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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+April 22, 1914, by Various, Edited by Owen Seaman
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: December 11, 2007  [eBook #23815]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 146, APRIL 22, 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 23815-h.htm or 23815-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/8/1/23815/23815-h/23815-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/8/1/23815/23815-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+VOL. 146
+
+APRIL 22, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+Says _The Times_:--"It used to be a tradition of British Liberal
+statesmanship to support, without prospect of immediate advantage, the
+cause of nationality and freedom abroad.... It would at least be showing
+some interest to send a minister to Durazzo." Here, perhaps, is a post for
+poor Mr. MASTERMAN.
+
+       * * *
+
+_The Kerry News_ states that it prefers pigs to Englishmen. This seems a
+queer--almost an ungracious--way of expressing its desire for a Home Rule
+Government.
+
+       * * *
+
+Oil has been discovered in Somaliland, and it is rumoured that the
+Government is at last about to realise that its obligations to our
+friendlies demand a forward move against the MULLAH.
+
+       * * *
+
+Futurism is apparently spreading to the animal world. The following
+advertisement appeared in a recent issue of _Lloyd's_:--
+
+"DYER--Fancy Color Dyer for Ostrich required."
+
+       * * *
+
+There is a dispute, we see, as to who invented Revues. But, even if the
+responsibility be fixed, the guilty party, we have no doubt, will go
+scot-free.
+
+       * * *
+
+The inhabitants of Bugsworth in Derbyshire, are, _The Mail_ tells us,
+dissatisfied with the name of their village. A former parish councillor has
+suggested that it shall be changed to Buxworth, on the ground that it was
+once a great hunting centre, and took its name from the buck, which used to
+be found in great numbers there. The present name has also a distinct
+suggestion of the chase about it.
+
+       * * *
+
+Extract, from a speech by Colonel SEELY on the recent Army crisis:--"The
+only difference is that I am L5,000 a year poorer.... I am not less Liberal
+but more Liberal after what has happened." To be more liberal after
+suffering financially does the ex-War Minister credit.
+
+       * * *
+
+The fees charged by beauty doctors are tending to become more exorbitant
+than ever. To have his eyes darkened, Mr. GEORGE MITCHELL, of Bolton, had
+to pay M. CARPENTIER, of Paris, no less than L100.
+
+       * * *
+
+Old horse tramway-cars are being offered by the London County Council for
+sale at from L3 to L5 each. They are suitable for transformation into
+bungalows, tool-sheds, sanatoria and the like.
+
+       * * *
+
+Last week, at Bristol, eleven brothers named HUNT, of Pucklechurch, played
+a football match against a team composed of the MILLER family, of
+Brislington. We are always pleased to see these practical object-lessons in
+the advantage of having large families--a custom which is in danger of
+falling into desuetude.
+
+       * * *
+
+"The Liberal Party, the Tory Party, and the House of Lords are nothing
+against the united intelligence of democracy," said Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD at
+a meeting to celebrate the "coming of age" of the Independent Labour Party.
+We are of the opinion that Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD should know better than to
+impose upon youth like that. _Maxima debetur pueris reverentia._
+
+       * * *
+
+According to _The Evening News'_ critique of the exhibition of the
+International Society:--"Two statues by Rodin dominate the gallery. One,
+'Benediction,' is in his early manner, but by Lord Howard de Walden." We
+suspect that there was division of labour here. RODIN sculped it (in his
+early manner) and Lord HOWARD DE WALDEN said, "Bless you" (probably in his
+later manner).
+
+       * * *
+
+New York Suffragettes have been discussing the question, "Ought women to
+propose?" and one of them has stated, "I am seriously thinking of proposing
+to a man"--and now, we suspect, she is wondering why her male acquaintances
+are shy about stopping to talk to her. We ought to add that her name, as
+reported, is Miss BONNIE GINGER.
+
+       * * *
+
+We hear that, as a result of a contemporary drawing attention to Chicago's
+leniency towards women murderers, ladies whose hobby is homicide are now
+flocking to that city and it is becoming uncomfortably overcrowded.
+
+       * * *
+
+"Frau Krupp von Bohlen," we are told, "is the largest payer of war tax in
+Germany. Her contribution amounts to L440,000." We have a sort of idea,
+however, that she gets some of this back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Younger Brother_ (_in an awestruck whisper_). "SAY,
+'ORACE, ARE YOU _SURE_ WE'RE RIGHT FOR THE GALLERY? THERE'S A GENT BEHIND
+WIV SPATS ON!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Sir John Collie ridiculed the present system by which 22,000 doctors
+     depend for an income on their capacity to please their
+     parents."--_Labour Leader._
+
+And not only doctors. The Temple is full of people in the same ridiculous
+position.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Mathilde explained (her name, of course, was Mathilde really but
+     peasants in Normandy, and for that matter all over France, are
+     curiously inaccurate with names, and often misplace letters in this
+     manner)."
+
+     _"Evening News" Feuilleton._
+
+The printer of the above must be careful when he crosses the Channel, or he
+may pick up this bad habit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Tonight and tomorrow they will play a matched game of 1,500
+     points--750 each night. A local billiard enthusiast has offered $100
+     to either of the players who scores a 00 break or better. This to the
+     average billiard player seems a tremendous break."
+
+     _Vancouver Daily Paper._
+
+But not to us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+POLITICS ON THE LINKS.
+
+I put down my morning paper as I left the train for the golf club. It
+contained the interesting news that the Parliamentary Golf Handicap had
+been postponed lest fiery politicians should run amok with their clubs. I
+sighed, for the spectacle of BONAR v. BOGEY (The CHANCELLOR) would have
+beaten the MITCHELL-CARPENTIER fight. Then it came home to me that I, a
+golfer, a citizen, a voter, was taking no part in the great political
+struggle of the day. I had not even declined to deal with my butcher
+because he was a Conservative, or closed my wife's draper's account because
+he was a Liberal. It is a curious fact, worthy the serious attention of
+political philosophers, that butchers are always Conservative and drapers
+always Liberal.
+
+I reached the club-house, and the first man I saw was Redford. Now Redford
+is a scratch player and a vice-president of a Liberal Association. He has a
+portrait of LLOYD GEORGE in his dining-room.
+
+"Play you a round, old man, and give you ten," he said cheerfully.
+
+I had to do something for my country. "Never," I replied sternly. "I do not
+play with homicides."
+
+"What are you talking about?" asked Redford, who is an estate agent when he
+isn't golfing.
+
+"I merely say," I replied, "that I will play with no man who deliberately
+connives at the slaughter of his fellow-citizens. Every Liberal vote is a
+vote for civil war."
+
+"Man, this is a golf links, not Hyde Park."
+
+"I regret the course I have to take, but my conscience is imperative. Away!
+your clubs are blood-stained."
+
+Redford shrugged his shoulders and went off to get the professional to go
+round with him.
+
+The next man to drop in was Pobson. He is a Grand Knight Imperial (or
+something similar) of the Primrose League, and makes speeches between the
+ventriloquist and the step-dancer at their meetings. He has signed the
+Covenant, and reads every column Mr. GARVIN writes. In fact, I attribute it
+entirely to Mr. GARVIN'S effect on the nerves that his handicap has been
+increased from plus two to scratch.
+
+"Want a round? Give you eight strokes," he began.
+
+"No, Sir; not with a man, who tampers with the Army."
+
+"You're either mad," said Pobson, "or else you've been reading _The Daily
+News_."
+
+I will say this for Pobson--he seemed inclined to believe in my madness as
+the more credible alternative.
+
+"Enough of this. Do you think I will be seen playing with a man who ruins
+our noble Army to gratify petty political spite? Every Conservative vote
+means an Army mutineer."
+
+"Mad," said Pobson, still charitable, as he left me.
+
+Then there entered a dear old stranger and my heart opened to him at once.
+
+"I don't know whether you're waiting for a game, Sir," he began.
+
+"Certainly," I said. "I'm an awfully rotten player. Ashamed to mention my
+handicap."
+
+"Can't be worse than I am, Sir. There'll be a pair of us. What shall we
+play for? I like to have something on it."
+
+"What you like," I replied. "Box of balls if you wish."
