. As
+result of confabulation between two
+Front Benches arranged that Supplementary
+Estimates shall be hurried up
+so as to make opening for immediate
+debate on Second Reading.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly <span class="sc">St. Augustine Birrell</span>
+to-day brought in Bill for First Reading.
+No need of persuasion of silver tongue
+to carry this stage. Proceeding purely
+formal. Fight opens on Monday, when
+<span class="sc">Premier</span>, moving Second Reading, will
+explain his "suggestions" of amendment.</p>
+
+<p><i>Business done.</i>&mdash;Home Rule brought
+in, being third time of asking. Welsh
+Church Disestablishment Bill and
+Plural Voting Bill also read amid
+vociferous cheering by Ministerialists.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>"His brilliant flashes of wit and humour
+evoked hearty applause, and sometimes even
+laughter."&mdash;<i>Teesdale Mercury.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Almost the last thing you would have
+expected.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>"One of the strongest traits in Mrs. Barclay's
+character is a love of all creatures, great and
+small&mdash;thrushes, wagtails and robins come to
+her when she calls, and she keeps a little box
+of worms to feed them."&mdash;<i>Woman at Home.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sometimes the worms must wish she
+wasn't quite so loving.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE DOWNWARD TREND.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">Come, Nora, Nance and Nellie,</p>
+<p class="i2">Let us study <span class="sc">Botticelli</span></p>
+<p>When we feel the gnawing craving to be smart;</p>
+<p class="i2">If we want to be <i>de rigueur</i></p>
+<p class="i2">We must educate the figure</p>
+<p>To show the downward trend of "plastic art."</p>
+<p class="i2">The outline should be slack,</p>
+<p class="i2">Slippy-sloppy, front and back,</p>
+<p>Till bodice, skirt and tunic&mdash;every stitch&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Seems to call for the support</p>
+<p class="i2">Of the handy-man's resort&mdash;</p>
+<p>That naval gesture termed the "double hitch."</p>
+<p class="i2">The shoulders must be drooping.</p>
+<p class="i2">The knees a trifle stooping,</p>
+<p>And the widest waist, remember, takes the prize;</p>
+<p class="i2">When motoring or shopping</p>
+<p class="i2">The <i>coatee</i> must be flopping</p>
+<p>Through a belt that's sagging downward to the thighs.</p>
+<p class="i2">But the evening toilette scheme</p>
+<p class="i2">Shows the opposite extreme,</p>
+<p>And, when for dance or dinner you're equipped,</p>
+<p class="i2">A clinging "mermaid's tail"</p>
+<p class="i2">The nether limbs must veil,</p>
+<p>While the corsage is the only part that's slipped.</p>
+</div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>"At the close of the match, Mr.
+Burnett, Kenmay, announced the result
+and called for cheers for the winners.
+Mr. J. Fulton, President English Province
+R.C.C.C., responded."&mdash;<i>Field.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We are sorry that Mr. <span class="sc">Fulton</span>
+was the only one. After his
+opening "Hip&mdash;hip&mdash;hip" even
+the most timid or indifferent
+should have joined in.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>"Tickets purchased before the date will
+admit holders at 2 p.m. to view the machine
+used when 'looping the loop,' and the passenger
+carrying machine."</p>
+
+<p><i>Advt. in "The Varsity."</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>At the risk of embarrassing this anonymous
+Samson we shall go early and
+view him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>"Councillor Johnson said the Bye Laws wore
+not in a satisfactory state, and suggested that
+Councillor Bayman be added to the number."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mossel Bay Advertiser.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Henceforward the penalty for breaking
+Councillor <span class="sc">Bayman</span> is forty shillings.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Report received by a South African
+mine-manager:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The mule being experimented with by
+feeding on bad mealies is still being carried
+out, but up to date the animal seems to keep
+in normal condition."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>They must carry him out again.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195" id="page195"></a>[pg 195]</span><div class="figcenter" style="width:75%;"><a href="images/195.png"><img width="100%" src="images/195.png" alt="" /></a><h3>LANGUAGE &Agrave; LA MODE.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="sc">"What do you think? Isn't it <i>rather</i> nice?"</span></p>
+<p><span class="sc">"My dear, how <i>utterly succulent</i>!</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>AT THE PLAY.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">"<span class="sc">The Two Virtues.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>The news, which ran like wildfire
+through the town on Wednesday
+morning, that Sir <span class="sc">George Alexander</span>
+had signed the Covenant, must have
+stirred many hearts; but those of us
+who saw him on the next night as the
+hero of Mr. <span class="sc">Alfred Sutro's</span> comedy
+are hoping that, at any rate, there
+will be no fighting on Wednesday and
+Saturday afternoons, and that sentry
+duty in the evenings may be performed
+by less valuable signatories. For in
+<i>Jeffery Panton</i> he has really found a
+part to suit him, and a part which
+should keep him busy for some months.
+Comedy is certainly his medium.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, alas, Miss <span class="sc">Martha Hedman's</span>,
+nor is English her language.
+Her pretty foreign accent and tearful
+manner became her as a French girl in
+<i>The Attack</i>, but it won't do for every
+part she plays. It didn't do in the least
+for <i>Mrs. Guildford</i>. The difficulty of
+understanding what she said was made
+greater by a surprising catarrh amongst
+the first-night audience, so that her
+scenes had a way of going like this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Jeffery Panton</i> (<i>clearly</i>). But I must
+just talk to you a moment.</p>
+
+<p><i>Stall on left.</i> Honk&mdash;honk! Honk!
+H'r'r'm!</p>
+
+<p><i>Dress circle.</i> <span class="sc">Honk! Honk!!</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Guildford.</i> No, no, I must get on
+with my work.</p>
+
+<p><i>Stall just behind.</i> <span class="sc">What did she
+say?</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Her neighbour.</i> Something about her
+work.</p>
+
+<p><i>Her other neighbour.</i> Honk&mdash;honk!
+H'r'm! Honk&mdash;honk!</p>
+
+<p><i>Gallery boy.</i> HONK&mdash;HONK&mdash;HONK!</p>
+
+<p><i>Several voices.</i> Sh'sh!</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Guildford.</i> No ... I ... you ...</p>
+
+<p><i>Second gallery boy.</i> Stop that coughing
+there!</p>
+
+<p><i>Injured voice.</i> <i>I</i> can't 'elp coughing!</p>
+
+<p><i>Several voices.</i> Sh'sh!</p>
+
+<p>But I'm afraid the coughing was not
+always the fault of the microbes but
+sometimes of Mr. <span class="sc">Sutro</span>, who seemed
+to be exploiting a wonderful talent for
+starting his Acts dully. The opening
+scene of the Second Act, between <i>Mrs.
+Guildford</i> and <i>Alice Exern</i>, was particularly
+tiresome. It went on a long
+time, and seemed when audible to be
+only a recapitulation of Act I. We
+simply had to cough.</p>
+
+<p>I have said nothing of the story, for
+the reason that a summary of it would
+hardly do it justice. It is slight, and yet
+just strong enough to carry two or three
+pleasant creations and much happy
+dialogue. The important thing is that
+Sir <span class="sc">George</span> is on the stage most of the
+time, has many delightful things to
+say, and says them delightfully. There
+are also Miss <span class="sc">Henrietta Watson</span>, Miss
+<span class="sc">Athene Seyler</span>, and Mr. <span class="sc">Herbert
+Waring</span>, all excellent.</p>
+
+<p>It remains to be said that the Two
+Virtues are Chastity and Charity; that
+<i>Mrs. Guildford</i> lacked (I think&mdash;but
+they were coughing a good deal just
+then) the first virtue, and the other
+ladies the second; and that the reclining
+chair in Act I. was kindly lent
+by&mdash;but the name of the generous
+fellow will be revealed to you in your
+programme when you go.</p>
+
+<p>M.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p>"'Paphnutius' was given its first public
+performance in London recently. Miss Ellen
+Terry appeared in it as an abbcess."</p>
+
+<p><i>Hong Kong Telegraph.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Our impersonation of a nasty sore
+throat "off" is still the talk of China.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196"></a>[pg 196]</span><h2>ONE WAY WITH THEM.</h2>
+
+<p>Leeson is the best of living creatures
+(as so many of us are), but he has one
+detestable foible&mdash;he always wants to
+read something aloud. Now, reading
+aloud is a very special gift. Few men
+have it, and even of those few there are
+some who do not force it upon their
+friends; the rest have it not, and
+Leeson is of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, it is really painful to listen
+to him, because he not only reads, but
+acts. If it is a woman speaking, he
+pipes a falsetto such as no woman outside
+a reciter's brain ever possessed. If
+it is a rustic, he affects a dialect from
+no known district. In emotional passages
+one does not dare to look at him
+at all, but we all cower with our heads
+in our hands, as though we were convicted
+but penitent criminals. So much
+for dramatic or dialogue pieces. When
+it comes to lyric poetry&mdash;his favourite
+form of literature&mdash;Leeson sings, or
+rather cantillates, swaying his body to
+the rhythm of the lines. If any of the
+poets could hear him they would become
+'bus-conductors at once; it is as
+bad as that.</p>
+
+<p>Otherwise Leeson is excellent company
+and one likes dining with him.
+But there's always hanging over one
+the dread that he may have alighted on
+something new and wonderful, and at
+any moment....</p>
+
+<p>Directly I entered the house last
+week I was conscious that this had
+happened&mdash;Leeson had made another
+discovery. I had not been in the
+drawing-room for more than a minute,
+and had barely shaken hands with Mrs.
+Leeson, when he pulled from his pocket
+a thin book. I knew the worst at once:
+it had about it all the stigmata of new
+poetry. It was of the right deadly
+hue, the right deadly size, the right
+deadly roughness about the edges.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got something here, my boy,"
+he said. "The real stuff. Let me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment the door opened
+and some guests entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," he remarked to me,
+as he approached to welcome them;
+"later. It's wonderful&mdash;wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>Other guests arriving occupied him,
+and then a servant came in to say that
+he was wanted on the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>He returned with the message that
+Captain Cathcart was sorry to say he
+could not possibly be there until a
+quarter-past eight. But please don't
+wait.</p>
+
+<p>It was now five minutes past eight.</p>
+
+<p>"What I suggest," said Leeson, "is
+that we do wait, and that we fill up the
+time by reading one or two poems by
+a new man that I've just discovered?
+They're simply wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew out the book and we all
+composed ourselves to the ordeal; Mrs.
+Gaston, who is the insincerest creature
+on earth and has no thoughts beyond
+Auction Bridge, even going so far as to
+say, ecstatically, "A new poet! How
+heavenly!"</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Leeson stopped it. "Oh,
+no," she said, "don't let us wait. Very
+likely Captain Cathcart will be later
+still." And with a sigh of relief that
+was almost audible we marched down
+to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>I thought that Leeson cut the time
+over our cigars rather short, and we
+had no sooner returned to the drawing-room
+than he began again. "I won't
+keep you more than a few moments,"
+he said, "but I very much want your
+opinion of a new poet I have discovered.
+I have his work here," and out came
+the deadly book, "and I want to read
+one or two brief things."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, George, dear," said Mrs. Leeson,
+"do you mind postponing that for a
+little? Miss Langton is very kindly
+going to sing for us, and she has to
+leave early."</p>
+
+<p>Leeson accepted the situation with
+as much philosophy as he could muster.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule I am bored by amateur, or
+indeed any, singing after dinner, but I
+looked at Miss Langton with an expression
+which a Society paper reporter
+might easily have misconstrued.</p>
+
+<p>Long before she had finished we were
+all calling out, "Thank you! Thank
+you! Encore! Encore!"</p>
+
+<p>Leeson alone was faint in his praises
+and his face fell to a lower depth when
+she began again.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had she finished and gone
+than he was planning another effort, but
+during the opportunity afforded by her
+departure we had, with great address,
+divided ourselves into such animated
+groups that Mrs. Leeson, like a tactful
+hostess, laid her hand on his arm and
+caused him again to postpone it.</p>
+
+<p>He wandered forlornly from chair to
+chair, seeking an opening, and at last
+ventured to clear his throat and again
+ask if we would like to hear his new
+poet. "I assure you he's wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>But at this moment old Lady Thistlewood
+uttered a little cry and at once
+bells were rung for sal-volatile. Her
+ladyship, it seems, is subject to attacks
+of faintness.</p>
+
+<p>When next Leeson made his proposal
+the Buntons rose and, expressing
+every variety of sorrow and regret, stated
+that they had no idea it was so late
+and they must really tear themselves
+away; Mrs. Bunton tactfully taking
+down the title of this dear new poet's
+book and its publisher.</p>
+
+<p>This being the signal for the others
+to leave, I soon found myself alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Now!" said Leeson with a triumphant
+expression. "Thank goodness
+they're out of the way and we're quiet
+and snug. Now you shall hear my
+poet." He felt for the book. "I tell
+you&mdash;&mdash;" He stopped in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"I could have sworn it was in my
+pocket," he said, and began to hunt
+about the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Where on earth can it be?" he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>I helped him to look for it, but in
+vain.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps Mrs. Bunton took it?" I
+suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure she didn't," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps Mrs. Leeson has it?" I
+said.</p>
+
+<p>But she had not. The last time she
+had seen it it was on the table after
+Mrs. Bunton copied the title.</p>
+
+<p>Leeson was so utterly dejected that
+I felt almost sorry for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said at last, "that's the
+strangest thing I ever heard of. What
+a disappointment! I did want you to
+hear it."</p>
+
+<p>But it was precisely because I didn't
+that in my own pocket was the
+volume's present hiding-place. When
+the front door had closed behind me
+half-an-hour later, I slipped it into the
+letter-box.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE FOX.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>The birds see him first, jay and blackbird and thrush;</p>
+<p class="i2">They shriek at his coming and curse him, each one;</p>
+<p>With the clay of the vale on his pads and his brush,</p>
+<p class="i2">It's the Fallowfield fox and he's pretty near done;</p>
+<p>It's a couple of hours since a whip tally-ho'd him;</p>
+<p>Now the rookery's stooping to mob and to goad him;</p>
+<p>There's an earth on the hill, but he's cooked past believing,</p>
+<p>And his tongue's hanging out and his wet ribs are heaving.</p>
+<p>Here he comes up the field at a woebegone trot;</p>
+<p class="i2">He's stiff as a poker, he's done all he knows;</p>
+<p>Now the ploughmen'll view him as likely as not;</p>
+<p class="i2">There&mdash;they run to the paling and yell as he goes:</p>
+<p>Here's an end, if we live to be two minutes older;</p>
+<p>See, he turns a glazed eye o'er a mud-spattered shoulder;</p>
+<p>There's a hound through the hedgerow....</p>
+<p>Game's up, and he's beaten,</p>
+<p>And he faces about with a snarl to be eaten.</p>
+</div> </div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id="page197"></a>[pg 197]</span><div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/197.png"><img width="100%" src="images/197.png" alt="" /></a><h3>MR. PUNCH'S GALLERY OF BRAVE DEEDS. No. 1.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="sc">The hero who took out a party of ladies ferreting.</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE RING.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">KEEKS <i>v.</i> COCKLES.</p>
+
+<p class="center">I.&mdash;<span class="sc">Old Style.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>By Tony Shovell.</i></p>
+
+<p>The much-boomed fight between
+Nobby Keeks and Bill Cockles ended
+in something of a <i>fiasco</i>, the last named
+being knocked out with a terrific uppercut
+in the first round.</p>
+
+<p>The men stripped well, and appeared
+in excellent fettle. The fight commenced
+precisely at 11.22, only fifty-two
+minutes after the advertised time.</p>
+
+<p><i>1st Round.</i>&mdash;Both men opened
+warily, sparring for an opening. Presently
+Cockles stepped in and drove
+his left hard to the nose, drawing blood.