+
+"Right."
+
+And away we went. I beat him by eight up and seven to play and was marching
+triumphantly up to the club-house when Redford intercepted me.
+
+"What's your game?" he said. "You wouldn't play with me and now you've
+played a round with our Candidate."
+
+"Redford," I said, "when that dear old gentleman came along I felt that I
+had acted improperly in introducing political acerbity on the links. I was
+wrong, and as a proof of it I am willing to play level with any politician
+in the club for the same stakes--providing that his handicap is over
+twenty."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_PEREANT QUI ANTE NOS...._"
+
+     ["Before the Love of Letters, overdone,
+     Had swamped the sacred poets with themselves."--TENNYSON.]
+
+  "The poets of an older time,"
+    Grumbled ROSSETTI JONES one day,
+  "Have used up every blessed rhyme
+  And collared every thought sublime,
+    Leaving us nothing new to say.
+
+  "They've sung the Game of War as played
+    By gods and men, heroic peers;
+  They've sung the love of man and maid,
+  To Life their laughing tribute paid,
+    Nor grudged grim Death his toll of tears.
+
+  "What _can_ a modern poet sing,
+    Describe, imagine or invent?
+  They've been before, they've tapped the spring,
+  They've laid their hands on everything,
+    Staked out the spacious firmament.
+
+  "Last week, a line that did me proud
+    Flashed on me, strolling down the Strand:--
+  'I wandered lonely as a cloud;'
+  Then conscience suddenly avowed
+    The simile was second-hand.
+
+  "Take birds, for instance. No remark
+    Of mine on birds could but be stale;
+  SHELLEY and WORDSWORTH own the lark
+  (Which SHAKSPEARE too had bid us hark),
+    While KEATS has bagged the nightingale.
+
+  "With rose and lily surfeited,
+    BURNS sang the daisy. Here's a fraud
+  Of TENNYSON'S: _I_ might have said
+  How daisies crimson 'neath the tread
+    Of more attractive girls than _Maud_!
+
+  "You think you've something up to date?
+    You'll find it's been already done;
+  I'd like to clean the blooming slate;
+  Their footprints I'd obliterate;
+    I want my corner in the sun."
+
+  He ceased. "Yet your revenge," I said,
+    Taking a classic from his shelves,
+  "Is ample, surely"; there I read
+  How moderns vex the sacred dead,
+    Swamping old poets with themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CAUTIOUS CONCLUSIONS.
+
+(_By a Westministering Angel._)
+
+     ["Looking back at what has been achieved, we can gain fresh courage
+     for the perplexities of the moment, in the sure and certain hope that
+     with energy and goodwill the task of social amelioration will be
+     safely accomplished, if never finished."
+
+     _"Westminster-Gazette" leading article._]
+
+While then we admit that President WILSON'S technical violation of his
+policy of non-intervention is fraught with possibilities of difficulty if
+not of actual danger for the United States, we can at least fortify
+ourselves with the reassuring consolation that, where righteous intentions
+are backed by a strong arm, the odds are generally in favour of their
+prevailing, even though they may never be victorious.
+
+The prospects of a pacific solution of the Ulster problem, though they have
+not visibly improved in the last week, at least cannot be said to have
+substantially altered for the worse. But the atmosphere, though no longer
+electric, is not yet unclouded. All that can be safely said is that, if
+only the Government continue to play the game with the same forbearance,
+tenacity, and transparent honesty that they have shown in the past, the
+gulf that yawns between the extremists on either side must one day be
+filled up, though never bridged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A PENULTIMATUM.
+
+PRESIDENT HUERTA. "AMERICAN FLEET TO VISIT ME AND EXCHANGE COMPLIMENTS?
+WELL, IT'S NICE TO BE 'RECOGNISED,' ANYHOW."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As we reflect on the happenings of the last year, we cannot but be sensible
+of a salutary _detente_ in the relations of Germany and Great Britain. That
+this should lead to a closer understanding, and ultimately to an alliance,
+between the two Powers must be the heartfelt prayer of every patriotic
+Liberal. But good wishes are seldom operative unless they are backed by
+action. It is the duty of every lover of his country to labour
+unremittingly to promote this object, and at the same time to resign
+himself to the conviction that he may not live to see his aim realised,
+though his descendants may witness its translation into actuality, even if
+its consummation is indefinitely postponed.
+
+The vagaries of feminine fashion are undoubtedly a source of misgiving and
+disquietude to those, like ourselves, who favour the extension of civil
+rights to women. But, amid all the evidences of frivolity and extravagance
+which pain the judicious, we need never relinquish the hope that, once the
+pendulum swings backwards into the direction of sanity, its retrogression
+will probably be beneficial, even though we cannot pronounce it
+satisfactory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL SPRING BLOSSOMS IN OUR GARDEN SUBURB.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PRESIDENT HUERTA: "Morituri te salutamus? I _don't_ think."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EASY FRUIT.
+
+He got in at Peterborough; I spotted him at once by the way he talked to
+the porter.
+
+He sat down heavily and looked round the carriage for victims. I was
+doomed. The only other passenger in it had been asleep since Grantham.
+
+I snatched up my paper and buried my head in it and shut my eyes. Ten
+seconds elapsed.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Sir----"
+
+"Not at all," I said gruffly.
+
+"But your paper's upside down."
+
+"Yes. I always read papers upside down. I'm ambidextrous."
+
+Ten seconds more silence.
+
+"What do you think of this weather we're having?"
+
+"Nothing," I said curtly. I gave up the paper in despair and looked hard
+out of the window. I knew the man was staring at me and compassing a new
+attack.
+
+He leant over at last.
+
+"Now, what are your views on Ulster?"
+
+I couldn't say "Nothing" again; but, even so, I retained some presence of
+mind.
+
+"I am a convinced Home Ruler, and I never argue," I snapped.
+
+"I happen to have gone into the question pretty thoroughly," he began.
+
+About ten minutes later he stopped talking and looked at me triumphantly.
+
+"Now, what answer have you to that?" he said.
+
+"None," I admitted.
+
+"But you said----"
+
+"I'm a convinced Anti-Home Ruler."
+
+"But just now you said----"
+
+"I know. But you've convinced me."
+
+He snorted violently and relapsed into a moody silence until the other man
+awoke at Finsbury Park.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Vicar of St. John's, Carlisle (_The Carlisle Journal_ tells us), in
+moving the adoption of the past year's accounts, said:--
+
+     "About L9 was saved through not paying the choir-boys, and the result
+     had been most satisfactory."
+
+The note of satisfaction in the choir-boys' voices is said to be very
+touching.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SLUGGARD.
+
+My Uncle James, whose memoirs I am now preparing for publication, was a
+many-sided man; but his chief characteristic, I am inclined to think, was
+the indomitable resolution with which, disregarding hints, entreaties and
+even direct abuse, he would lie in bed of a morning. I have seen the
+domestic staff of his hostess day after day manoeuvring restlessly in the
+passage outside his room, doing all those things which women do who wish to
+rout a man out of bed without moving Uncle James an inch. Footsteps might
+patter outside his door; voices might call one to the other; knuckles might
+rap the panels; relays of shaving-water might be dumped on his wash-stand;
+but devil a bit would Uncle James budge, till finally the enemy, giving in,
+would bring him his breakfast in bed. Then, after a leisurely cigar, he
+would at last rise and, having dressed himself with care, come downstairs
+and be the ray of sunshine about the home.
+
+For many years I was accustomed to look on Uncle James as a mere sluggard.
+I pictured ants raising their antennae scornfully at the sight of him. I
+was to learn that not sloth but a deep purpose dictated his movements, or
+his lack of movement.
+
+"My boy," said Uncle James, "more evil is wrought by early rising than by
+want of thought. Happy homes are broken up by it. Why do men leave charming
+wives and run away with quite unattractive adventuresses? Because good
+women always get up early. Bad women, on the other hand, invariably rise
+late. To prize a man out of bed at some absurd hour like nine-thirty is to
+court disaster. To take my own case, when I first wake in the morning my
+mind is one welter of unkindly thoughts. I think of all the men who owe me
+money, and hate them. I review the regiment of women who have refused to
+marry me, and loathe them. I meditate on my faithful dog, Ponto, and wish
+that I had kicked him overnight. To introduce me to the human race at that
+moment would be to let loose a scourge upon society. But what a difference
+after I have lain in bed looking at the ceiling for an hour or so. The milk
+of human kindness comes surging back into me like a tidal wave. I love my
+species. Give me a bit of breakfast then, and let me enjoy a quiet
+meditative smoke, and I am a pleasure to all with whom I come in contact."