+Keeks drew back, and Cockles, following
+up his advantage, got in a nicely-judged
+left hook on the eye, which began to
+swell ominously. Though his supporters
+were obviously chagrined, Keeks
+kept his head admirably, and cleverly
+ducked under a right swing and clinched.
+At the breakaway Cockles got his left
+home on the ribs, but in doing so left
+himself open, and Keeks shook him up
+badly with a jab to the jaw. Cockles'
+hands dropped momentarily, and Keeks,
+whipping in a smashing right uppercut,
+had his man down and out.</p>
+
+<p>A poor struggle, lost solely through
+carelessness.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="center">II.&mdash;<span class="sc">New Style.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>By Philip Keppermann.</i></p>
+
+<p>At twenty-two and a-half minutes
+past eleven last night a man stood
+looking wistfully over a sea of faces
+looming whitely through a thin blue
+haze of tobacco smoke. At his feet lay
+stretched the limp body of his antagonist.
+The disappearance of one eye;
+under a large red swelling, combined
+with a patulous and rubescent nose,
+detracted to some extent from the
+dignity of his appearance. An ugly
+patch of crimson over his left ribs held
+the attention fantastically, morbidly.
+It was blood, human blood, his own
+blood. The thought fascinated me....</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere a voice was counting
+slowly, steadily, unhesitatingly&mdash;<i>one</i>&mdash;<i>two</i>&mdash;<i>three</i>.... The
+voice had in it
+the inexorable quality of Fate; it
+brought tears to the eyes like the wail
+of the Chorus in some Greek drama.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the man by my side. His
+regard was fixed intently on the prostrate
+figure in the ring. His fingers
+played uneasily with his watch-chain.
+He wore evening dress, and I noticed
+that his tie was a little crooked.</p>
+
+<p>Away outside we caught the distant
+hoot of a motorcar. A dog barked.
+Then a woman in the audience sneezed;
+it seemed unwarrantable, impertinent,
+almost a desecration....</p>
+
+<p>The voice that was counting ceased.
+The limp figure did not move. The
+one wistful eye of the victor closed for
+a moment in relief. There was a sudden
+incursion of hurrying figures into
+the ring....</p>
+
+<p>The great fight was over. Nobby
+Keeks had beaten Bill Cockles.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="center"><i>By Theresa Chingles.</i></p>
+
+<p>I was one of forty-four women who
+witnessed the great battle last night.
+There were, it was said, over three
+thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>On my left sat a young girl in a rose-pink
+evening dress, with a dove-colour
+opera cloak covering her bare shoulders.
+Her eyes followed intently the struggling
+figures on the stage, and I
+observed that she wore an engagement
+ring with three diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>A few seats away, surrounded by a
+swarm of men in evening dress, sat a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198" id="page198"></a>[pg 198]</span>grey-haired woman, watching the fight
+with interest through a gold-rimmed
+lorgnette. Her eyes twinkled as heavy
+blows were delivered, and when one of
+the men began to bleed copiously from
+the nose, she uttered an exclamation of
+delight. She wore black.</p>
+
+<p>So far as I could observe, no woman
+present showed any sign of repulsion.
+It seemed to me significant of the times.
+I whispered to my neighbour, "<i>O tempora!
+O mores!</i>" but she replied
+coldly, "Not at all!" I checked my
+impulse to add "<i>Autres temps, autres
+m&oelig;urs!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Of the actual fight I am not competent
+to speak. I was most interested
+in the referee, whose strong mobile
+face reminded me occasionally of Lord
+<span class="sc">Byron</span>, at other times of Mr. <span class="sc">Winston
+Churchill.</span></p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="center"><i>By the Rev. Robert Shackleberry.</i></p>
+
+<p>I had never seen a boxing contest
+before I was invited by the enterprising
+editor of <i>The Daily Gong</i> to witness the
+encounter last night between "Nobby"
+Keeks and William Cockles.</p>
+
+<p>I found an excellent seat reserved for
+me. It was nearing midnight when
+the two men mounted the platform.
+Cockles came first, wearing a scarlet
+dressing-gown with yellow collar and
+cuffs. He seemed to me a bluff, hearty,
+good-tempered-looking man, though
+perhaps unduly prominent in the lower
+jaw. Keeks, who followed, wore a
+bright green dressing-gown with a
+pink sash, and shook hands with six
+or seven members of the audience. He
+was taller and heavier than his opponent,
+and his features, to my mind,
+more intelligent but less amiable.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long delay, during
+which I was given to understand that
+the men's hands were being bandaged
+for some reason. At length the swarm
+of seconds and advisers disappeared to
+the sound of a gong, and the combatants
+stood up and advanced upon
+one another. I was embarrassed to
+observe that they were nearly nude,
+but my embarrassment did not seem
+to be shared by any of the ladies
+present, so perhaps I have no right to
+complain.</p>
+
+<p>The actual boxing did not last nearly
+so long as the preliminaries. This
+was perhaps just as well, since Keeks,
+afterwards announced the victor, unfortunately
+sustained considerable damage
+to his right eye and was also losing
+blood from his nose&mdash;nasty injuries
+which, in my opinion, should have led
+to the competition being stopped while
+he received medical attention. No doubt
+the injuries were undesigned.</p>
+
+<p>Cockles soon afterwards fell down,
+and refused to rise while some individual
+slowly counted ten. This, I was
+told, indicated that he was desirous of
+withdrawing from the contest before
+his antagonist sustained any further
+damage. In my judgment this generosity
+merited the award of victory;
+but no doubt the authorities know their
+business.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad to have an opportunity
+of gaining a new experience, but on
+the whole I must say I prefer a quiet
+rubber of whist.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>THE OPPORTUNIST.</h2>
+
+<p>The personal distinctions, experiences,
+successes, opinions, anecdotes and statistics
+of Dr. Peterson, F.R.C.S., M.R.C.P.,
+are too many for me to mention here,
+but are never too many for him to
+mention anywhere. That was the difficulty
+with which the Governors of the
+St. Barnabas Throat and Ear Hospital
+were confronted from the beginning to
+the end of their business of administration.
+As member of their honorary
+staff he performed his fair share of successful
+operations, but when it came to
+speech-making he had no consideration
+either for his own throat or for anybody
+else's ears.</p>
+
+<p>"It's my belief," said the Chairman,
+at the special meeting of the Board
+called to arrange the programme for
+the opening of the new wing, "that
+the whole of this project originated in
+Peterson's desire to make himself
+heard."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly remember his introducing
+the matter to the Board," said
+Thompson, "with a brief sketch of his
+own career."</p>
+
+<p>"And if the foundation stone could
+only speak," said Vernon-White, "it
+probably wouldn't be able to recall the
+name of the man who laid it, but would
+repeat from memory the whole of
+Peterson's private history."</p>
+
+<p>"Proposed, seconded and carried
+unanimously," reported the Secretary,
+"that at the opening of the new wing
+no speech be made by Dr. Peterson."</p>
+
+<p>"So much for our resolution," said
+Bainbridge. "Nevertheless the company
+will have barely got seated before
+it hears Peterson wondering whether
+he may occupy a moment of their valuable
+time with a little experience which
+happened to him the other day."</p>
+
+<p>"Even he will give way to Sir Thingummy,"
+said Thompson, referring to
+the great man who had been invited to
+make the great speech.</p>
+
+<p>Bainbridge was always a pessimist.
+"Whether," he said, "the context be
+the opening of the new wing or the duty
+of gratitude to the man that opened it,
+the one subject the meeting will hear
+all about will be the son of Peter."</p>
+
+<p>"Proposed, seconded and carried
+unanimously," reported the Secretary,
+"that the vote of thanks to Sir
+Frederick Gorton be moved by the
+Chairman."</p>
+
+<p>"I see myself," said the Chairman,
+"resuming my seat after a few moments
+of inaudible confusion, and I hear a
+ringing voice crying forth: 'In rising
+on behalf of the Medical and Surgical
+Staff to propose a vote of thanks to our
+dear Chairman, I may perhaps be permitted
+to remind you that I joined that
+staff in 1887, and that since I&mdash;&mdash;?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Who's the senior member of the
+staff?" asked the Chairman.</p>
+
+<p>"Peterson," said Bainbridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's the oldest in mere age?"</p>
+
+<p>"Peterson."</p>
+
+<p>The Chairman thought hard. "The
+event is fixed for April 29th," said he.
+"Whose week on duty is that?"</p>
+
+<p>The Secretary looked up the books.
+His face fell. "Peterson's," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Proposed, seconded and carried
+unanimously," said the Chairman hurriedly,
+without troubling to take the vote,
+"that Dr. Wilkes be appointed to move
+the vote of thanks to the Chairman,
+and that the Secretary be instructed to
+explain the matter, with due tact and
+circumspection, to Dr. Peterson."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Peterson," wrote the Secretary,&mdash;"At
+the ceremony of the opening
+of the new wing, my Board is particularly
+anxious that everything should go
+with a swing, and that there shall be
+no possibility of any hitch. I am instructed
+to ask you if you will be so
+good as to hold yourself in readiness to
+make the big technical speech of the day
+in the unhappy event of Sir Frederick
+Gorton failing to turn up. One is
+never safe with these London men, and
+it is for that reason that the Board
+hopes you will not mind putting yourself
+to trouble which may prove wasted.
+Some of the less eloquent members of
+the Staff can be got to make the short
+formal speeches."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Frederick turned up all right, as
+the Secretary had taken care that he
+should, and declared the wing open,
+and thanked the Board for asking him.
+Thereupon the Board, by its Chairman,
+thanked him, and he rose again and
+very briefly thanked the Board for
+thanking him. Then Dr. Wilkes got
+up and thanked the Chairman even
+more briefly still, and the Chairman
+got up again and thanked Dr. Wilkes
+for thanking him. In fact, only one
+man didn't get his share of formal
+gratitude, for no one thanked Dr. Peterson
+for rising (if he might) to express a
+few words of thanks to Dr. Wilkes.</p>
+
+<p>Anticipating this possibility, Dr.
+Peterson devoted the larger part of
+his speech to thanking himself.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199" id="page199"></a>[pg 199]</span><div class="figcenter" style="width:75%;"><a href="images/199.png"><img width="100%" src="images/199.png" alt="" /></a><p><i>Grannie.</i> "<span class="sc">And wit's the matter wi' me right leg, Doctor?</span>"</p>
+
+<p><i>Doctor.</i> "<span class="sc">Oh, just old age, Mrs. MacDougall.</span>"</p>
+
+<p><i>Grannie.</i> "<span class="sc">Hoots, man; ye're haverin'. The left leg's hale and soond, and they're <i>baith</i> the same age.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>To read <i>An Englishman Looks at the World</i> (<span class="sc">Cassell</span>),
+a collection of "unrestrained remarks on contemporary
+matters"&mdash;aeroplanes, <span class="sc">Chesterton</span> and <span class="sc">Belloc</span>, libraries,
+labour unrest, the Great State, and the like&mdash;by Mr. <span class="sc">H. G.
+Wells</span>, is to be delighted or infuriated according to your
+natural habit of mind. If established in tolerable comfort
+in a world which you judge, for all its blemishes, to be on
+the whole rather well run, you will resent exceedingly this
+pert young man (for Mr. <span class="sc">Wells</span> is still astonishingly
+young) with his preposterous eagerness, his insane passion
+for questioning and tinkering and most unfairly putting
+you and your kind in the wrong. You will no doubt find
+excellent grounds for doubting his ability to reconstruct;
+for suspecting what you will feel to be his pretentious
+breadth of view, his assumed omniscience. But if, on the
+other hand, thinking life in your sombre moments a nightmare
+of imbecility and in your more expansive moments
+a high adventure of immeasurable possibilities, you are
+straitened between cold despairs and immense hopes, you
+will readily forgive this irreverent, self-confident critic-journalist
+any crude things he may have said in his haste
+for sake of his flashes of perception, his happily descriptive
+phrases, his inspiring anticipations, his uncalculating candour,
+and above all his generous preoccupation with things
+that matter enormously. "What we prosperous people
+who have nearly all the good things of life and most of the
+opportunities have to do now is to justify ourselves." That
+is a sentiment and a challenge repeated or implied throughout
+the book. This Englishman looking at his world looks
+with quick eyes. He is himself so intensely interested that
+he can only fail to interest such as find his whole attitude
+an outrage upon their finally adopted convictions and
+conventions.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Have you noticed the way in which certain stories bear
+the mark of a particular place or period? If ever there was
+a novel that vociferated "Cambridge" in every line, <i>The
+Making of a Bigot</i> (<span class="sc">Hodder and Stoughton</span>) is that one.