+
+He settled himself more comfortably upon the pillows and listened
+luxuriously for a moment to the sound of rushing housemaids in the passage.
+
+"Late rising saved my life once," he said. "Pass me my tobacco pouch."
+
+He lit his pipe and expelled a cloud of smoke.
+
+"It was when I was in South America. There was the usual revolution in the
+Republic which I had visited in my search for concessions, and, after due
+consideration, I threw in my lot with the revolutionary party. It is
+usually a sound move, for on these occasions the revolutionists have
+generally corrupted the standing army, and they win before the other side
+has time to re-corrupt it at a higher figure. In South America, thrice
+armed is he who has his quarrel just, but six times he who gets his bribe
+in fust. On the occasion of which I speak, however, a hitch was caused by
+the fact of another party revolting against the revolutionists while they
+were revolting against the revolutionary party which had just upset the
+existing Government. Everything is very complicated in those parts. You
+will remember that the Tango came from there.
+
+"Well, the long and the short of it was that I was captured and condemned
+to be shot. I need not go into my emotions at the time. Suffice it to say
+that I was led out and placed with my back against an adobe wall. The
+firing-party raised their rifles.
+
+"It was a glorious morning. The sun was high in a cloudless sky. Everywhere
+sounded the gay rattle of the rattle-snake and the mellow chirrup of the
+hydrophobia-skunk and the gila monster. It vexed me to think that I was so
+soon to leave so peaceful a scene.
+
+"And then suddenly it flashed upon me that there had been a serious
+mistake.
+
+"'Wait!' I called.
+
+"'What's the matter now?' asked the leader of the firing squad.
+
+"'Matter?' I said. 'Look at the sun. The court-martial distinctly said that
+I was to be shot at sunrise. Do you call this sunrise? It must be nearly
+lunch-time.'
+
+"'It's not our fault,' said the firing-party. 'We came to your cell all
+right, but you wouldn't get up. You told us to leave it on the mat.'
+
+"I did remember then having heard someone fussing about outside my cell
+door.
+
+"'That's neither here nor there,' I said firmly. 'It was your business to
+shoot me at sunrise, and you haven't done it. I claim a re-trial on a
+technicality.'
+
+"Well, they stormed and blustered, but I was adamant; and in the end they
+had to take me back to my cell to be tried again. I was condemned to be
+shot at sunrise next morning, and they went to the trouble of giving me an
+alarm clock and setting it for 3 A.M.
+
+"But at about eleven o'clock that night there was another revolution. Some
+revolutionaries revolted against the revolutionaries who had revolted
+against the revolutionaries who had revolted against the Government, and,
+having re-re-corrupted the standing army, they swept all before them, and
+at about midnight I was set free. I recall that the new President kissed me
+on both cheeks and called me the saviour of his country. Poor fellow, there
+was another revolution next day, and, being a confirmed early riser, he got
+up in time to be shot at sunrise."
+
+Uncle James sighed, possibly with regret, but more probably with happiness,
+for at this moment they brought in his breakfast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pavement Artist_ (_who has not yet recovered the nerve
+which he lost on hearing of the attack upon the VELASQUEZ Venus_). "PASS
+ALONG THEM COVERS, GEORGE--THE SUFFRAGETTES IS COMING."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "It would be amusing, if it were not athletic, to read that this
+     satirist who ridiculed sentiment made himself ridiculous by falling
+     violently in love with a young girl of eighteen."
+
+     _Winnipeg Telegram._
+
+He who runs may read--but apparently he mustn't be amused.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "It is known the play is in three acts and nine scenes, and that there
+     is an exceptionally long cast, but beyond that the strictest scenery
+     is being preserved."--_Birmingham Daily Mail._
+
+Which will be good news for Mr. GORDON CRAIG.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GRUB STREET GOSSIP.
+
+(_By our Special Parasitic Penman._)
+
+_How I Got There and Back_ is the title of a new story of adventurous
+exploration which Messrs. Jones, Younger announce for immediate
+publication. The author, Mr. J. Minch Howson, whose text has been revised
+by the publishers, has had some astonishing experiences as a bonzo-hunter
+in the Aruwhimi forest. On one occasion he was rescued by a mad elephant
+from the jaws of an okapi, into which he had inadvertently fallen while
+flying from a gorilla. During his residence among the pygmies Mr. Howson
+became such an adept with the long blow-pipe that they offered him the
+headship of the tribe; but, as this involved the adoption of
+anthropophagous habits, he was reluctantly obliged to decline the honour.
+
+Mr. Bamborough, the famous violinist, who recently changed his name by deed
+poll from Bamberger, has compiled a further volume of reminiscences based
+on his experiences as a travelling _virtuoso_ in all four hemispheres. Some
+of these have already been made public in the Press, but in a condensed
+form. He now tells us for the first time in full detail his astounding
+adventures in New Guinea, where he was captured and partially eaten by
+cannibals, and his awful ordeal in the Never-Never Land, when he was
+attacked simultaneously by an emu and a wallaby, and conquered them both by
+the strains of his violin. The volume, which will be published by the House
+of Pougher and Kleimer, is profusely illustrated with portraits of Mr.
+Bamborough at various stages of his career, before and after the execution
+of the deed poll; of Mrs. Bamborough and their three gifted children,
+Wotan, Salome and Isolde Bamborough; and of her father, Sir Pompey Boldero,
+F.R.G.S., formerly Attorney-General of Pitcairn Island. It is further
+enriched with a number of letters in _fac-simile_ from the Begum of BHOPAL,
+General HUERTA, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, Madame HUMBERT, Mr. JEROME K.
+JEROME, Mr. CLEMENT SHORTER, Mrs. ALEC TWEEDIE and the late KING THEEBAW of
+Burmah.
+
+Messrs. Vigo announce the speedy publication of a volume of reminiscences
+from the pen of Count Lio Rotsac, the famous Bohemian revolutionary. In it
+special interest attaches to the long and desperate struggle between the
+Count and his rival, Baron Aracsac, which ended in the supersession of the
+latter and his confinement in the gloomy fortress prison of Niola Stelbat.
+
+Miss Poppy McLurkin, the composer of that delightful song _Peter Popinjay_,
+of which over a quarter of a million copies have been sold or given away,
+has expanded the four verses of her lyric into a full-length novel, which
+Messrs. Gulliver will publish under the same title. Miss McLurkin, who is
+still on the sunny side of thirty, is one of the few female performers on
+the bagpipes in the literary profession.
+
+New novelists are always welcome if only for the titles of their books,
+for, after all, perusal of their contents is not compulsory. In this
+category may be included _Telepathic Theodora_, by Beryl Smuts; _The
+Rottenest Story in the World_, by Dermot Stuggy; and _In the Doldrums_, by
+Wally Gogg.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: HOW TO TAKE YOUR PART IN A DIALOGUE.
+
+"WHY, MRS. CODLINS, 'OW ARE YOU, 'OW ARE YOU? I 'AVEN'T SEEN YOU TO SPEAK
+TO FOR AGES."
+
+"NO, MRS. WHIDDEN; NO MORE 'AVEN'T I YOU, NEITHER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Latest Cinema Poster.
+
+     "Amazing Realistic Drama, featuring Big Game Hunting.
+
+     1500 feet--BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST."
+
+This is not realistic enough for us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seen on an Islington baker's shop:--
+
+     "CURRENT BREAD."
+
+A marked improvement on the stale back-numbers supplied by some bakers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "We understand that Prince William of Wied intends to proclaim himself
+     King of Albania as soon as certain technical difficulties have been
+     overcome."--_Times._
+
+Unfortunately there are several thousand "technical difficulties"--all
+well-armed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE OBVIOUS.