+Well indeed may its paper wrapper display a drawing of
+King's Chapel, though as a matter of fact only the action
+of the first chapter passes in the University town. Miss
+<span class="sc">Rose Macaulay</span> has based her story upon a quaintly
+attractive theme. Her hero, <i>Eddy Oliver</i>, is a type new to
+fiction. <i>Eddy</i> saw good in everything to such an extent
+that he allowed himself to be persuaded into active sympathy
+with the aims of practically everyone who was aiming at
+anything, however mutually irreconcilable the aims might
+be. "He went along with all points of view so long as they
+were positive; as soon as condemnation or rejection came
+in, he broke off." Consequently, as you may imagine, his
+career was pleasantly involved. It embraced the Church,
+various forms of Socialism, and at one time and another some
+devotion to the ideals of Nationalism, Disarmament, Imperial
+Service and the Primrose League. But please don't
+imagine that all this is told in a spirit of comedy. Miss
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200" id="page200"></a>[pg 200]</span><span class="sc">Macaulay</span> is, if anything, almost too dry and serious; this,
+and her disproportionate affection for the word "rather,"
+a little impaired my own enjoyment of the book. It contains
+some happily sketched types of modernity&mdash;all of
+them Cambridge to the back-bone; and <i>Eddy's</i> final discovery
+(which makes the bigot), that one can't achieve anything
+in life without some wholesale hatreds, is genuine
+enough&mdash;more so than the system of card-cutting by which
+he settles his convictions. Miss <span class="sc">Macaulay</span> has already, I
+am told, won a thousand pounds with a previous book;
+this one proves her the possessor of a gift of originality
+that is both rare and refreshing.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>I could imagine a novel with which I could sympathise
+deeply, based upon the theme of England's regeneration by
+means of the right type of Tory squire, but it would be a
+novel with a more credible hero and conceived in a less
+petty spirit of party bias than Mr. <span class="sc">H. N. Dickinson</span> has
+given us in <i>The Business of a Gentleman</i> (<span class="sc">Heinemann</span>).
+For, in the first place, <i>Sir Robert Wilton</i>, who figured of
+course in <i>Keddy</i> and <i>Sir Guy
+and Lady Rannard</i>&mdash;he has,
+in fact, by this time married
+<i>Marion</i>, late <i>Sir Guy's</i> widow&mdash;is
+far too jumpy and nervy
+a person to fit my ideal of a
+paternal landlord, and what
+is, after all, more important, I
+feel convinced that his tenants
+and stable-lads would have
+thought the same. Secondly,
+I refuse to believe that a
+spinster, however soured,
+however much devoted to the
+cause of Labour and misguided
+crusades for social
+purity, would have behaved
+as <i>Miss Baker</i> does in this
+book; and deliberately attempted
+to father a false
+scandal on <i>Sir Robert</i> merely
+because she hated his type.
+And if the author replies that
+he knows of such an instance I maintain that it was just
+one of those things which the art of selection should have
+prompted him to leave out. I have, of course, no fault to
+find with Mr. <span class="sc">Dickinson's</span> style, which as usual is curiously
+simple yet at the same time attractive, nor with his powers
+of character-sketching. His schoolboy of seventeen, <i>Eddie
+Durwold</i>, is in this book particularly good. It is the things
+that these people do that bothers me. And if I might
+venture to rename <i>The Business of a Gentleman</i> the title I
+should choose is "The Escapade of an Egoist."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Mr. <span class="sc">Sidney Low</span> has paid some visits to Egypt and the
+Sudan, has kept his eyes very wide open and has written
+<i>Egypt in Transition</i> (<span class="sc">Smith, Elder</span>) in consequence. The
+Earl of <span class="sc">Cromer</span>, who has also been there or thereabouts,
+introduces the book to the notice of the public with an
+appreciative preface. Am I then in a position to pass
+judgment? Yes, I am; for I can claim to be literally more
+informed on the subject than most people, having above
+my share of friends and relations who have been there. I
+have the clearest possible picture of the country&mdash;a stretch
+of sand, some pyramids in the background, and, in the
+centre foreground, smiling enigmatically&mdash;not the Sphinx,
+but my friend or relation. I at once gave Mr. <span class="sc">Low</span>
+five marks out of ten upon discovering that none of his
+illustrations reproduced himself on either on or off a camel.
+On less personal grounds, I have no scruple in giving him
+the remaining five for the vastly interesting facts, political,
+international, social and racial, with which he entertained
+me. It requires no small skill in a dispenser of such facts
+to make them entertaining. Twice only was I minded to
+quarrel with him; once when he expressed a general contempt,
+based upon one egregious example, for the foreign
+exports of Oxford and Cambridge, and again when he got
+on to the subject of tourists, who include my nearest and
+dearest, and abused them from the standpoint of a "visitor."
+In the first case he was absurd, in the second, common-place;
+but he made ample compensation for both by his
+memorable chapter of "Conclusions," in which he gave me
+clearly to understand why East, being East, will never be
+joined to West, always West, but yet how the twain have
+got within measurable distance of one another.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>There must have been moments when <span class="sc">Napoleon</span> found
+St. Helena a little quiet for a man of his temperament; when
+the monotony of his life there pressed somewhat hardly
+upon him. On these occasions
+I like to think of him
+saying philosophically to
+himself, as he remembered
+what Mr. <span class="sc">Rudolf Pickthall</span>
+calls "the last phase but
+two," "Well, after all, this
+isn't Elba. I've got that
+much to be thankful for."
+In <i>The Comic Kingdom</i>
+(<span class="sc">Lane</span>) Mr. <span class="sc">Pickthall</span> shows
+how everybody on the island
+struggles to make a bit out of
+their visitors. Little children
+rallied round with posies of
+wild flowers, demanding
+large sums in payment.
+Bogus monks waved crosses
+at him, and, if he pretended
+not to notice them, rolled in
+the dust under his carriage
+wheels. There was never a
+moment when somebody was
+not calling with a bust of the Emperor or Empress,
+price three hundred francs. And itinerant bands played
+under his windows into the small hours of the morning.
+I can imagine him saying, in the words of <span class="sc">Orestes</span>,
+"Dis is a dam country." <span class="sc">Orestes</span> was the guide who
+conducted Mr. <span class="sc">Pickthall</span> through the island. It revolted
+him, but he did it. "I tink we better leave to-morrow,"
+was a sort of refrain with <span class="sc">Orestes</span>. He had a
+poor opinion of Elba, which I for one do not share.
+After reading <i>The Comic Kingdom</i> I feel that one of my
+coming holidays must be spent climbing its hills and
+supplying its thirsty inhabitants with wine. The scenery
+is apparently worth while, and the natives appear a friendly
+lot. I like their enthusiasm for literature. They turned
+out in their hundreds and insisted on Mr. <span class="sc">Pickthall's</span>
+standing treat, just because they mistook him for a great
+historian. When I tell them I write for <i>Punch</i> they will
+be all over me.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:65%;"><a href="images/200.png"><img width="100%" src="images/200.png" alt="" /></a><h3>A WORLD'S WORKER.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Lady of title taking lessons in building-construction prior
+to performing the ceremony of laying a foundation-stone.</span></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>From a notice of "The New Standard Dictionary" in
+<i>The London Teacher</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The Dictionary is arranged in alphabetical order, thus being a great
+time saver, and one can find what is required with the greatest ease."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Otherwise it is so awkward, when you want to know how
+to spell "parallel" in a hurry, to have to go through one
+volume after another until you come to it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">Transcriber's Note:<br />
+<br />Changed "there" to "three" in the second to last paragraph
+of "At the play" on page 195.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pg" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 146, MARCH 11, 1914***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 23726-h.txt or 23726-h.zip *******</p>
+<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/7/2/23726">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/7/2/23726</a></p>
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+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a>
+
+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+</pre>
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,2346 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+March 11, 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, March 11, 1914
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2007  [eBook #23726]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 146, MARCH 11, 1914***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Matt Whittaker, Malcolm Farmer, 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 23726-h.htm or 23726-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/7/2/23726/23726-h/23726-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/7/2/23726/23726-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+VOL. 146
+
+MARCH 11, 1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+A contemporary describes one of the deported Nine as the Brain of the
+party. This is a distinction which just eluded Mr. BAIN.
+
+       * * *
+
+The Admiralty has decided that, in the place of the grand manoeuvres this
+year, there shall be a surprise mobilisation. Last year's manoeuvres were,
+we believe, something of a fiasco, but to ensure the success of the
+surprise mobilisation five months' previous notice is given.
+
+       * * *
+
+"Every man," says the Bishop of LONDON, "must be his own Columbus and find
+the continent of truth." This is the first time that we had heard America
+called the continent of truth, and one wonders where the present fashion of
+flattery is going to end.
+
+       * * *
+
+We read that a Russian writer named LUNATCHARSKY has been expelled from
+Germany. Is it possible that he is a relative of Mr. MAX BEERBOHM'S friend
+Kolniyatchi?
+
+       * * *
+
+At the Grand Military Meeting at Sandown Park, two young millionaires
+figured as amateur jockeys. We understand now the meaning of the expression
+"putting money on a horse."
+
+       * * *
+
+"Futurist frocks," we are told, were a feature of the Chelsea Arts Club
+ball. Just as in these days "Fancy Dress" often seems to mean that the
+dress is left to the fancy, Futurist frocks, we presume, are frocks that
+may appear in the future.
+
+       * * *
+
+An American journalist has been pointing out how London lags behind other
+great cities in the matter of shop-window dressing. There would seem to be
+no limit to our decadence. Even our shop-windows are inadequately clothed.
+
+       * * *
+
+A meeting has been held at Kingston to consider the possibility of
+providing "some counter attraction" for the young people who frequent the
+streets on Sunday evenings. Seeing that most of them are at the counter
+during the week--you catch the idea?
+
+       * * *
+
+"Monkey nuts are dangerous," said Dr. ROUND at an inquest last week.
+Judging by the mild-looking specimens one sees walking about in the streets
+appearances are certainly deceptive.
+
+       * * *
+
+A contemporary, by the way, propounds the question: Why does the "nut"
+always wear his headgear on the back of his head? This custom is certainly
+queer, for, if he really cared about his personal appearance, he would wear
+the hat over his face.
+
+       * * *
+
+We regret to learn that an attempt to teach a modern Office Boy manners has
+failed. A friend of ours met his Office Boy in the street, and the lad
+merely nodded to him. To shame him the Master raised his hat with mock
+solemnity, at which the lad said, "That's all right, but you needn't do
+it."
+
+       * * *
+
+The fashion, which originated on the Continent, of having the face and neck
+painted with miniature works of art is reported to be spreading to London.
+And the practical Americans are said to be considering a further
+development in the form of advertisements on the face by means of neat
+inscriptions, such as "Complexion by Rouge et Cie," "Teeth by Max Gumberg,"
+and "Dimples excavated by the American Face Mining Co."
+
+       * * *
+
+"England," says General CARRANZA, "is the world's bully." The General must
+please have patience with us, for there are signs that we are improving. In
+the same issue of the evening paper which reported this dictum of his the
+following announcement appeared under the heading "LATEST NEWS":--"There
+were no bullion operations reported at the Bank of England to-day."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Curate_ (_forte_). "... TO HAVE-AND-TO-HOLD."
+
+_Bridegroom_ (_deaf_). "EH?"
+
+_Curate_ (_fortissimo_). "TO--HAVE--AND--TO--HOLD."
+
+_Bridegroom._ "TO 'AVE AND TO 'OLD."
+
+_Curate._ "FROM--THIS--DAY--FORWARD."
+
+_Bridegroom._ "TILL THIS DAY FORTNIGHT!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BYLES FOR THE BILL.
+
+     [In a letter addressed to _The Times_, headed "PASS THE BILL AND TAKE
+     THE CONSEQUENCES," Sir WILLIAM BYLES makes the statement:--"I for one
+     will take the risk without hesitation."]
+
+  Darkling I sing. Ere Tuesday's hour for tea
+    Shall set this doggerel in the glare of day,
+  He who adjured us still to "wait and see,"
+    He will have tweaked the mystic veil away,
+  And you will know--whatever it may be.
+
+  You, but not I; for I have yet to wait.
+    Far South, beneath (I hope) a stainless sky
+  The pregnant news shall find me, rather late,
+    Powerless to watch the ball with steadfast eye
+  Through sheer distraction as to Ulster's fate.
+
+  Fain would I have upon my well-pricked ear
+    Such tidings fall as prove that party pride
+  Yields with a mutual grace. And yet I fear
+    These desperadoes on the Liberal side--
+  BILL BYLES (for one), the Bradford Buccaneer.
+
+  "Pass"--so he boldly writes--"the Bill and take
+    (His conscience will not let him run to "damn")
+  "The Consequences." That is why I shake
+    Even as when the shorn and shivering lamb
+  Observes the wolf advancing in his wake.
+
+  I see him bear, this dreadful man of gore,
+    A brace of battleaxes at the slope;
+  I see him fling his gauntlet on the floor,
+    And (shouting, "BYLES for REDMOND and the POPE!")
+  Let loose the Nonconformist Dogs of War.
+
+  Ah! take and hide me in some hollow lair,
+    Red hills of Var! and ye umbrella-pines,
+  Cover me like a gamp! I cannot bear
+    This Apparition with its armed lines
+  Humming the strain, "_Sir BYLES s'en va-t-en guerre_."
+
+  _March 7._
+
+  O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE END OF IT ALL.
+
+It was the opening of the new Parliament of 1919 A.D.
+
+They had got IT.
+
+If you can't guess what they had got you must be obtuse.
+
+The great procession of Women M.P.'s formed in Trafalgar Square. Behind
+them were the ruins of the National Gallery (the work of the immortal Miss
+Podgers, B.Sc.); before them were the fragments of the Nelson Column (Miss
+Tunk's world-famous feat).
+
+The free fight concerning the leadership of the procession was settled by
+the intervention of mounted police. They decided that all the would-be
+leaders should march abreast with two armed policemen between each pair of
+them to prevent casualties by the way. So the head of the procession
+started off sixty abreast down Whitehall.
+
+It was a magnificent spectacle. All the M.P.'s wore green-and-white wigs
+because it was the fashion, and in addition green-and-white whiskers to
+assert their equality with men. Each processionist carried a model of her
+greatest work. There was Mrs. Spankham with a superb model of Westminster
+Abbey--its petrolling had been the greatest stroke in convincing the voters
+of the pure motives of the feminists. Miss Sylvia Spankham bore aloft the
+City Temple, Miss Christabel Spankham the Albert Hall, whilst Mrs. Lawrence
+Pothook waved triumphantly a lovely representation of King's Cross Station.
+Magnificent too was Mrs. Drummit riding astride a fire-engine as an emblem
+of peace and goodwill.
+
+The crowd viewed the procession with awed silence, only breaking into
+cheers when Miss Blithers, blushing modestly, held up a cardboard
+representation of the Albert Memorial she had nitro-glycerined. Miss Bliggs
+marched triumphantly in a bishop's mitre bearing a pastoral staff, in
+recognition of her great feat in forcibly feeding a wicked bishop who had
+written a letter to the Press against forcible, feeding. Misunderstood by
+the crowd was Mrs. Trudge, who wheeled a perambulator containing two
+babies. The onlookers thought that Mrs. Trudge was about to take her
+innocent offspring to the House of Commons, and those out of hat-pin range
+murmured, "Shime," "Give the kids a chawnce." They did not know that Mrs.
+Trudge was no base slave of man, that she had no children of her own, and
+that the wax babies she wheeled in the perambulator merely indicated that
+she was the heroine who had doped a nursemaid with drugged chocolate and
+abducted a Cabinet Minister's twins.
+
+Unhappily Miss Bolland also passed unidentified, though she held a
+cardboard tube aloft. Not even a taxi-driver cheered as the intrepid lady
+passed who had blown up the electrical-generation station of the Tubes and
+made London walk for a month. There too was Mrs. Tibbs, brave in her
+misfortunes. She had missed her election by one vote just because, when she
+came to the booth to vote for herself, lifelong habit had been too strong
+for her and she had phosphorused the ballot box.
+
+An unfortunate breeze from the river played havoc with the processionists'
+whiskers, and one or two of the weaker spirits in the ranks argued that
+some of the Government offices in Whitehall ought to have been left
+standing for protection--at any rate till the procession was over.
+
+On they went, each of the twenty leaders in front explaining how SHE had
+led the movement to triumph. On the top of the fire-engine Mrs. Drummit
+danced a futurist dance, symbolic of the subjection of man. At last they
+reached the portals of the House. The leaders broke into a run to secure
+front places on the Government benches.
+
+"Stop," cried a police superintendent, rushing from the building.
+
+"The days of man's tyranny are over!" shouted twenty voices together.
+
+"Maybe," said the police superintendent, "but some of 'em are catching up
+to you. They've dynamited the Houses of Parliament, and if you go inside
+you'll pop like roasted chestnuts."
+
+And as they watched the flame the leaders realised the sad fact that they
+had not left a building standing in London roomy enough for a Parliament.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Commercial Candour.
+
+     "---- Tooth Brushes are so constructed that the bristles get right
+     into the smallest crevices of the teeth. Moreover the bristles
+     positively won't come out."--_Advt. in "London Opinion."_
+
+That has sometimes been our bitter experience.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Choir Inaudible.
+
+     "The chorus gave ample evidence of having made great strides since
+     their last appearance in public, all the items for which they were
+     responsible being well sustained and rendered in first-class style.
+     Special mention should be made, however, of their rendering of 'A
+     Spring Song,' which was given in quite a professional manner, the
+     chorus dispensing with both music and words, and the audience evinced
+     their appreciation of this really fine effort by long continued
+     applause, to which the chorus responded by repeating it."
+
+     _Avalon Independent._
+
+There would probably be no words to the applause and very little music; so
+the chorus could easily repeat it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: GIFT FOR GIFT.
+
+GENERAL BOTHA. "WELL, I SUPPOSE ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER; WE MUST
+GIVE HIM A WARM RECEPTION."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE BRUTE AGAIN.
+
+_Weary Hostess._ "YES, I'VE BEEN HAVING SUCH TROUBLE WITH BABY. EVERY NIGHT
+I HAVE TO GET UP ABOUT TWENTY TIMES, GETTING HIS THINGS----"
+
+_Visitor._ "WHY DON'T YOU MAKE YOUR HUSBAND DO SOMETHING?"
+
+_Hostess._ "OH, I DAREN'T WAKE MY HUSBAND; IF I DO HE ALWAYS DRINKS BABY'S
+MILK."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+STUDIES IN DISCIPLESHIP.
+
+_THE TIMES'_ THIRD LEADER.
+
+The statement made in these columns by a well-informed correspondent that
+the incomparable NIJINSKY is so delicate that by his doctor's decree he is
+obliged to abstain from all forms of exercise save that involved in his
+beloved art, gives us, in the vivid phrase of our neighbours, "furiously to
+think." At the first blush incredulity prevails, but recourse to the annals
+of history, ancient and modern alike, furnishes us with abundant
+confirmation of this strange anomaly. HANNIBAL was a martyr to indigestion,
+while his great rival, SCIPIO AFRICANUS, suffered from sea-sickness even
+when crossing the Tiber. Wherever we look we are confronted with the
+spectacle of genius fraying its way to the appointed goal in spite of
+physical drawbacks which would have paralysed meritorious mediocrity. WOLFE
+was a _poitrinaire_, and NELSON would never have passed the medical
+examination to which the naval cadets of to-day are subjected. But the case
+of NIJINSKY is more tragic because abstinence from skating and riding, of
+which he was passionately fond, entails greater anguish on so sensitively
+organised a temperament than it would on a mere man of action, and the
+suffering of a great artist may lead to international complications which
+it is terrible to complicate. Russian dancing is as necessary to the
+well-being of our social system as standard bread, yet when we think of the
+sacrifices which its hierophants undergo in order to minister to our
+pleasure the sturdiest Hedonist cannot escape misgivings. Still, we may
+find consolation in the thought that sacrifice is necessary to perfection.
+Such sacrifices take various forms. In the case of NIJINSKY we see a man of
+immense brain power specialising in a most exhausting form of physical
+culture to remedy his extreme delicacy. At the opposite extreme we find
+cases of men so extraordinarily powerful that they are obliged to abandon
+all exercise and lead a purely sedentary life in order to counteract their
+abnormal muscularity. Thus Lord HALDANE, who in his earlier days thought
+nothing of walking to Cambridge one day and back to London on the next, has
+now become more than reconciled to the immobility imposed on the occupant
+of the Woolsack.
+
+It needs no little exercise of the imagination to form a mental picture of
+Lord HALDANE as a member of the Russian ballet, or, to put it in a more
+concrete form, making the famous flying exit in _Le Spectre da la Rose_.
+Could fancy be translated into fact, the drawing power of such a spectacle
+would be prodigious. On the other hand, and in view of the notorious
+adaptability of the Slavonic temperament, we can well imagine NIJINSKY
+proving an admirable Lord Chancellor. Exchanges of this sort would add to
+the comity of nations besides enhancing the amenities of public life, and
+it is perhaps not too much to hope that provision for carrying this out may
+be in the Government's scheme for the Reform of the House of Lords.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "New Zealand mutton was yearly increasing in public
+     flavour."--_Times._
+
+It mustn't get too powerful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an advertisement of a land sale in _Ceylon Morning Leader_:--
+
+     "An undivided 1/3 + 1/36 + 1/2 of 3/80 + 1/24 + 1/2 of 1/18 parts of
+     the land called Vitarmalage Gamwasama at Yatawala in extent 500
+     amunams paddy sowing."
+
+A chance for a newly-created peer who wants a family seat from which to
+take his title and quarterings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meeting of ANTONY and CLEOPATRA as described in HUTCHINSON'S _History
+of the Nations_:--
+
+     "When they met first he was twenty-nine and she was sixteen; now he
+     was forty-two and she was twenty-seven."
+
+Anyhow she would say so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Kind Old Gentleman._ "WHAT A DELIGHTFUL LITTLE PET! I HAVE
+ALWAYS A SOFT PLACE FOR ANIMALS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A LOST LEADER.
+
+"Enid," I said, "we must offer something to somebody."
+
+"You don't mean Squawks?" she pleaded piteously.
+
+"I wish I did," I sighed. Squawks is a Pomorachshund--at least I think so;
+though Enid inclines towards the Chowkingese theory. Anyhow, he himself has
+always realised that someone had blundered, and has worked steadily to make
+a dog of himself.
+
+"Well, if it's not Squawks, I don't care," remarked Enid.
+
+"I wish you'd take some interest."
+
+"What in?"
+
+"In what I say."
+
+"What _did_ you say?"
+
+"We must," I repeated, "offer something to somebody."
+
+"That's not very enthusey. Unless"--and her whole face brightened--"you
+mean what you call your reading-chair. It threw me on to the floor and
+knelt on me only yesterday; and I know Aunt Anne----"
+
+"Enid," I said sternly, "that's not the point."
+
+"I was afraid not."
+
+"The thing is, one must be in the swim. Everybody is offering things right
+and left now. Look at SUTHERLAND, DERBY--even LLOYD GEORGE."
+
+"I didn't know they were friends of yours."
+
+"Not exactly; but----"
+
+"Then why so familiar?"
+
+"My dear," I explained, "that _is_ the point. Once get your name in the
+papers at the end of a two-column letter and you are the friend of all the
+world--it gives one an _entree_ to the castle of the Duke and the cottage
+of the crofter."
+
+"Even before you've written it?"
+
+"I have written it!"
+
+"Oh, how splendid! Where?"
+
+"In here," I said, tapping the best bit of my head.
+
+"Oh, _that_!" And then, pensively: "Next time Mary Jane has a brainstorm,
+I'll tell her to call you 'Charley.' Poor girl!"
+
+"I don't think you quite appreciate," I remarked.
+
+"I don't. What exactly do we stand to gain?"
+
+"There's the rub. Not lucre. Perish the thought! But one begins to be a
+power, an influence. People whisper in the Tube, 'Who's that?' '_That!_
+Don't you know? Why Him--He! The man who is making the Government a
+laughing-stock. The man who holds the Empire in the palm of his hand. The
+man who----'"
+
+"Thanks," said Enid. "We had better buy a gramophone. I thought you were
+getting fidgety at home."
+
+"Dearest," I explained, "it is not that. It is because I feel in me a
+spirit that will not be denied. Give me the opportunity and I will make
+this land, this England----"
+
+"Hush, Squawks. Was'ms frightened then, poor darling!"
+
+"That dog----"
+
+"Hush!" said Enid to me. "How are you going to begin?"
+
+"It is quite simple. Somebody writes something to the papers."
+
+"Yes; so far it sounds easy."
+
+"Now that something is hideously disparaging to my class and calling. I
+promptly answer him."
+
+"That is, if you can be funnier at his expense than he at yours."
+
+"I shan't be funny at all."
+
+"No?" said Enid thoughtfully.
+
+"Mine will be a scathing indictment, and of course I shall bring in the
+political situation. He writes back, evading the point at issue. I crush
+him with figures and statistics, and make him a practical offer--a few
+deer-forests, a paltry township, or my unearned increment, as the case may
+be."
+
+"The mowing-machine is out of order," Enid remarked.
+
+"I quote passages in his letter as the basis of negotiation. He pretends to
+accept. I point out how, when and why he has been guilty of paltry
+quibbling, and show that the Party he supports fosters such methods and
+manners."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"No. And that is just where I shall differ from everybody else. I shall go
+on where they have stopped. Having made one individual ridiculous, I shall
+broaden the basis of operation. With consummate skill I shall gradually
+draw the public officials down into the arena."
+
+"Don't forget the gas-man; he was very rude last month."
+
+"Not that kind," I explained. "Cabinet Ministers, Secretaries of State, the
+whole machinery of government shall writhe under the barbed shafts of my
+mockery. Ridicule is the power of the age. Ridicule in my hands shall be as
+bayonets to NAPOLEON, as poison to a BORGIA." I gasped.
+
+"Help!" said Enid, taking up _The Daily Most_. "Here's the very
+thing," she went on. "Somebody called 'A. Lethos'----"
+
+"Pah! A pseudonym."
+
+"Well, anyhow, he says that all political writers are worthless sycophants.
+You might begin on that."
+
+"I will," I cried. "But craven anonymity is not my part. My name shall
+stand forth boldly. Fate's linger points the way. How do you spell
+'sycophant'? The type has gone a bit dizzy over it."
+
+And I plunged into the fray.
+
+"Sir," I began; and there followed 2,000 words of closely-woven argument,
+down to "I remain, Sir, your obedient Servant."
+
+I read it through carefully, looked up "sycophant" in the dictionary, and
+wrote it all out again.
+
+Then I showed it to Enid.
+
+"Why have you spelt 'sycophant' like that?" she asked.
+
+"I----"
+
+"No, 'y.'"
+
+"It _is_ a 'y.'"
+
+"Oh!" (Pause.) "What about the offer? Mr. Lethos says that ninetenths of
+what is written nowadays is only worth the ink and paper."
+
+"The offer," I reminded her, "will come later."
+
+"Oh! I just thought---- You might get rid of those articles on 'Happiness
+in the Home' at cost price. They're running up to quite a lot in stamps."
+
+I posted the letter to the Editor.
+
+Next morning I seized the paper nervously. There was my name at the end of
+a column and a half. I had begun.