+
+Celia had been calling on a newly-married friend of hers. They had been
+school-girls together; they had looked over the same Algebra book (or
+whatever it was that Celia learnt at school--I have never been quite
+certain); they had done their calisthenics side by side; they had compared
+picture-postcards of LEWIS WALLER. Ah me! the fairy princes they had
+imagined together in those days ... and here am I, and somewhere in the
+City (I believe he is a stockbroker) is Ermyntrude's husband, and we play
+our golf on Saturday afternoons, and complain of our dinners, and---- Well,
+anyhow, they were both married, and Celia had been calling on Ermyntrude.
+
+"I hope you did all the right things," I said. "Asked to see the
+wedding-ring, and admired the charming little house, and gave a few hints
+on the proper way to manage a husband."
+
+"Rather," said Celia. "But it did seem funny, because she used to be older
+than me at school."
+
+"Isn't she still?"
+
+"Oh, _no_! I'm ever so much older now.... Talking about wedding-rings," she
+went on, as she twisted her own round and round, "she's got all sorts of
+things written inside hers--the date and their initials and I don't know
+what else."
+
+"There can't be much else--unless perhaps she has a very large finger."
+
+"Well, I haven't got _anything_ in mine," said Celia mournfully. She took
+off the offending ring and gave it to me.
+
+On the day when I first put the ring on her finger, Celia swore an oath
+that nothing but death, extreme poverty or brigands should ever remove it.
+I swore too. Unfortunately it fell off in the course of the afternoon,
+which seemed to break the spell somehow. So now it goes off and on just
+like any other ring. I took it from her and looked inside.
+
+"There are all sorts of things here too," I said. "Really, you don't seem
+to have read your wedding-ring at all. Or, anyhow, you've been skipping."
+
+"There's nothing," said Celia in the same mournful voice. "I do think you
+might have put something,"'
+
+I went and sat on the arm of her chair and held the ring up.
+
+"You're an ungrateful wife," I said, "after all the trouble I took. Now
+look there," and I pointed with a pencil, "what's the first thing you see?"
+
+"Twenty-two. That's only the----"
+
+"That was your age when you married me. I had it put in at enormous
+expense. If you had been eighteen, the man said, or--or nine, it would have
+come much cheaper. But no, I would have your exact age. You were
+twenty-two, and that's what I had engraved on it. Very well. Now what do
+you see next to it?"
+
+"A crown."
+
+"Yes. And what does that mean? In the language of--er--crowns it means 'You
+are my queen.' I insisted on a crown. It would have been cheaper to have
+had a lion, which means--er--lions, but I was determined not to spare
+myself. For I thought," I went on pathetically, "I quite thought you would
+like a crown."
+
+"Oh, I do," cried Celia quickly, "if it really means that." She took the
+ring in her hands and looked at it lovingly. "And what's that there? Sort
+of a man's head."
+
+I gazed at her sadly.
+
+"You don't recognize it? Has a year of marriage so greatly changed me?
+Celia, it is your Ronald! I sat for that, hour after hour, day after; day,
+for your sake, Celia. It is not a perfect likeness; in the small space
+allotted to him the sculptor has hardly done me justice. But it is your
+Ronald.... And there," I added, "is his initial 'r.' Oh, woman, the amount
+of thought I spent on that ring!"
+
+She came a little closer and slipped the ring on my finger.
+
+"Spend a little more," she pleaded. "There's plenty of room. Just have
+something nice written in it--something about you and me."
+
+"Like 'Pisgah'?"
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps it's 'Mizpah,' or 'Ichabod,' or 'Habakkuk.' I'm sure
+there's a word you put on rings--I expect they'd know at the shop."
+
+"But I don't want what they know at shops. It must be something quite
+private and special."
+
+"But the shop has got to know about it when I tell them. And I don't like
+telling strange men in shops private and special things about ourselves. I
+love you, Celia, but----"
+
+"That would be a lovely thing," she said, clasping her hands eagerly.
+
+"What?"
+
+"'I love you, Celia.'"
+
+I looked at her aghast.
+
+"Do you want me to order that in cold blood from the shopman?"
+
+"He wouldn't mind. Besides, if he saw us together he'd probably know. You
+aren't afraid of a goldsmith, are you?"
+
+"I'm not afraid of any goldsmith living--or goldfish either, if it comes to
+that. But I should prefer to be sentimental in some other language than
+plain English. I could order '_Cara sposa_', or--or '_Spaghetti_,' or
+anything like that, without a tremor."
+
+"But of course you shall put just whatever you like. Only--only let it be
+original. Not Mizpahs."
+
+"Right," I said.
+
+For three days I wandered past gold-and-silversmiths with the ring in my
+pocket ... and for three days Celia went about without a wedding-ring, and,
+for all I know, without even her marriage-lines in her muff. And on the
+fourth day I walked boldly in.
+
+"I want," I said, "a wedding-ring engraved," and I felt in my pockets. "Not
+initials," I said, and I felt in some more pockets, "but--but----" I tried
+the trousers pockets again. "Well, look here, I'll be quite frank with you.
+I--er--want----" I fumbled in my ticket-pocket, "I want 'I love you' on
+it," and I went through the waistcoat pockets a third time. "I--er--love
+you."
+
+"Me?" said the shopman, surprised.
+
+"I love you," I repeated mechanically. "I love you, I love you, I---- Well,
+look here, perhaps I'd better go back and get the ring."
+
+On the next day I was there again; but there was a different man behind the
+counter.
+
+"I want this ring engraved," I said.
+
+"Certainly. What shall we put?"
+
+I had felt the question coming. I had a sort of instinct that he would ask
+me that. But I couldn't get the words out again.
+
+"Well," I hesitated, "I--er--well."
+
+"Ladies often like the date put in. When is it to be?"
+
+"When is what to be?"
+
+"The wedding," he smiled.
+
+"It has been," I said. "It's all over. You're too late for it."
+
+I gave myself up to thought. At all costs I must be original. There must be
+something on Celia's wedding-ring that had never been on any other's....
+
+There was only one thing I could think of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The engraved ring arrived as we were at tea a few days later, and I had a
+sudden overwhelming fear that Celia would not be pleased. I saw that I must
+explain it to her. After all, there was a distinguished precedent.
+
+"Come into the bath-room a moment," I said, and I led the way.
+
+She followed, wondering.
+
+"What is that?" I asked, pointing to a blue thing on the floor.
+
+"The bath-mat," she said, surprised.
+
+"And what is written on it?"
+
+"Why--'bath-mat,' of course."
+
+"Of course," I said ... and I handed her the wedding-ring.
+
+A. A. M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mother_ (_to conciliate little girl who has been whipped_).
+"WAS SHE A NASTY CRUEL MOTHER, THEN?"
+
+_Modern Child._ "OH NO; I DESERVED IT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GWENDOLEN'S HOBBIES.
+
+  Gwendolen, when we were wed,
+  In her artless manner said,
+    "Dear, I think I'd better
+  Choose a hobby, lest I find
+  Household duties cramp the mind."
+    Foolishly, I let her.
+
+  Books at first were her delight;
+  Gwendolen grew erudite;
+    Vain were my petitions,
+  Till in scientific terms
+  I dilated on the germs
+    Haunting first editions.
+
+  Then, for one expensive week,
+  China (guaranteed antique)--
+    Derby, Sevres and Lustre--
+  Charmed her, till our Abigail
+  Washed them in a kitchen pail,
+    Dried them with a duster!
+
+  Foreign stamps her time engrossed
+  For a busy month at most;
+    I endured--and waited.
+  Who so proud as Gwendolen
+  Of each gummy specimen
+    Till the craze abated?
+
+  Later (if I seem severe,
+  Gwendolen, forgive me, dear!)
+    Art proved all-compelling;
+  Post-Impressionist indeed
+  Were the colour-schemes decreed
+    For our modest dwelling.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  With her last experiment
+  Gwendolen appears content;
+    Heaven grant she may be!
+  For, of all the hobbies run
+  By my wife, there isn't one
+    Suits her like a baby.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SITTER SAT UPON.
+
+Wilkinson is a sculptor. I don't mean that he lives by sculping. No. As he
+puts it himself: "My lower self, the self that wants bread and meat and
+warmth and shelter, lives on unearned increment. My higher self, the only
+self that counts, lives on Art."