+
+I sat down to wait for the next step. It came with the mid-day post in a
+letter from Saxby, who is--or was--my friend.
+
+"Good old Tibbles," it ran; "I knew some juggins would rise, whatever I
+wrote. But fancy landing you!--Yours ever, BEEFERS."
+
+Now how _can_ a man save his country on a thing like that?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SMILES AND LAUGHTER.
+
+  On days of gloom and sadness,
+    When nothing brings relief,
+  When men are moved to madness
+    And women groan with grief;
+  Though growing daily dafter,
+    I might, as once I did,
+  Have cheered myself with laughter,
+    But laughter is forbid.
+
+  If I should treat of CARSON,
+    His guns and rataplan,
+  It's something worse than arson
+    To smile at such a man;
+  Since chaff would make his pulse stir--
+    And this he cannot brook--
+  The more he talks of Ulster
+    The solemner we look.
+
+  Then, should I meet a CECIL,
+    (Lord ROBERT or Lord HUGH),
+  His manifest distress'll
+    Be very sad to view
+  Unless I'm in a proper,
+    A gloomy frame of mind,
+  And put a heavy stopper
+    On mirth of any kind.
+
+  Next POUTSEA brings his quota
+    For giving me delight,
+  Who wants to punish BOTHA
+    By living in his sight;
+  Or, foiled of such a strife-time,
+    Decides to have a blow
+  And spend a briny lifetime
+    In sailing to and fro.
+
+  And SEDDON, who gave greetings
+    To those deported nine,
+  Invited them to meetings
+    And asked them out to dine,
+  And begged of them and prayed them
+    To be no longer banned,
+  But hardly could persuade them
+    To leave the ship and land.
+
+  These two, the gloom beguiling,
+    Might make me greatly dare,
+  Might set my face a-smiling
+    And win my soul from care;
+  The feted and the feeders
+    Might well provoke some chaff;
+  But no--they're Labour Leaders,
+    And so we mustn't laugh.
+
+  And, last, there's LAW, our BONAR,
+    Who in a burst of tact
+  Is minded to dishonour
+    The loathed Insurance Act;
+  With opposites agreeing,
+    He faces North by South,
+  And keeps the Act in being
+    And kills it with his mouth.
+
+  He too might smooth a wrinkle,
+    Although he's stern and grim,
+  And make my eyes to twinkle
+    By seeing fun in him;
+  Cursed be that cheerful vision,
+    And cursed all sense of fun:
+  It is a foul misprision
+    To smile at anyone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: REVERIE.
+
+"NO, DARLING, NOT IN THE STUDY. YOUR FATHER WENT ROUND IN BOGEY TO-DAY AND
+WANTS TO HAVE A NICE LONG THINK ABOUT IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HAVE YOU ANYTHING TO SELL?
+
+(_With acknowledgments to "The Daily Mail."_)
+
+Have you anything you think of burning as useless, but would naturally
+prefer to sell? Why not try one of our small advertisements? Every day we
+receive thousands of letters testifying to their power. Here is one, picked
+up at random:--
+
+"Please discontinue my advertisement of a half-pair of bellows and a
+stuffed canary, as the first insertion has had such remarkable results. On
+looking out of my bedroom window this morning I observed a queue of some
+hundreds of people extending from my doorstep down to the trams in the main
+road. They included ladies on campstools, messenger boys, a sad-looking
+young man in an ulster who was reading SWINBURNE'S poems, and others. Only
+with difficulty could the milkman fight his way through to place the can on
+the doorstep, and the contents were quickly required to restore a lady who
+had turned faint for want of a camp-stool. While I was shaving, a motor
+mail-van dashed up and left seven sacks of postal replies to the
+advertisement. One by one, eighty-three people were admitted to view the
+goods, and a satisfactory bargain was made with the last of these. I then
+telephoned for the police to come and remove the disappointed thousands,
+who were disposed to be riotous. My garden gate is off its hinges, the
+garden itself has the lawn inextricably mixed with the flower-beds, my
+marble step is cracked in three places, and my stair-carpet is caked with
+mud. I do not know any other paper in this country in which a two-shilling
+advertisement could produce such encouraging results."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ORANGES AND LEMONS.
+
+I.--THE INVITATION.
+
+     "DEAR MYRA," wrote Simpson at the beginning of the year,--"I have an
+     important suggestion to make to you both, and I am coming round
+     to-morrow night after dinner about nine o'clock. As time is so short I
+     have asked Dahlia and Archie to meet me there, and if by any chance
+     you have gone out we shall wait till you come back.
+
+     Yours ever,
+     SAMUEL.
+
+     P.S.--I have asked Thomas too."
+
+"Well?" said Myra eagerly, as I gave her back the letter.
+
+In deep thought I buttered a piece of toast.
+
+"We could stop Thomas," I said. "We might ring up the Admiralty and ask
+them to give him something to do this evening. I don't know about Archie.
+Is he----"
+
+"Oh, what do you think it is? Aren't you excited?" She sighed and added,
+"Of course I know what Samuel _is_."
+
+"Yes. Probably he wants us all to go to the Wonder Zoo together ... or he's
+discovered a new way of putting, or---- I say, I didn't know Archie and
+Dahlia were in town."
+
+"They aren't. But I expect Samuel telegraphed to them to meet him under the
+clock at Charing Cross, disguised, when they would hear of something to
+their advantage. Oh, I wonder what it is. It _must_ be something real this
+time."
+
+Since the day when Simpson woke me up at six o'clock in the morning to show
+me his stance-for-a-full-wooden-club shot I have distrusted his
+enthusiasms; but Myra loves him as a mother; and I--I couldn't do without
+him; and when a man like that invites a whole crowd of people to come to
+your flat just about the time when you are wondering what has happened to
+the sardines on toast, and why doesn't she bring them in--well, it isn't
+polite to put the chain on the door and explain through the letter-box that
+you have gone away for a week.
+
+"We'd better have dinner a bit earlier to be on the safe side," I said, as
+Myra gave me a parting brush down in the hall. "If any further developments
+occur in the course of the day ring me up at the office. By the way,
+Simpson doesn't seem to have invited Peter. I wonder why not. He's nearly
+two, and he ought to be in it. Myra, I'm sure I'm tidy now."
+
+"Pipe, tobacco, matches, keys, money?"
+
+"Everything," I said. "Bless you. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Myra lingeringly. "What do you think he meant by 'as time
+is so short'?"
+
+"I don't know. At least," I added, looking at my watch, "I do know. I shall
+be horribly late. Good-bye."
+
+I fled down the stairs into the street, waved to Myra at the window ... and
+then came cautiously up again for my pipe. Life is very difficult on the
+mornings when you are in a hurry.
+
+At dinner that night Myra could hardly eat for excitement.
+
+"You'll be sorry afterwards," I warned her, "when it turns out to be
+nothing more than that he has had his hair cut."
+
+"But even if it is I don't see why I shouldn't be excited at seeing my only
+brother again--not to mention sister-in-law."
+
+"You only want to see them so that you can talk about Peter."
+
+"Oh, Fatty, darling"--(I am really quite thin)--"oh, Fatty," cried
+Myra--("lean and slender" would perhaps describe it better)--cried Myra,
+clasping her hands together--(in fact the very last person you could call
+stout)--"I haven't seen the darling for ages! But I shall see Samuel," she
+added hopefully, "and he's almost as young." ("Svelte"--that's the word for
+me.)
+
+"Then let's move," I said. "They'll be here directly."
+
+Archie and Dahlia came first. We besieged them with questions as soon as
+they appeared.
+
+"Haven't an idea," said Archie. "I wanted to bring a revolver in case it
+was anything really desperate, but Dahlia wouldn't let me."
+
+"It would have been useful too," I said, "if it turned out to be something
+merely futile."
+
+"You're not going to hurt my Samuel, however futile it is," said Myra.
+"Dahlia, how's Peter, and will you have some coffee?"
+
+"Peter's lovely. You've had coffee, haven't you, Archie?"
+
+"Better have some more," I suggested, "in case Simpson is merely soporific.
+We anticipate a slumbering audience, and Samuel explaining a new kind of
+googlie he's invented."
+
+Entered Thomas lazily.
+
+"Hallo," he said in his slow voice, "What's it all about?"
+
+"It's a raid on the Begum's palace," explained Archie rapidly. "Dahlia
+decoys the Chief Mucilage; you, Thomas, drive the submarine; Myra has
+charge of the clockwork mouse, and we others hang about and sing. To say
+more at this stage would be to bring about a European conflict."
+
+"Coffee, Thomas?" said Myra.
+
+"I bet he's having us on," said Thomas gloomily, as he stirred his coffee.
+
+There was a hurricane in the hall. Chairs were swept over; coats and hats
+fell to the ground; a high voice offered continuous apologies--and Simpson
+came in.
+
+"Hallo, Myra!" he said eagerly. "Hallo, old chap! Hallo, Dahlia! Hallo,
+Archie! Hallo, Thomas, old boy!" He fixed his spectacles firmly on his nose
+and beamed round the room.
+
+"You haven't said 'Hallo!' to the cook," Archie pointed out.
+
+"We're all here--thanking you very much for inviting us," I said. "Have a
+cigar--if you've brought any with you."
+
+Fortunately he had brought several with him.
+
+"Now then, I'll give any of you three guesses what it's all about."
+
+"No, you don't. We're all waiting, and you can begin your apology right
+away."
+
+Simpson took a deep breath and began.
+
+"I've been lent a villa," he said.
+
+There was a moment's silence ... and then Archie got up.
+
+"Good-bye," he said to Myra, holding out his hand. "Thanks for a very jolly
+evening. Come along, Dahlia."
+
+"But I say, old chap," protested Simpson.
+
+"I'm sorry, Simpson, but the fact that you're moving from the Temple to
+Cricklewood, or wherever it is, and that somebody else is paying the thirty
+pounds a year, is jolly interesting, but it wasn't good enough to drag us
+up from the country to tell us about it. You could have written. However,
+thank you for the cigar."
+
+"My dear fellow, it isn't Cricklewood. It's the Riviera!"
+
+Archie sat down again.
+
+"Samuel!" cried Myra. "How she must love you!"
+
+"I should never lend Simpson a villa of mine," I said. "He'd only lose it."
+
+"They're some very old friends who live there, and they're going away for a
+month, and the servants are staying on, and they suggested that if I was
+going abroad again this year----"
+
+"How did the servants know you'd been abroad last year?" asked Archie.
+
+"Don't interrupt, dear," said Dahlia. "I see what he means. How very jolly
+for you, Samuel."
+
+"For all of us, Dahlia!" "You aren't suggesting we shall all crowd in?"
+growled Thomas.
+
+"Of course, my dear old chap! I told them, and they're delighted. We can
+share housekeeping expenses, and it will be as cheap as anything."
+
+"But to go into a stranger's house," said Dahlia anxiously.
+
+"It's _my_ house, Dahlia, for the time. I invite you!" He threw out his
+hands in a large gesture of welcome and knocked his coffee-cup on to the
+carpet; begged Myra's pardon several times; and then sat down again and
+wiped his spectacles vigorously.
+
+Archie looked doubtfully at Thomas.
+
+"Duty, Thomas, duty," he said, thumping his chest. "You can't desert the
+Navy at this moment of crisis."
+
+"Might," said Thomas, puffing at his pipe.
+
+Archie looked at me. I looked hopefully at Myra.
+
+"Oh-h-h!" said Myra, entranced.
+
+Archie looked at Dahlia. Dahlia frowned.
+
+"It isn't till February," said Simpson eagerly.
+
+"It's very kind of you, Samuel," said Dahlia, "but I don't think----"
+
+Archie nodded to Simpson.
+
+"You leave this to me," he said confidentially. "We're going."
+
+A. A. M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "PORTER, WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE WAITING HERE FOR?"
+
+"YOU'RE WAITIN' TO GO ON, SIR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CHAMELEONS.
+
+(_From "The Gladiator," Nov. 1914._)
+
+ASSOCIATION.
+
+WHITEBROOK ROVERS _V._ BROMVILLE.
+
+The meeting of these teams on Saturday last produced a struggle of titanic
+dimensions worthy of the best traditions of the famous combinations
+engaged. On the one hand we saw the machine-like precision, the subtle
+finesse so characteristic of the Whitebrook men, while at the same time we
+revelled in the dash and speed, the consummate daring displayed by their
+doughty opponents. We have witnessed many games, but for keenness and
+enthusiasm this one must rank.... In a game where every man acquitted
+himself well it is difficult to particularise; but Brown, Jones, Green and
+McSleery for the Rovers, and Gray, Smith, Black and McSkinner for the
+Broms, may be mentioned as being shining lights in their respective
+positions.
+
+(_From "The Gladiator," Nov. 1915._)
+
+ASSOCIATION.
+
+WHITEBROOK ROVERS _V._ BROMVILLE.
+
+Before a huge crowd exceeding 60,000 these historic combinations met on
+Saturday, and provided a rich treat for those who had the privilege to be
+there. The officials of both clubs have been busy team-building, and the
+sides differed in many instances from those antagonizing on the same ground
+a year ago. That the changes have been judicious and beneficial Saturday's
+game abundantly proved. The men played with great earnestness, evincing
+much local patriotism, and in their contrasted styles--the polished
+artistry, the scientific precision of the Rovers, and the dash and forceful
+intrepidity of the Broms--were at their very best. We have seen many games,
+but this must rank.... While every man did himself justice, it may not be
+invidious to mention, for the Rovers, Gray, Smith, Black and McSkinner, and
+for the Broms, Brown, Jones, Green and McSleery, as being bright particular
+stars in their respective departments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a literary weekly:--
+
+     "It is a terribly accurate saying about the loud laugh and the vacant
+     mind--Pope never got down surer to the bare bones of the truth."
+
+Nor did GOLDSMITH when he pointed out the danger of "a little learning."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From two consecutive items of "News in a Nutshell" in the _North-Eastern
+Daily Gazette_:--
+
+     "Lieut. ----, of an infantry regiment at Lemburg, Austria, fell fast
+     asleep on February 14, and all efforts to wake him have proved futile
+     ever since.