+
+Wilkinson and I had been sworn pals from our boyhood till the day he said:
+"By the way, old thing, I've never had a turn at _your_ headpiece. You
+might give me a few sittings."
+
+For the first time I found myself seated on a sitter's throne, while
+Wilkinson stood at his modelling stand working away at a mass of clay that
+faintly suggested a human head and shoulders.
+
+"Need you yawn so often?" There was a hint of savagery in Wilkinson's tone
+that was new to me.
+
+"Why, you're not doing my mouth yet," I urged.
+
+"No, but when a mouth like yours opens wide it alters the shape of the
+whole skull."
+
+I was astonished and hurt, and took refuge in dignified silence.
+
+"Shall you send it--I mean me--to the Academy?" I asked by-and-by.
+
+"Depends on how it pans out," grunted Wilkinson, leaving the clay, twirling
+the movable throne round, and taking a frowning survey of me in various
+aspects. "I might send it in with Popplewell's bust, as a sort of
+make-weight."
+
+"As a sort of make-weight!" I echoed indignantly; and then, more calmly,
+"Popplewell's finished, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes--gone to be cast; and then comes the marble."
+
+"Oh, Popplewell's to be done in marble, is he? What shall _I_ be done in?"
+
+Wilkinson was taking an upward view of my features now, with a look of
+extreme distaste on his countenance.
+
+"You? Oh, if I decide to finish you, it'll be just the clay-burnt
+terra-cotta, you know. Tut, tut, tut!"
+
+"Why tut, tut, tut?" I asked.
+
+"No offence, old chap, but you _have_ such queer facial bones;" and as he
+turned back to his modelling I heard him mutter: "You never really know
+what people are like till they sit to you."
+
+Again I felt a bit hurt, and this time I indulged a retort. "Wonder if
+you'll get Popplewell into the Academy. You've never had anything in yet,
+have you?"
+
+"We sculptors are so vilely handicapped by the wretched amount of space the
+Academy people give us!" said Wilkinson angrily. "Still, I've great hopes
+this time. Not only is my work improved, but it's a popular
+subject--Popplewell, the novelist. There--that'll do for to-day. I've got
+the construction all right," looking resentfully from the clay head to
+mine, "though no one would believe it who hadn't your head here to compare
+it with."
+
+"Why, what's the matter with my head?" I asked irritably as I got gingerly
+off the movable throne. "And, anyhow, I didn't ask to be modelled. You made
+me sit here--I didn't want to do it."
+
+"Oh, people make practice for one, whatever they're like."
+
+"Good-bye," I said stiffly.
+
+At the second sitting I tried to make allowances for the artistic
+temperament when Wilkinson prowled round me with a look of something like
+horror on his face, assaulted my features with compasses, and turned away
+gibbering. I even kept calm when informed that one of my eyes was
+considerably larger and wider open than the other and that I had "no
+drawing" in my face. "No offence, old chap," added my former friend with a
+grin. "You must remember it's the artist-eye that's responsible for these
+cursory reflections."
+
+"I wonder," I remarked musingly, "whether the artist-eye is a feature that
+occasionally gets blacked by an indignant sitter."
+
+At the third and fourth sittings more bitter so-called truths were handed
+out to me, and he was down on my "construction" like a hundred of bricks.
+
+"_That_'s a normal one," here he indicated a skull on a shelf; "_his_ bones
+are all right. But if yours were stripped of the flesh----"
+
+"I shan't be sorry when these sittings are over," I said; then, as I caught
+a side view of the clay head, "I _say_! Am I as frightful as that?"
+
+"As frightful as that!" snorted Wilkinson; "why, I've _flattered_ you, if
+anything. People never know what they're like. There's such a lot of rotten
+vanity knocking about."
+
+When the last sitting was over my wrongs found voice.
+
+"When I first sat to you," I said in a tense tone, "I was comparatively
+happy; my self-esteem was in a healthy state; I felt that I was
+well-looking at my best, even good-looking. I go from you to-day a broken
+man, my confidence shaken, my manners spoiled by the consciousness that my
+construction is wrong, that there is 'no drawing' in my face, and that
+neither my eyes nor my nostrils are a pair; and, not content with this, you
+have darkened my remote future by implying that when it is time for me to
+be merely a skull I shall be an absurd one. May Heaven forgive you,
+Wilkinson--_I_ never can!"
+
+For some weeks we stood apart, "like cliffs that had been rent asunder,"
+and then one day Wilkinson came up and thumped me on the back. "It's always
+the unexpected that happens, old thing," he said. "Popplewell's bust was
+rejected at once, but yours----"
+
+"Am I _in_?" In my excitement I forgot my wrongs.
+
+"No, not _in_; but you were a _doubtful_. Only think--first doubtful I've
+ever had! To have a doubtful sculpture is as good as having two or three
+paintings on the line. You can't be such a bad subject after all. I'll have
+another touch at you, and next year see if you're not in! Come and have
+some lunch."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CANDIDATE FOR MEDICAL DEGREE BEING EXAMINED IN THE SUBJECT
+OF "BEDSIDE MANNER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Notable things are done around a table. Corporations are formed...."
+
+     _Westminster Teacher._
+
+The beginnings of them, anyway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AFTER TEN YEARS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT EAST AFRICAN PROTECTOR.
+
+  "Come under de ole umbrella,
+    Come along, piccaninnies, do;
+  Hark to Uncle LULU a-callin',
+    Room for all ob you!"--_Coon Song._
+
+  (Mr. HARCOURT.)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+(EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY
+OF TOBY, M.P.)
+
+_House of Commons, Tuesday, April 14._--Back to grindstone after so-called
+Easter recess. Divisions reveal presence of aggregate of something less
+than 200 Members. Watchful Whip, ever suspicious of ambush, succeeded in
+mustering four-fifths of the whole. Ministerial majority maintained at
+average of six-score.
+
+Increased by a unit consequent on return of PREMIER after re-election by
+faithful Fife. Towards close of Questions was discovered standing at Bar
+awaiting SPEAKER'S call.
+
+"Members desiring to take their seats will please come to the Table."
+
+As he advanced, escorted by CHIEF WHIP and Scottish colleague, Liberals and
+Irish Nationalists leaped to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs in
+loyal greeting. Only the haughty Labour Member remained seated. Not for him
+to pay court to chiefs of other parties, howsoever friendly. He is there as
+representative of the Working Man; is neither to be bought nor sold, cowed
+nor cajoled.
+
+A fine spectacle. Pity Strangers' Galleries almost empty.
+
+In process of swearing-in new Member nothing taken for granted. HALSBURY
+discovered this when, far back in the last century, he, known at the time
+as HARDINGE GIFFARD, came up to take his seat for Launceston. Challenged by
+the Clerk for production of writ of return, made painful discovery that it
+was not at hand. Sure he put it in his pocket when he left home; but which
+pocket?
+
+In full gaze of four hundred quizzical Members he proceeded to search. Was
+there ever mortal man with so many pockets stuffed with such miscellaneous
+contents as DISRAELI'S Solicitor-General littered the Table withal? In the
+end--and its coming seemed interminable--the desired document was found
+coyly hidden in his hat left on the seat he had occupied under the Gallery
+awaiting summons to the Table.
+
+The PRIME MINISTER, cool and businesslike as usual, had necessary document
+ready. Handing it to the Clerk, he once more signed the roll of Parliament.
+
+Then came critical moment, awaited with keen interest by House. The roll
+signed, it is duty of Clerk to conduct new Member to SPEAKER and introduce
+him by name.
+
+"Mr. ASQUITH!" the Clerk announced.
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW MEMBER.
+
+_Mr. SPEAKER._ "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir. Somehow I seem to
+know your face."]
+
+With half start of surprise SPEAKER regarded newcomer; thought he
+recognised him as he stood at the Table. All doubt now removed. Yes, it was
+ASQUITH. With genial smile and friendly grip of the hand he welcomed the
+new Member. Delighted Ministerialists cheered again at this happy
+conclusion of the episode.