+
+     A sleeper weighing 8 cwt. was found on the Great Western Railway near
+     Banbury just before the arrival of a train from the north."
+
+However, it was not the lieutenant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THINGS THAT ONE MIGHT HAVE PUT DIFFERENTLY.
+
+"HOW DE DO, LADY SMYTHE? I'VE JUST DRIVEN THE MOTOR OVER TO FETCH MY WIFE
+AWAY."
+
+"HOW NICE OF YOU, ADMIRAL; BUT I DO WISH YOU'D COME SOONER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FORGIVENESS.
+
+(_A Dream after losing a Dog._)
+
+  Methought I saw the man that stole our Tim
+    In a night vision; and "Behold!" he cried,
+  "This was a task too easy for my whim,
+    A job of little worth and little pride,
+    An Irish terrier." Then his pal replied,
+  "I know a place where you may pinch with ease
+  One of these here carnation Pekinese.
+
+  "You see them nasty spikes on that there wall?
+    Climb it, and you shall find a little yard;
+  An unlatched casement leads you to a hall,
+    Thence to the crib where, odorous with nard,
+    Slumbers the petted plaything; 'twere not hard
+  Out of his cushioned ease (and gorged belike
+  With sweetmeats) to appropriate the tyke."
+
+  So, filled with high ambition and the hope
+    Of gaining huge emolument, this man
+  Hung to the toothed battlements a rope,
+    Climbed and leapt down to execute his plan--
+    But even as he leapt a noise began
+  As when the Arctic icebergs break and grind;
+  This was because his pants were caught behind.
+
+  Awhile they tore, then stayed. And helpless there
+    Betwixt the silvery moonlight and the ground
+  He hung convulsive, grasping at the air,
+    For two full hours it may be, whilst a hound
+    Of the Great Danish breed, that made no sound
+  Save a deep snarl, below him watching stood
+  (This portion of my dream was very good).
+
+  And much he vowed because of his great pain
+    That he was the most dashed of all dashed fools
+  And never would he steal a dog again,
+    No (strite!) he would not. He recalled the rules
+    That teachers taught him in the Sunday Schools
+  And thought on serious happenings and the grave;
+  And with dawn's earliest flush his trousers gave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  And having waited for a time I went
+    To see him in the hospital. And hours
+  Of earnest converse with the man I spent,
+    Told him of Nemesis and what dark powers
+    Punish our mortal crimes, and brought him flowers,
+  Dog-roses and dog-violets, and read
+  The Eighth Commandment out beside his bed.
+
+EVOE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Daily Telegraph_ on the next Drury Lane melodrama:--
+
+     "We are able to say on the very best authority that the idea at the
+     root of the story is of a quite unusual nature; indeed, if secrecy
+     were not for the moment imposed, one might even go a step further and
+     declare it to be of startling originality."
+
+As it is, one doesn't; for if once the secret got about that the play was
+to be original there would be riots in Fleet Street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Song, 'March of the Men of Garlick' (Tune, Welsh melody)."
+
+     _Ripon Observer._
+
+A pardonable mistake. The national emblem is of course the leek.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE WOOING.
+
+MISS ULSTER. "AN' WHAT'S THE GOOD OF HIM SENDIN' ME FLOWERS WHEN I'VE
+TOLD HIM 'NO' ALREADY?"
+
+MR. PUNCH. "WELL NOW, COME, MY DEAR--WON'T YOU JUST TAKE A GOOD LOOK
+AT THEM BEFORE YOU START TURNING UP YOUR PRETTY NOSE?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "A HOLLOW DEMONSTRATION."
+
+(_With acknowledgments to GILLRAY'S caricature of NAPOLEON as Gulliver
+among the Brobdingnagians._)
+
+     [Mr. D. M. MASON'S motion for the reduction of the Supplementary Navy
+     Estimates was defeated by 237 votes to 34.]]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+(EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.)
+
+_House of Commons, Monday, March 2._--In speech of flawless lucidity
+displaying perfect command of columnar figures upon which strength of
+British Navy is based, the WINSOME WINSTON moved Supplementary Estimates
+amounting to two and a-half millions. These raise total expenditure of year
+on the Navy to forty-eight millions. "A serious event," he admitted amid
+sympathetic cheers from below Gangway to his right. Necessity arises from
+increased expenditure on oil reserves; from demand for a quarter of a
+million for the new aircraft programme, an item unknown to OLD MORALITY or
+CHILDERS when successively at the Admiralty; from increment of wages and
+acceleration of ship-building.
+
+He might have mentioned that of grand total close upon two millions is
+legacy left by former Ministry on account of liabilities incurred before
+1905. Whilst present Government, austerely-minded, pay their way as they
+go, meeting increased expenditure out of revenue, PRINCE ARTHUR, with
+characteristically light heart, built ships and strengthened
+fortifications, raising the money by loan, which he gaily left to posterity
+to pay off. Posterity has this pleasant task in hand now, and will continue
+to be engaged upon it for next twenty years.
+
+WINSTON judiciously refrained from pressing the point. Had enough on his
+hands with discontented supporters below Gangway, who resent
+ever-increasing burden of Naval expenditure. RAMSAY MACDONALD lodged
+protest on behalf of Labour Members; stopped short of moving reduction of
+vote. This done by DAVID MASON of Coventry.
+
+"A hollow demonstration," was GILBERT PARKER'S terse description of the
+revolt. On a division Estimates were carried by a majority of 203. Only 34
+voted for reduction.
+
+Prolongation of debate plainly boring. By exception, one listener sat it
+out with unwearied attention. Nothing precisely cherubic in face or figure
+of Lord FISHER OF KILVERSTONE, better known on sea and land by the
+affectionate diminutive JACKY FISHER. Nevertheless, as he sat perched in
+Peers' Gallery immediately over the clock, a place ever associated with the
+genial presence of EDWARD PRINCE OF WALES, there flashed across the mind a
+familiar couplet sung by DIBDIN:--
+
+  "There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft
+  To keep watch for the life of poor Jack."
+
+[Illustration: JACK'S JACK.
+
+(Lord FISHER).]
+
+Whilst jealous for maintenance of Naval power, no Admiral or Sea Lord did
+more to improve conditions of life on the lower deck than did JACKY FISHER.
+Retired from active service, his multiform commissions under hatches,
+to-night his body has gone aloft to a seat in Peers' Gallery. There he
+heard expounded biggest Navy vote submitted since days of the "Great
+Harry." Exceptionally swollen by provision for reserves of oil fuel, a new
+departure, for which he in his capacity as Chairman of a Royal Commission
+has, as WINSTON testified, been chiefly responsible.
+
+_Business done._--Naval Estimates discussed.
+
+_Tuesday._--Another scene testifying to electricity of atmosphere. As
+usual, explosion from unexpected quarter. House in committee on Naval
+Estimates. Lord ROBERT CECIL, ever alert in interests of working-man with a
+vote, moved reduction in order to call attention to housing accommodation
+provided for men employed at Rosyth. Chairman ruled debate out of order on
+Supplementary Estimates. Lord BOB nevertheless managed to sum up purport of
+intended speech by denouncing state of things as "a scandal and disgrace to
+the Government." At this stage Opposition Whips, counting heads, discovered
+that, if not at the moment in actual minority, Government would, if
+division were rushed, find themselves in parlous state. The word--it was
+"Mum"--went round Opposition benches.
+
+Unfortunately for success of plot Ministerial Whips also alive to
+situation.
+
+"After your ruling, Sir," said Lord BOB with ominous politeness, "I cannot
+develop my argument, but I propose to persist in my motion, and will divide
+the Committee."
+
+Not if LEIF JONES knew it. For him, as for all good Ministerialists,
+subject suddenly developed interest, urgently demanded consideration. This
+he proposed to bestow upon it. A Bengal tiger about to lunch off a
+toothsome native, discovering the anticipated meal withdrawn from his
+reach, could not be more sublimely wrathful than were gentlemen on
+Opposition benches. And LEIF JONES, too! The mildest-mannered man that ever
+turned on a water-tap.
+
+After a moment of petrified pause, natural to Bengal tiger on discovering
+reality of his discomfiture, there burst forth roar of "'Vide! 'Vide!
+'Vide!" From appearance of LEIF JONES'S lips, he was continuing his
+remarks. Not a syllable rose above the storm. After it had raged for some
+moments CHAIRMAN pointed out that, whilst divigation in direction of Rosyth
+was out of order, it was competent to any Member to discuss the vote as a
+whole.
+
+This too much for A. S. WILSON, who has been surprisingly reticent since
+Session opened.
+
+"Is it right for the CHAIRMAN," he asked, "to protect the Government from
+what may be an inconvenient position?"
+
+"A grossly disorderly observation," the CHAIRMAN retorted.
+
+A. S. withdrew the remark, the more willingly since designed effect gained.
+
+COUSIN HUGH, for some time moving uneasily in corner seat below Gangway,
+bounded to his feet. Member near him simultaneously rose. With sweep of
+left arm, after manner of RICHARD III. directing the cutting off of the
+head of BUCKINGHAM, he waved the appalled Member down. Was getting on
+nicely with what he had to say when, like GRAND CROSS on historical
+occasion, he "heard a smile."
+
+It came from WINSTON.
+
+"I notice," said COUSIN HUGH glaring on the Treasury bench, "that the FIRST
+LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY, who is very ignorant on many matters, is amused at
+this observation."
+
+WINSTON explained that what he had laughed at was "the lordly gesture with
+which the noble Lord swept away another honourable gentleman."
+
+LEIF JONES, proposing to continue his remarks, presented himself again.
+Greeted with fresh yell of execration. Battled for some moments with the
+storm. Too much for him. Reached forth hand; seized imperceptible tankard
+of invisible stout; gratefully wetted his parched lips withal. Refreshed,
+he tried again; no articulate word dominated the din.
+
+After further ten minutes of uproar, through which from time to time A. S.
+WILSON tried to get in more or less relevant remark and was instantly
+extinguished by the CHAIRMAN, who masterfully managed difficult situation,
+WINSTON interposed. A bird of the air had brought news from Whips' Room
+that all was well. Accordingly the FIRST LORD graciously conceded division
+clamoured for.
+
+Its result profound surprise. So far from Government lacking support, the
+amendment was negatived by more than two to one. Majority rushed up to 140.
+
+Evidently been a mistake somewhere.
+
+_Business done._--Supplementary votes agreed to.
+
+_Thursday._--Dramatic turn in position of Home Rule Bill. PREMIER hitherto
+steadfast in deferring Second Reading till close of financial year. As
+result of confabulation between two Front Benches arranged that
+Supplementary Estimates shall be hurried up so as to make opening for
+immediate debate on Second Reading.
+
+Accordingly ST. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL to-day brought in Bill for First Reading.
+No need of persuasion of silver tongue to carry this stage. Proceeding
+purely formal. Fight opens on Monday, when PREMIER, moving Second Reading,
+will explain his "suggestions" of amendment.
+
+_Business done._--Home Rule brought in, being third time of asking. Welsh
+Church Disestablishment Bill and Plural Voting Bill also read amid
+vociferous cheering by Ministerialists.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "I understand you have only one Welsh saint. Well, there'll
+soon be another; it will be Saint Lloyd George. I would canonise him right
+away."--_The Rev. Dr. CLIFFORD at Westbourne Park Chapel._]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "His brilliant flashes of wit and humour evoked hearty applause, and
+     sometimes even laughter."--_Teesdale Mercury._
+
+Almost the last thing you would have expected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "One of the strongest traits in Mrs. Barclay's character is a love of
+     all creatures, great and small--thrushes, wagtails and robins come to
+     her when she calls, and she keeps a little box of worms to feed
+     them."--_Woman at Home._
+
+Sometimes the worms must wish she wasn't quite so loving.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE DOWNWARD TREND.
+
+    Come, Nora, Nance and Nellie,
+    Let us study BOTTICELLI
+  When we feel the gnawing craving to be smart;
+    If we want to be _de rigueur_
+    We must educate the figure
+  To show the downward trend of "plastic art."
+    The outline should be slack,
+    Slippy-sloppy, front and back,
+  Till bodice, skirt and tunic--every stitch--
+    Seems to call for the support
+    Of the handy-man's resort--
+  That naval gesture termed the "double hitch."
+    The shoulders must be drooping.
+    The knees a trifle stooping,
+  And the widest waist, remember, takes the prize;
+    When motoring or shopping
+    The _coatee_ must be flopping
+  Through a belt that's sagging downward to the thighs.
+    But the evening toilette scheme
+    Shows the opposite extreme,
+  And, when for dance or dinner you're equipped,
+    A clinging "mermaid's tail"
+    The nether limbs must veil,
+  While the corsage is the only part that's slipped.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "At the close of the match, Mr. Burnett, Kenmay, announced the result
+     and called for cheers for the winners. Mr. J. Fulton, President
+     English Province R.C.C.C., responded."--_Field._
+
+We are sorry that Mr. FULTON was the only one. After his opening
+"Hip--hip--hip" even the most timid or indifferent should have joined in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Tickets purchased before the date will admit holders at 2 p.m. to
+     view the machine used when 'looping the loop,' and the passenger
+     carrying machine."
+
+     _Advt. in "The Varsity."_
+
+At the risk of embarrassing this anonymous Samson we shall go early and
+view him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Councillor Johnson said the Bye Laws wore not in a satisfactory
+     state, and suggested that Councillor Bayman be added to the number."
+
+     _Mossel Bay Advertiser._
+
+Henceforward the penalty for breaking Councillor BAYMAN is forty shillings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Report received by a South African mine-manager:--
+
+     "The mule being experimented with by feeding on bad mealies is still
+     being carried out, but up to date the animal seems to keep in normal
+     condition."
+
+They must carry him out again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LANGUAGE A LA MODE.
+
+"WHAT DO YOU THINK? ISN'T IT _RATHER_ NICE?"