+
+_Business done._--Committee stage of Bill pledging national credit for loan
+to East African Protectorates entered upon. Not without opposition from
+Ministerial benches. ALPHEUS CLEOPHAS MORTON, of whom we hear little in
+these degenerate days, insisted that this kind of charity should begin at
+home--that is in the Highlands of Scotland. WEDGWOOD and THORNE thought
+Government had gone far enough in the way of lavish expenditure of
+tax-payers' money by providing them and others with salaries of L400 a
+year. From other side of House BANBURY made several speeches in succession.
+Division called and opposition swamped.
+
+_Wednesday._--"Such larks!" as _Joe Gargery_ used to say to _Pip_ when they
+met for confidential confabulation. Of all men it was COUSIN HUGH began
+them. At first sight difficult to associate tendency to larkiness with
+austerity of Member for Oxford University. But human nature is complex,
+and, after all, COUSIN HUGH is only human.
+
+In a former Parliament he was convicted of what was officially known as
+loitering in the Lobby. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and in those days
+debate automatically stood adjourned at half-past five. Business to the
+fore related to Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister. Every prospect of
+Resolution being approved if there were opportunity for division. The thing
+to do was to prevent one taking place. Accordingly, when House divided on
+Closure motion, COUSIN HUGH and his confederates were such an
+unconscionably long time returning to their places that half-past five
+struck before main question could be put from Chair. Debate accordingly
+stood adjourned for indefinite period.
+
+A fortnight ago another of those domestic questions which stir COUSIN
+HUGH'S soul to the depths came up. At the ballot-box a Member secured
+favourable position for motion relating to Divorce. COUSIN HUGH straightway
+blocked it by a bogus Bill. Last Wednesday Opposition proposed on motion
+for adjournment for Easter to attack Government from divers points of
+compass. Ministerialists, taking leaf out of COUSIN HUGH'S book, put down
+notices that blocked the whole lot. To-day PREMIER'S attention called to
+the matter. Admits "situation is scandalous"; undertakes forthwith to
+submit Resolution dealing with it.
+
+Characteristically odd feature in case is that it was BROTHER BOB who
+brought matters to a head by tabling a Resolution making impossible in
+future the vagaries of COUSIN HUGH.
+
+Which shows afresh how remarkable are the resources of a family rooted in
+the spacious times of QUEEN ELIZABETH.
+
+_Business done._--Criminal Justice Administration Bill read a second time.
+
+_Thursday._--As at approach of Spring the time of the singing of birds
+comes, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land, so thus early in
+the session the voice of the objector is heard in the House of Commons. On
+days when Private Bills come up for consideration, there is a scene which
+interests while it perplexes occupants of Ladies' Gallery, in whose full
+view it is set. As soon as SPEAKER takes the Chair, before galleries are
+open to male strangers, there enters from hidden staircase leading to
+gallery over clock a procession of businesslike gentlemen. Silently,
+swiftly, they flood what is known as Distinguished Strangers' Gallery.
+
+Clerk at Table reads list of Private Bills awaiting second reading: (1)
+Middlesbrough Corporation Bill, (2) Lurgan Gas and Electricity Bill, (3)
+Northwich Urban District Council Bill. From one side or other of benches
+below Gangway sounds a single word: "Object!" Title of next Bill on list
+recited. Again the cabalistic word, and so on to end of catalogue. This
+reached, anonymous Strangers in gallery rise and depart as swiftly, as
+silently, as they came, and what is still known as Question-hour (though it
+is limited to forty-five minutes) opens.
+
+Whisper runs round Ladies' Gallery that mysterious Strangers are detachment
+of Ulster volunteers out on drill. As a matter of fact they are solicitors
+concerned for fate of private measures. With extreme rarity is a Private
+Bill debated on second reading. As a rule that stage is formally conceded,
+real work being done in select committees upstairs. One of the archaic
+absurdities of legislative practice remaining in Commons is that a single
+Member has autocratic power to delay progress of particular Bills
+approaching Committee stage by murmuring or shouting a magic dissyllable.
+
+Last Session TIM HEALY, offended at certain course taken by Board of Trade
+in respect of Private Bill for which he was concerned, held up for a
+fortnight the whole course of private legislation. At the end of that time
+Government with a majority still a hundred strong capitulated. It was an
+exceptionally weary time for solicitors filing in and filing out of the
+Gallery, day by day passing and their Bill "getting no forrarder."
+
+Fortunately in these cases there are two Bills that run concurrently. One
+is the legislative measure to which a Member objects; the other the bill of
+costs in which these daily attendances at the opening of successive
+sittings, this mounting and descending of unsympathetic stairways, are
+doubtless duly noted.
+
+_Business done._--Irish Votes in Committee of Supply.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE THIRD TIME OF ASKING.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The POSTMASTER-GENERAL is making heroic efforts to improve the telephone
+service. According to the current Post Office Circular the name of the
+"Coed Talon" exchange has been altered to "Pontybodkin."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ONCE UPON A TIME.
+
+AVIATION.
+
+Once upon a time there was a little primrose who grew all alone on a sunny
+bank. All around her were primroses in clusters, but she was a solitary
+flower.
+
+Having no brothers or sisters to talk to and no very near neighbours, she
+made a confidant of a bee, who would often sit with her for several minutes
+at a time. He was brusque and opinionated, but he was wise too, and, having
+wings, knew the world; and she never tired of hearing of his travels.
+
+He told her of gardens where flowers of every kind and sweetness bloomed.
+"Not like you," he said--"not wild flowers that no one values, but choice,
+wonderful, aristocratic flowers that are picked out of catalogues and cost
+money and need attention from a gardener."
+
+"What is a gardener?" the primrose asked.
+
+"A gardener is a man who does nothing but look after flowers," said the
+bee. "He brings them water and picks off the dead leaves, and all the time
+he is thinking how to make them more beautiful."
+
+"How splendid!" said the primrose.
+
+And the bee told her of the houses in these gardens, with pleasant sunny
+rooms, and pictures, and flowers in vases to cheer the eyes of the rich
+people who lived there.
+
+"How splendid!" said the primrose again. "I wish I could see it all. I
+should love to be in a vase in a beautiful room and be admired by rich
+people."
+
+"You're too simple," said the bee. "You haven't a chance. You've got to
+stay where you are till you die."
+
+"Why shouldn't I have wings like you?" said the primrose.
+
+"How absurd!" replied the bee as he flew away.
+
+But the next day the primrose looked up and saw a most wonderful thing. A
+primrose that really had wings! A flying primrose! A primrose that could go
+anywhere just like the bee. It darted hither and thither so gaily,
+alighting where it wished and then soaring up again right into the blue sky
+above the earth.
+
+The solitary primrose called to it, but it did not hear, and was soon out
+of sight.
+
+"So primroses needn't always stop where they are till they die," she said
+to herself. "Why did the bee deceive me? If I were like that I could see
+the garden and the gardener and the pretty gay sitting-rooms and the rich
+people."
+
+She waited impatiently for the bee's return, and when he came she told him
+about the aviator.
+
+"He was so splendid," she said, "so big and strong, and he flew
+beautifully. How can I get wings, too?"
+
+"Pooh!" said the bee. "That wasn't a primrose. That was a brimstone
+butterfly; and as for flying--why, he can't compare with me. I could beat
+him every time: hundred yards, quarter-mile, mile, long
+distance--everything."
+
+"He looked just like a wonderful big primrose," said the solitary flower
+wistfully.
+
+"That's because you've got only one eye," said the bee. "He was a butterfly
+right enough;" and he hurried away laughing at the silliness of her
+mistake.
+
+But that day the little primrose had part of her wish; for a party of
+children came into her corner of the wood and began to pick the flowers
+with cries of delight.
+
+"Here's one all alone!" said a small girl. "I shall pick that for mother."
+Straightway the primrose was torn from its root and held tightly in a hand
+which was far too hot to be pleasant.
+
+Down the road the children went, and the primrose looked as well as she
+could at the hedges and the trees.
+
+"So this is the world," she said to herself. "It seems really interesting,
+but I should like it better if I didn't feel so faint."
+
+At last they came to a garden gate and passed through it, up a long path,
+with strange flowers on each side, which the primrose saw mistily, for she
+was now really ill.