+
+"MY DEAR, HOW _UTTERLY SUCCULENT_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"THE TWO VIRTUES."
+
+The news, which ran like wildfire through the town on Wednesday morning,
+that Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER had signed the Covenant, must have stirred many
+hearts; but those of us who saw him on the next night as the hero of Mr.
+ALFRED SUTRO'S comedy are hoping that, at any rate, there will be no
+fighting on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and that sentry duty in the
+evenings may be performed by less valuable signatories. For in _Jeffery
+Panton_ he has really found a part to suit him, and a part which should
+keep him busy for some months. Comedy is certainly his medium.
+
+It is not, alas, Miss MARTHA HEDMAN'S, nor is English her language. Her
+pretty foreign accent and tearful manner became her as a French girl in
+_The Attack_, but it won't do for every part she plays. It didn't do in the
+least for _Mrs. Guildford_. The difficulty of understanding what she said
+was made greater by a surprising catarrh amongst the first-night audience,
+so that her scenes had a way of going like this:--
+
+_Jeffery Panton_ (_clearly_). But I must just talk to you a moment.
+
+_Stall on left._ Honk--honk! Honk! H'r'r'm!
+
+_Dress circle._ HONK! HONK!!
+
+_Mrs. Guildford._ No, no, I must get on with my work.
+
+_Stall just behind._ WHAT DID SHE SAY?
+
+_Her neighbour._ Something about her work.
+
+_Her other neighbour._ Honk--honk! H'r'm! Honk--honk!
+
+_Gallery boy._ HONK--HONK--HONK!
+
+_Several voices._ Sh'sh!
+
+_Mrs. Guildford._ No ... I ... you ...
+
+_Second gallery boy._ Stop that coughing there!
+
+_Injured voice._ _I_ can't 'elp coughing!
+
+_Several voices._ Sh'sh!
+
+But I'm afraid the coughing was not always the fault of the microbes but
+sometimes of Mr. SUTRO, who seemed to be exploiting a wonderful talent for
+starting his Acts dully. The opening scene of the Second Act, between _Mrs.
+Guildford_ and _Alice Exern_, was particularly tiresome. It went on a long
+time, and seemed when audible to be only a recapitulation of Act I. We
+simply had to cough.
+
+I have said nothing of the story, for the reason that a summary of it would
+hardly do it justice. It is slight, and yet just strong enough to carry two
+or three pleasant creations and much happy dialogue. The important thing is
+that Sir GEORGE is on the stage most of the time, has many delightful
+things to say, and says them delightfully. There are also Miss HENRIETTA
+WATSON, Miss ATHENE SEYLER, and Mr. HERBERT WARING, all excellent.
+
+It remains to be said that the Two Virtues are Chastity and Charity; that
+_Mrs. Guildford_ lacked (I think--but they were coughing a good deal just
+then) the first virtue, and the other ladies the second; and that the
+reclining chair in Act I. was kindly lent by--but the name of the generous
+fellow will be revealed to you in your programme when you go.
+
+M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "'Paphnutius' was given its first public performance in London
+     recently. Miss Ellen Terry appeared in it as an abbcess."
+
+     _Hong Kong Telegraph._
+
+Our impersonation of a nasty sore throat "off" is still the talk of China.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ONE WAY WITH THEM.
+
+Leeson is the best of living creatures (as so many of us are), but he has
+one detestable foible--he always wants to read something aloud. Now,
+reading aloud is a very special gift. Few men have it, and even of those
+few there are some who do not force it upon their friends; the rest have it
+not, and Leeson is of the rest.
+
+In fact, it is really painful to listen to him, because he not only reads,
+but acts. If it is a woman speaking, he pipes a falsetto such as no woman
+outside a reciter's brain ever possessed. If it is a rustic, he affects a
+dialect from no known district. In emotional passages one does not dare to
+look at him at all, but we all cower with our heads in our hands, as though
+we were convicted but penitent criminals. So much for dramatic or dialogue
+pieces. When it comes to lyric poetry--his favourite form of
+literature--Leeson sings, or rather cantillates, swaying his body to the
+rhythm of the lines. If any of the poets could hear him they would become
+'bus-conductors at once; it is as bad as that.
+
+Otherwise Leeson is excellent company and one likes dining with him. But
+there's always hanging over one the dread that he may have alighted on
+something new and wonderful, and at any moment....
+
+Directly I entered the house last week I was conscious that this had
+happened--Leeson had made another discovery. I had not been in the
+drawing-room for more than a minute, and had barely shaken hands with Mrs.
+Leeson, when he pulled from his pocket a thin book. I knew the worst at
+once: it had about it all the stigmata of new poetry. It was of the right
+deadly hue, the right deadly size, the right deadly roughness about the
+edges.
+
+"I've got something here, my boy," he said. "The real stuff. Let me----"
+
+Just at this moment the door opened and some guests entered.
+
+"Never mind," he remarked to me, as he approached to welcome them; "later.
+It's wonderful--wonderful!"
+
+Other guests arriving occupied him, and then a servant came in to say that
+he was wanted on the telephone.
+
+He returned with the message that Captain Cathcart was sorry to say he
+could not possibly be there until a quarter-past eight. But please don't
+wait.
+
+It was now five minutes past eight.
+
+"What I suggest," said Leeson, "is that we do wait, and that we fill up the
+time by reading one or two poems by a new man that I've just discovered?
+They're simply wonderful!"
+
+He drew out the book and we all composed ourselves to the ordeal; Mrs.
+Gaston, who is the insincerest creature on earth and has no thoughts beyond
+Auction Bridge, even going so far as to say, ecstatically, "A new poet! How
+heavenly!"
+
+But Mrs. Leeson stopped it. "Oh, no," she said, "don't let us wait. Very
+likely Captain Cathcart will be later still." And with a sigh of relief
+that was almost audible we marched down to dinner.
+
+I thought that Leeson cut the time over our cigars rather short, and we had
+no sooner returned to the drawing-room than he began again. "I won't keep
+you more than a few moments," he said, "but I very much want your opinion
+of a new poet I have discovered. I have his work here," and out came the
+deadly book, "and I want to read one or two brief things."
+
+"Oh, George, dear," said Mrs. Leeson, "do you mind postponing that for a
+little? Miss Langton is very kindly going to sing for us, and she has to
+leave early."
+
+Leeson accepted the situation with as much philosophy as he could muster.
+
+As a rule I am bored by amateur, or indeed any, singing after dinner, but I
+looked at Miss Langton with an expression which a Society paper reporter
+might easily have misconstrued.
+
+Long before she had finished we were all calling out, "Thank you! Thank
+you! Encore! Encore!"
+
+Leeson alone was faint in his praises and his face fell to a lower depth
+when she began again.
+
+No sooner had she finished and gone than he was planning another effort,
+but during the opportunity afforded by her departure we had, with great
+address, divided ourselves into such animated groups that Mrs. Leeson, like
+a tactful hostess, laid her hand on his arm and caused him again to
+postpone it.
+
+He wandered forlornly from chair to chair, seeking an opening, and at last
+ventured to clear his throat and again ask if we would like to hear his new
+poet. "I assure you he's wonderful!"
+
+But at this moment old Lady Thistlewood uttered a little cry and at once
+bells were rung for sal-volatile. Her ladyship, it seems, is subject to
+attacks of faintness.
+
+When next Leeson made his proposal the Buntons rose and, expressing every
+variety of sorrow and regret, stated that they had no idea it was so late
+and they must really tear themselves away; Mrs. Bunton tactfully taking
+down the title of this dear new poet's book and its publisher.
+
+This being the signal for the others to leave, I soon found myself alone.
+
+"Now!" said Leeson with a triumphant expression. "Thank goodness they're
+out of the way and we're quiet and snug. Now you shall hear my poet." He
+felt for the book. "I tell you----" He stopped in dismay.
+
+"I could have sworn it was in my pocket," he said, and began to hunt about
+the room.
+
+"Where on earth can it be?" he said.
+
+I helped him to look for it, but in vain.
+
+"Perhaps Mrs. Bunton took it?" I suggested.
+
+"I'm sure she didn't," he replied.
+
+"Perhaps Mrs. Leeson has it?" I said.
+
+But she had not. The last time she had seen it it was on the table after
+Mrs. Bunton copied the title.
+
+Leeson was so utterly dejected that I felt almost sorry for him.
+
+"Well," he said at last, "that's the strangest thing I ever heard of. What
+a disappointment! I did want you to hear it."
+
+But it was precisely because I didn't that in my own pocket was the
+volume's present hiding-place. When the front door had closed behind me
+half-an-hour later, I slipped it into the letter-box.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE FOX.
+
+  The birds see him first, jay and blackbird and thrush;
+    They shriek at his coming and curse him, each one;
+  With the clay of the vale on his pads and his brush,
+    It's the Fallowfield fox and he's pretty near done;
+  It's a couple of hours since a whip tally-ho'd him;
+  Now the rookery's stooping to mob and to goad him;
+  There's an earth on the hill, but he's cooked past believing,
+  And his tongue's hanging out and his wet ribs are heaving.
+  Here he comes up the field at a woebegone trot;
+    He's stiff as a poker, he's done all he knows;
+  Now the ploughmen'll view him as likely as not;
+    There--they run to the paling and yell as he goes:
+  Here's an end, if we live to be two minutes older;
+  See, he turns a glazed eye o'er a mud-spattered shoulder;
+  There's a hound through the hedgerow....
+  Game's up, and he's beaten,
+  And he faces about with a snarl to be eaten.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S GALLERY OF BRAVE DEEDS. No. 1.
+
+THE HERO WHO TOOK OUT A PARTY OF LADIES FERRETING.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE RING.
+
+KEEKS _v._ COCKLES.
+
+I.--OLD STYLE.
+
+_By Tony Shovell._
+
+The much-boomed fight between Nobby Keeks and Bill Cockles ended in
+something of a _fiasco_, the last named being knocked out with a terrific
+uppercut in the first round.
+
+The men stripped well, and appeared in excellent fettle. The fight
+commenced precisely at 11.22, only fifty-two minutes after the advertised
+time.
+
+_1st Round._--Both men opened warily, sparring for an opening. Presently
+Cockles stepped in and drove his left hard to the nose, drawing blood.
+Keeks drew back, and Cockles, following up his advantage, got in a
+nicely-judged left hook on the eye, which began to swell ominously. Though
+his supporters were obviously chagrined, Keeks kept his head admirably, and
+cleverly ducked under a right swing and clinched. At the breakaway Cockles
+got his left home on the ribs, but in doing so left himself open, and Keeks
+shook him up badly with a jab to the jaw. Cockles' hands dropped
+momentarily, and Keeks, whipping in a smashing right uppercut, had his man
+down and out.
+
+A poor struggle, lost solely through carelessness.
+
+
+II.--NEW STYLE.
+
+_By Philip Keppermann._
+
+At twenty-two and a-half minutes past eleven last night a man stood looking
+wistfully over a sea of faces looming whitely through a thin blue haze of
+tobacco smoke. At his feet lay stretched the limp body of his antagonist.
+The disappearance of one eye; under a large red swelling, combined with a
+patulous and rubescent nose, detracted to some extent from the dignity of
+his appearance. An ugly patch of crimson over his left ribs held the
+attention fantastically, morbidly. It was blood, human blood, his own
+blood. The thought fascinated me....
+
+Somewhere a voice was counting slowly, steadily,
+unhesitatingly--_one_--_two_--_three_.... The voice had in it the
+inexorable quality of Fate; it brought tears to the eyes like the wail of
+the Chorus in some Greek drama.
+
+I looked at the man by my side. His regard was fixed intently on the
+prostrate figure in the ring. His fingers played uneasily with his
+watch-chain. He wore evening dress, and I noticed that his tie was a little
+crooked.
+
+Away outside we caught the distant hoot of a motorcar. A dog barked. Then a
+woman in the audience sneezed; it seemed unwarrantable, impertinent, almost
+a desecration....
+
+The voice that was counting ceased. The limp figure did not move. The one
+wistful eye of the victor closed for a moment in relief. There was a sudden
+incursion of hurrying figures into the ring....
+
+The great fight was over. Nobby Keeks had beaten Bill Cockles.
+
+
+_By Theresa Chingles._
+
+I was one of forty-four women who witnessed the great battle last night.
+There were, it was said, over three thousand men.
+
+On my left sat a young girl in a rose-pink evening dress, with a
+dove-colour opera cloak covering her bare shoulders. Her eyes followed
+intently the struggling figures on the stage, and I observed that she wore
+an engagement ring with three diamonds.
+
+A few seats away, surrounded by a swarm of men in evening dress, sat a
+grey-haired woman, watching the fight with interest through a gold-rimmed
+lorgnette. Her eyes twinkled as heavy blows were delivered, and when one of
+the men began to bleed copiously from the nose, she uttered an exclamation
+of delight. She wore black.
+
+So far as I could observe, no woman present showed any sign of repulsion.
+It seemed to me significant of the times. I whispered to my neighbour, "_O
+tempora! O mores!_" but she replied coldly, "Not at all!" I checked my
+impulse to add "_Autres temps, autres moeurs!_"
+
+Of the actual fight I am not competent to speak. I was most interested in
+the referee, whose strong mobile face reminded me occasionally of Lord
+BYRON, at other times of Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL.
+
+
+_By the Rev. Robert Shackleberry._
+
+I had never seen a boxing contest before I was invited by the enterprising
+editor of _The Daily Gong_ to witness the encounter last night between
+"Nobby" Keeks and William Cockles.
+
+I found an excellent seat reserved for me. It was nearing midnight when the
+two men mounted the platform. Cockles came first, wearing a scarlet
+dressing-gown with yellow collar and cuffs. He seemed to me a bluff,
+hearty, good-tempered-looking man, though perhaps unduly prominent in the
+lower jaw. Keeks, who followed, wore a bright green dressing-gown with a
+pink sash, and shook hands with six or seven members of the audience. He
+was taller and heavier than his opponent, and his features, to my mind,
+more intelligent but less amiable.