+
+"I am sure it is all very beautiful," she murmured, "but I know I shall die
+if I don't have some water soon."
+
+And then they entered a room, and the little girl hurried up to a lady and
+gave her the solitary primrose. "It was growing all alone," she said, "so I
+brought it for you."
+
+"Put it into a vase at once," said the mother, "or it will die." And the
+primrose was placed in water, and at once began to revive.
+
+Then she looked about her and saw what a nice room it was, and was happy.
+
+The next morning in came the bee with a great fluster and bumped all over
+the room.
+
+"Hullo," he said to the little primrose, "you here?"
+
+She told him all her adventures.
+
+"Well, what I said is right, isn't it?" the bee remarked. "It's all very
+jolly here, isn't it?"
+
+"I suppose so, but I wish I didn't feel so weak. I never had an ache when I
+was in the wood."
+
+"Ah, but you weren't among the nobs then," said the bee; "make the most of
+your time while you're here, for it won't be for long, you know."
+
+"Come and see me to-morrow," the little primrose whimpered. "I feel so
+lonely here. I was happier in the wood."
+
+"You won't be alive to-morrow," said the bee cheerily. "But never mind, you
+have seen the world." And out he bashed again, blowing his motor-horn to
+clear the way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OUR YOUNG VETERANS.
+
+_He._ "I SAY, YOUR GRANNIE SEEMS RATHER PUT OUT TO-NIGHT. WHAT'S UP?"
+
+_She._ "HUSH! POOR DEAR, SHE'S JUST HEARD MY OTHER GRANNIE IS ENGAGED AND
+SHE'S SO AFRAID SHE MAY BE LEFT ON THE SHELF."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"PYGMALION."
+
+The original Pygmalion took a block of dead ivory and made of it so fair a
+figure of a woman that he fell in love with his own creation, and
+Aphrodite, at his request, brought it to life. Mr. SHAW'S _Pygmalion_ takes
+a live flower-girl, turns her into a lifeless wax figure fit for a
+milliner's shop-window, and flatters himself, as an artist, on the result,
+but, as a man, proposes to take no interest in it, moral or physical. So
+you can easily see why almost any other proper name you can think of would
+have done better for the title.
+
+The play itself shows the same typical inconsequence, the same freedom from
+the pedantry of logic. _Eliza Doolittle's_ ambition is to become fitted for
+the functions of a young lady in a florist's shop. _Henry Higgins_,
+professor of phonetics, undertakes for a wager to teach her the manners and
+diction of a duchess--a smaller achievement, of course, in Mr. SHAW'S eyes,
+but still a step in the right direction. And he is better than his word.
+After six months she has acquired a mincing speech, from which she is still
+liable to lapse into appalling indiscretions; but after another six months
+the product might pass muster in any _modiste's_ showroom. And then she
+turns on him and protests that he has spoilt her life. As a flower-girl,
+she tells him, she used to earn her living honestly; now there is nothing
+she is good for.
+
+Of course, you say, her contact with refined society--"we needs must love
+the highest when we see it"--has unfitted her for mixing with inferior
+people. On the contrary. She has, it is true, passed the final test of a
+series of social functions; but meanwhile all this time of her
+apprenticeship in manners she has been living her daily life, doing
+half-menial duties, in the house of _Higgins_, who happens to have no
+manners at all. One trembles, indeed, to picture the figure that he
+himself, the master, must have cut when he took his pupil to the halls of
+the great.
+
+[Illustration: We venture to suggest a new attitude to illustrate the ease
+of manner which one expects from a Master of Phonetics and Deportment.
+
+_Henry Higgins_ Sir HERBERT TREE.]
+
+Then perhaps, you say, she has fallen into an unrequited passion for him,
+and this accounts for her peevishness? Well, if she has, we have only Mr.
+SHAW'S word for it, and she gets no sympathy from us for her deplorable
+taste in men. There was another man who was always about the house, a man
+with a habit of courtesy, but this gallant soldier left her cold. Such is
+the perversity of women--and Mr. SHAW. _Higgins's_ one act of civility to
+his _protegee_, on which we had to base our hopes of a happy issue, was to
+throw a bunch of flowers at her from a balcony in Chelsea--not perhaps a
+very tactful reminder of her origin. But he was only just in time. Another
+two seconds of delay and the final curtain would have cut off this tardy
+and inadequate effort of conciliation.
+
+[Illustration: FROM FLOWER-GIRL TO PERFECT LADY.
+
+(_Showing middle stage in course of lessons in Polite Conversation._)
+
+_Eliza Doolittle_ (Mrs. PATRICK CAMPBELL) to _Mrs. Eynsford-Hill_ (Miss
+CARLOTTA ADDISON). "An aunt of mine died of in-flu-en-za: but it's my
+be-lief they done h-her in."]
+
+However, nobody goes to a production of Mr. SHAW'S with the idea of seeing
+a play. We go to hear him discourse on just anything that occurs to him
+without prejudice in the matter of his mouthpiece. This time he was
+represented by a dustman; and for once Mr. SHAW consented to temper his
+wisdom to the limitations of its repository. His _Alfred Doolittle_ (father
+of the flower-girl) threw off a little cheap satire on the morality of the
+middle-classes, yet admitted the drawbacks of unauthorised union (as
+practised by himself), since a man's wife is there to be kicked, whereas a
+mistress is apt to be more exigent of the amenities; you must adopt a more
+lover-like attitude if you want to retain her. He also argued brightly in
+defence of his proposal to sell his own daughter to any man for a fiver;
+let fall a platitude or two in praise of the lot of the undeserving poor;
+and (having come in for a fortune) found that charity had lost its
+blessedness--that the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin was
+only admirable when you did the "touching" yourself. Not bad for a dustman,
+but Mr. SHAW has done better.
+
+For the rest the attraction lay in the performance of individual actors
+rather than in the stuff of the play. Mrs. PATRICK CAMPBELL was delicious,
+both in her unregenerate state, and even more during the middle phase of
+the refining process. She made the Third Act a pure delight. Later, when
+she became tragic, she sacrificed something of her particular charm to the
+author's insincerity.
+
+Sir HERBERT TREE, always at his best in comedy, was an excellent _Higgins_
+in his lighter moods. As for Mr. EDMUND GURNEY, he was far the best dustman
+I have ever met. His freedom from scruples, combined with a natural gift
+for unctuous and persuasive rhetoric, commanded admiration. _Higgins_,
+indeed, who could read potentialities at a glance, considered that he
+might, under happier conditions, have gone far toward attaining Cabinet
+rank or filling a Welsh pulpit.
+
+Of the others, Mr. PHILIP MERIVALE played the too subsidiary part of
+_Colonel Pickering_ with admirable self-repression; and Miss ROSAMOND
+MAYNE-YOUNG, as the mother of _Higgins_, was a very gracious figure.
+
+The play was curiously uneven. If one might be permitted to enter and leave
+at one's pleasure I would advise you to miss out the desultory First Act.
+But if you insist on seeing it then take care to read your programme before
+the lights go down and find out that the scene is the porch of a church. I
+thought all the time that it was the porch of a theatre. Make sure in the
+same way about the Chelsea flat, or you may mistake it for a charming
+country cottage. The Second and Third Acts are not to be missed on any
+account, but I shouldn't worry about the Fourth. In the Fifth you should go
+away for good the moment that the dustman makes his exit. The tedium that
+follows is most distressing, and can only be explained as the author's
+revenge for your laughter. It was a cruel thing to do.
+
+But I forgive him. I take away many delightful memories of my evening with
+_Pygmalion_, and, best of all, the picture of Sir HERBERT'S frank and
+childlike pleasure at having discovered Mr. BERNARD SHAW.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Jones_ (_selecting a uniform for his chauffeur_). "I LIKE
+THIS ONE BEST, BUT IT'S RATHER EXPENSIVE."
+
+_Expert Salesman._ "THEN I SHOULD HAVE IT. AFTER ALL, THE GUV'NOR PAYS!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"POTASH AND PERLMUTTER."