+
+There was a long delay, during which I was given to understand that the
+men's hands were being bandaged for some reason. At length the swarm of
+seconds and advisers disappeared to the sound of a gong, and the combatants
+stood up and advanced upon one another. I was embarrassed to observe that
+they were nearly nude, but my embarrassment did not seem to be shared by
+any of the ladies present, so perhaps I have no right to complain.
+
+The actual boxing did not last nearly so long as the preliminaries. This
+was perhaps just as well, since Keeks, afterwards announced the victor,
+unfortunately sustained considerable damage to his right eye and was also
+losing blood from his nose--nasty injuries which, in my opinion, should
+have led to the competition being stopped while he received medical
+attention. No doubt the injuries were undesigned.
+
+Cockles soon afterwards fell down, and refused to rise while some
+individual slowly counted ten. This, I was told, indicated that he was
+desirous of withdrawing from the contest before his antagonist sustained
+any further damage. In my judgment this generosity merited the award of
+victory; but no doubt the authorities know their business.
+
+I was glad to have an opportunity of gaining a new experience, but on the
+whole I must say I prefer a quiet rubber of whist.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE OPPORTUNIST.
+
+The personal distinctions, experiences, successes, opinions, anecdotes and
+statistics of Dr. Peterson, F.R.C.S., M.R.C.P., are too many for me to
+mention here, but are never too many for him to mention anywhere. That was
+the difficulty with which the Governors of the St. Barnabas Throat and Ear
+Hospital were confronted from the beginning to the end of their business of
+administration. As member of their honorary staff he performed his fair
+share of successful operations, but when it came to speech-making he had no
+consideration either for his own throat or for anybody else's ears.
+
+"It's my belief," said the Chairman, at the special meeting of the Board
+called to arrange the programme for the opening of the new wing, "that the
+whole of this project originated in Peterson's desire to make himself
+heard."
+
+"I certainly remember his introducing the matter to the Board," said
+Thompson, "with a brief sketch of his own career."
+
+"And if the foundation stone could only speak," said Vernon-White, "it
+probably wouldn't be able to recall the name of the man who laid it, but
+would repeat from memory the whole of Peterson's private history."
+
+"Proposed, seconded and carried unanimously," reported the Secretary, "that
+at the opening of the new wing no speech be made by Dr. Peterson."
+
+"So much for our resolution," said Bainbridge. "Nevertheless the company
+will have barely got seated before it hears Peterson wondering whether he
+may occupy a moment of their valuable time with a little experience which
+happened to him the other day."
+
+"Even he will give way to Sir Thingummy," said Thompson, referring to the
+great man who had been invited to make the great speech.
+
+Bainbridge was always a pessimist. "Whether," he said, "the context be the
+opening of the new wing or the duty of gratitude to the man that opened it,
+the one subject the meeting will hear all about will be the son of Peter."
+
+"Proposed, seconded and carried unanimously," reported the Secretary, "that
+the vote of thanks to Sir Frederick Gorton be moved by the Chairman."
+
+"I see myself," said the Chairman, "resuming my seat after a few moments of
+inaudible confusion, and I hear a ringing voice crying forth: 'In rising on
+behalf of the Medical and Surgical Staff to propose a vote of thanks to our
+dear Chairman, I may perhaps be permitted to remind you that I joined that
+staff in 1887, and that since I----?'"
+
+"Who's the senior member of the staff?" asked the Chairman.
+
+"Peterson," said Bainbridge.
+
+"Who's the oldest in mere age?"
+
+"Peterson."
+
+The Chairman thought hard. "The event is fixed for April 29th," said he.
+"Whose week on duty is that?"
+
+The Secretary looked up the books. His face fell. "Peterson's," he said.
+
+"Proposed, seconded and carried unanimously," said the Chairman hurriedly,
+without troubling to take the vote, "that Dr. Wilkes be appointed tomorrow
+the vote of thanks to the Chairman, and that the Secretary be instructed to
+explain the matter, with due tact and circumspection, to Dr. Peterson."
+
+"Dear Peterson," wrote the Secretary,--"At the ceremony of the opening of
+the new wing, my Board is particularly anxious that everything should go
+with a swing, and that there shall be no possibility of any hitch. I am
+instructed to ask you if you will be so good as to hold yourself in
+readiness to make the big technical speech of the day in the unhappy event
+of Sir Frederick Gorton failing to turn up. One is never safe with these
+London men, and it is for that reason that the Board hopes you will not
+mind putting yourself to trouble which may prove wasted. Some of the less
+eloquent members of the Staff can be got to make the short formal
+speeches."
+
+Sir Frederick turned up all right, as the Secretary had taken care that he
+should, and declared the wing open, and thanked the Board for asking him.
+Thereupon the Board, by its Chairman, thanked him, and he rose again and
+very briefly thanked the Board for thanking him. Then Dr. Wilkes got up and
+thanked the Chairman even more briefly still, and the Chairman got up again
+and thanked Dr. Wilkes for thanking him. In fact, only one man didn't get
+his share of formal gratitude, for no one thanked Dr. Peterson for rising
+(if he might) to express a few words of thanks to Dr. Wilkes.
+
+Anticipating this possibility, Dr. Peterson devoted the larger part of his
+speech to thanking himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Grannie._ "AND WIT'S THE MATTER WI' ME RIGHT LEG, DOCTOR?"
+
+_Doctor._ "OH, JUST OLD AGE, MRS. MACDOUGALL."
+
+_Grannie._ "HOOTS, MAN; YE'RE HAVERIN'. THE LEFT LEG'S HALE AND SOOND, AND
+THEY'RE _BAITH_ THE SAME AGE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+To read _An Englishman Looks at the World_ (CASSELL), a collection of
+"unrestrained remarks on contemporary matters"--aeroplanes, CHESTERTON and
+BELLOC, libraries, labour unrest, the Great State, and the like--by Mr. H.
+G. WELLS, is to be delighted or infuriated according to your natural habit
+of mind. If established in tolerable comfort in a world which you judge,
+for all its blemishes, to be on the whole rather well run, you will resent
+exceedingly this pert young man (for Mr. WELLS is still astonishingly
+young) with his preposterous eagerness, his insane passion for questioning
+and tinkering and most unfairly putting you and your kind in the wrong. You
+will no doubt find excellent grounds for doubting his ability to
+reconstruct; for suspecting what you will feel to be his pretentious
+breadth of view, his assumed omniscience. But if, on the other hand,
+thinking life in your sombre moments a nightmare of imbecility and in your
+more expansive moments a high adventure of immeasurable possibilities, you
+are straitened between cold despairs and immense hopes, you will readily
+forgive this irreverent, self-confident critic-journalist any crude things
+he may have said in his haste for sake of his flashes of perception, his
+happily descriptive phrases, his inspiring anticipations, his uncalculating
+candour, and above all his generous preoccupation with things that matter
+enormously. "What we prosperous people who have nearly all the good things
+of life and most of the opportunities have to do now is to justify
+ourselves." That is a sentiment and a challenge repeated or implied
+throughout the book. This Englishman looking at his world looks with quick
+eyes. He is himself so intensely interested that he can only fail to
+interest such as find his whole attitude an outrage upon their finally
+adopted convictions and conventions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Have you noticed the way in which certain stories bear the mark of a
+particular place or period? If ever there was a novel that vociferated
+"Cambridge" in every line, _The Making of a Bigot_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON)
+is that one. Well indeed may its paper wrapper display a drawing of King's
+Chapel, though as a matter of fact only the action of the first chapter
+passes in the University town. Miss ROSE MACAULAY has based her story upon
+a quaintly attractive theme. Her hero, _Eddy Oliver_, is a type new to
+fiction. _Eddy_ saw good in everything to such an extent that he allowed
+himself to be persuaded into active sympathy with the aims of practically
+everyone who was aiming at anything, however mutually irreconcilable the
+aims might be. "He went along with all points of view so long as they were
+positive; as soon as condemnation or rejection came in, he broke off."
+Consequently, as you may imagine, his career was pleasantly involved. It
+embraced the Church, various forms of Socialism, and at one time and
+another some devotion to the ideals of Nationalism, Disarmament, Imperial
+Service and the Primrose League. But please don't imagine that all this is
+told in a spirit of comedy. Miss MACAULAY is, if anything, almost too dry
+and serious; this, and her disproportionate affection for the word
+"rather," a little impaired my own enjoyment of the book. It contains some
+happily sketched types of modernity--all of them Cambridge to the
+back-bone; and _Eddy's_ final discovery (which makes the bigot), that one
+can't achieve anything in life without some wholesale hatreds, is genuine
+enough--more so than the system of card-cutting by which he settles his
+convictions. Miss MACAULAY has already, I am told, won a thousand pounds
+with a previous book; this one proves her the possessor of a gift of
+originality that is both rare and refreshing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I could imagine a novel with which I could sympathise deeply, based upon
+the theme of England's regeneration by means of the right type of Tory
+squire, but it would be a novel with a more credible hero and conceived in
+a less petty spirit of party bias than Mr. H. N. DICKINSON has given us in
+_The Business of a Gentleman_ (HEINEMANN). For, in the first place, _Sir
+Robert Wilton_, who figured of course in _Keddy_ and _Sir Guy and Lady
+Rannard_--he has, in fact, by this time married _Marion_, late _Sir Guy's_
+widow--is far too jumpy and nervy a person to fit my ideal of a paternal
+landlord, and what is, after all, more important, I feel convinced that his
+tenants and stable-lads would have thought the same. Secondly, I refuse to
+believe that a spinster, however soured, however much devoted to the cause
+of Labour and misguided crusades for social purity, would have behaved as
+_Miss Baker_ does in this book; and deliberately attempted to father a
+false scandal on _Sir Robert_ merely because she hated his type. And if the
+author replies that he knows of such an instance I maintain that it was
+just one of those things which the art of selection should have prompted
+him to leave out. I have, of course, no fault to find with Mr. DICKINSON'S
+style, which as usual is curiously simple yet at the same time attractive,
+nor with his powers of character-sketching. His schoolboy of seventeen,
+_Eddie Durwold_, is in this book particularly good. It is the things that
+these people do that bothers me. And if I might venture to rename _The
+Business of a Gentleman_ the title I should choose is "The Escapade of an
+Egoist."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. SIDNEY LOW has paid some visits to Egypt and the Sudan, has kept his
+eyes very wide open and has written _Egypt in Transition_ (SMITH, ELDER) in
+consequence. The Earl of CROMER, who has also been there or thereabouts,
+introduces the book to the notice of the public with an appreciative
+preface. Am I then in a position to pass judgment? Yes, I am; for I can
+claim to be literally more informed on the subject than most people, having
+above my share of friends and relations who have been there. I have the
+clearest possible picture of the country--a stretch of sand, some pyramids
+in the background, and, in the centre foreground, smiling
+enigmatically--not the Sphinx, but my friend or relation. I at once gave
+Mr. LOW five marks out of ten upon discovering that none of his
+illustrations reproduced himself on either on or off a camel. On less
+personal grounds, I have no scruple in giving him the remaining five for
+the vastly interesting facts, political, international, social and racial,
+with which he entertained me. It requires no small skill in a dispenser of
+such facts to make them entertaining. Twice only was I minded to quarrel
+with him; once when he expressed a general contempt, based upon one
+egregious example, for the foreign exports of Oxford and Cambridge, and
+again when he got on to the subject of tourists, who include my nearest and
+dearest, and abused them from the standpoint of a "visitor." In the first
+case he was absurd, in the second, common-place; but he made ample
+compensation for both by his memorable chapter of "Conclusions," in which
+he gave me clearly to understand why East, being East, will never be joined
+to West, always West, but yet how the twain have got within measurable
+distance of one another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There must have been moments when NAPOLEON found St. Helena a little quiet
+for a man of his temperament; when the monotony of his life there pressed
+somewhat hardly upon him. On these occasions I like to think of him saying
+philosophically to himself, as he remembered what Mr. RUDOLF PICKTHALL
+calls "the last phase but two," "Well, after all, this isn't Elba. I've got
+that much to be thankful for." In _The Comic Kingdom_ (LANE) Mr. PICKTHALL
+shows how everybody on the island struggles to make a bit out of their
+visitors. Little children rallied round with posies of wild flowers,
+demanding large sums in payment. Bogus monks waved crosses at him, and, if
+he pretended not to notice them, rolled in the dust under his carriage
+wheels. There was never a moment when somebody was not calling with a bust
+of the Emperor or Empress, price three hundred francs. And itinerant bands
+played under his windows into the small hours of the morning. I can imagine
+him saying, in the words of ORESTES, "Dis is a dam country." ORESTES was
+the guide who conducted Mr. PICKTHALL through the island. It revolted him,
+but he did it. "I tink we better leave to-morrow," was a sort of refrain
+with ORESTES. He had a poor opinion of Elba, which I for one do not share.
+After reading _The Comic Kingdom_ I feel that one of my coming holidays
+must be spent climbing its hills and supplying its thirsty inhabitants with
+wine. The scenery is apparently worth while, and the natives appear a
+friendly lot. I like their enthusiasm for literature. They turned out in
+their hundreds and insisted on Mr. PICKTHALL'S standing treat, just because
+they mistook him for a great historian. When I tell them I write for
+_Punch_ they will be all over me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A WORLD'S WORKER.
+
+LADY OF TITLE TAKING LESSONS IN BUILDING-CONSTRUCTION PRIOR TO PERFORMING
+THE CEREMONY OF LAYING A FOUNDATION-STONE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a notice of "The New Standard Dictionary" in _The London Teacher_:--
+
+     "The Dictionary is arranged in alphabetical order, thus being a great
+     time saver, and one can find what is required with the greatest ease."
+
+Otherwise it is so awkward, when you want to know how to spell "parallel"
+in a hurry, to have to go through one volume after another until you come
+to it.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   Changed "there" to "three" in the second to last paragraph
+   of "At the play" on page 195.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+146, MARCH 11, 1914***
+
+
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