+
+If you have ever been to an American commercial drama, you will know the
+opening scene of this one before the curtain goes up. The business
+interior; the typewriter on the left; the head of the firm opening cryptic
+correspondence and dictating unintelligible answers; spasmodic incursions
+of cocksure buyers and bagmen; a prevailing air of smartness, of hustle, of
+get-on-or-get-out. In _The Melting Pot_ Mr. ZANGWILL has been creating a
+diversion with an Hebraic theme, his hero being a refugee from Kieff, where
+his family had perished in a pogrom. This new variation has
+occurred--independently, no doubt--to the author of _Potash and
+Perlmutter_, who has grafted it (including the detail of the immigrant from
+Kieff) on the old commercial stock, and done very well indeed with his
+blend.
+
+His two protagonists in the Teuton-American-Semitic firm of "cloak and
+suit" manufacturers that gives its title to the play are extraordinarily
+alive. I am but imperfectly acquainted with this racial variety, but I can
+easily recognise that Messrs. AUGUSTUS YORKE and EGBERT LEONARD, who
+represent the two partners, are gifted with the most amazing powers of
+observation and reproduction.
+
+The pair are alike in their mercenary tastes and in that loyalty which is
+so fine a feature of the Jewish race, and is here found in frequent
+conflict with their commercial instincts. The cruel wrench that their
+generosity always costs them is a true measure of its excellence. They
+quarrel alike over details of business policy; but they always stand
+together where profit is obviously to be made by a common attitude, or
+where they find themselves in a tight corner. Yet the author has preserved
+a nice distinction between them. It is _Potash_, the elder of the two, and
+encumbered by fetters of domestic affection, who is the weaker vessel, and
+commits the indiscretions with whose issue he is impotent to cope; it is
+_Perlmutter_, with the quicker brains, contemptuous but devoted, who throws
+all the blame where it is due, yet stands by to share the punishment.
+
+I found their language and accent rather hard to follow, a difficulty not
+shared by the strong Jewish element in an audience that was extremely quick
+to appreciate the humour that kept one always on the alert. It is
+profitless to ask how much of the fun was due to the things said and how
+much to the manner of saying them. The essential matter is that actors and
+author between them gave us an unusually good time, and I am much obliged
+to them.
+
+Apart from the leading characters, the _Mrs. Potash_ of Miss MATILDA
+COTTRELLY was a most delightful study, and the breezy methods of Mr.
+CHARLES DICKSON as a buyer and Mr. EZRA MATTHEWS as a salesman were
+effective of their kind.
+
+The plot, as usual in such plays, was rather elementary. So, too, with the
+love interest; but the right kind of sentiment was not wanting in the very
+human characters of _Potash_ and _Perlmutter_. For a rare moment or two
+there was a break in our laughter and tears were not far away.
+
+O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANK.
+
+My nephew Rupert has been spending part of his Easter holidays with me.
+There is nothing like a boy of fifteen for adding an atmosphere to a
+house--in which term I include a garden. It is a special atmosphere, hard
+to define, but quite unmistakable when you have once lived in it. It is
+compounded of football, cricket, hockey--these are not actual, but
+conversational--of visits to the stables, romps with dogs in a library,
+tousled hair, muddy trousers, a certain contempt for time, the loan of my
+collar-stud, an insatiable desire to look through the back volumes of
+_Punch_, long rides on a bicycle and an irresistible tendency of ink to the
+fingers, presumably caused by the terrible duty of writing letters to
+parents. There may be other ingredients, but these are the chief. I am
+bound to add that he is a very amiable boy, with a strong sense of humour,
+and that he associates on very friendly terms with the little girls, his
+cousins, who form the majority of this household, it being quite understood
+that, for the time, they become boys while he remains what he is.
+
+The other morning Rupert evidently had something on his mind. He made
+various half-hearted and thoroughly unsuccessful efforts to leave the room,
+twiddled his cap in his hands, tripped over the rug and finally spoke.
+
+"Thanks awfully, Uncle Harry, for lending me your bicycle."
+
+"That's all right," I said. "You're very welcome to it. It's a good thing
+for it to be used."
+
+"Yes," he said, "but I shan't want it again."
+
+"Tired of it?" I said. "Well, there's no compulsion."
+
+"Oh, I know that--thanks awfully--but it isn't that. It's a ripping
+bicycle. I should like to ride it for ever, but----"
+
+"Well, what is it? Out with it."
+
+"I've got one of my own."
+
+"One of your own!" I said. "How's that? You hadn't got one yesterday."
+
+"No, but I've got one now. I bought it this morning at Hickleden. There's a
+bicycle shop there, and I heard there was a good bicycle for sale cheap, so
+I went over this morning and had a ride on it, and it suited me splendidly,
+so I bought it, and I've got it here."
+
+"Bought it?" I said. "That's all very well; but how did you pay for it?"
+
+"That," he said, "is where all the bother comes in."
+
+"It generally does," I said. "Either you've got the money, and then it
+seems such a waste; or you haven't got it, and then it's a lifetime of
+misery. Debt, my boy, is an awful thing."
+
+"Don't rag, Uncle Harry; I've got the money all right."
+
+"Then be a man and shell out."
+
+"Yes, but that's just what I can't do. It's this way: the price of the
+bicycle is five pounds seventeen and sixpence."
+
+"And a very good price too."
+
+"It's got three gears and a lamp and everything complete. Well, I've got
+three pounds ten in the Post-Office Savings Bank. I put it in in London."
+
+"That's a good beginning, anyhow."
+
+"Yes, and Aunt Mary gave me a pound for my birthday, and I put that in at
+the post-office here yesterday. It's better not to keep pounds in your
+pocket."
+
+"Quite right," I said; "we have now got to four pounds ten."
+
+"And Grandma sent me a pound this morning in a postal-order."
+
+"We're all but up to it now," I said. "The excitement is becoming intense."
+
+"Isn't it? And I've got the rest in shillings and sixpences and coppers."
+
+"Away you go, then, and pay for the bicycle."
+
+"Ah, but it isn't as easy as all that. I can't get the money out of the
+Post-Office."
+
+"What," I said--"they won't let you have your own money? They calmly take
+the savings of a lifetime and then refuse to give them up?"
+
+"I went round there this morning and they said I'd put the money in in
+London and there were various formalities to be gone through before I could
+draw it out here."
+
+"The official mind," I said, "delights in technicalities. Let us see how
+you stand:--
+
+  To save you from the silly game of playing drakes and ducks
+  You banked the cash in Middlesex--but asked for it in Bucks.
+
+Or we could put it in this way:--
+
+  In order not to spend it all in lollipops and toffees
+  You gave it to the P. M. G. to keep it in his office.
+
+Or in this way:--
+
+  You bought a three-gear bicycle because you had a will for it,
+  And now you've gone and fetched the thing and cannot pay the bill for it.
+
+Rupert, you're in the cart."
+
+"By Jove, Uncle Harry," he said in an awestruck tone, "that's poetry."
+
+"Is it?" I said. "I just threw it off."
+
+"Oh, yes, it's poetry all right. It's got rhymes, you know."
+
+"Rupert," I said, "let us come back to plain prose and consider your
+desperate financial situation. You cannot get your three pounds ten."
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"And Aunt Mary's pound?"
+
+"They said that, being holiday time, that wouldn't have got to headquarters
+yet."
+
+"Gracious goodness," I said, "I never knew a savings bank had so many
+pitfalls. The whole thing is too complicated for my mind."
+
+"It isn't really complicated," said Rupert. "It's quite plain; but perhaps
+if you put it into poetry you'll understand it better."
+
+"Rupert," I said, "let us have no sarcasms. The thing is too serious for
+that. You possess your grandmother's pound in a postal-order and assorted
+coins to the amount of seven and sixpence, total one pound seven and six,
+to pay for a bicycle costing five pounds seventeen and sixpence. In short,
+you are a bankrupt."
+
+"But I shall get the money."
+
+"That is what they all say."
+
+Eventually the matter was arranged and the bicycle man was satisfied.
+Rupert's correspondence with the Post Office still continues. But his faith
+in that institution has received a severe shock.
+
+R. C. L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The Rev. C. A. Brereton has presented to the St. Pancras Guardians a
+     donkey for the use of the children at Leavesden Poor Law Schools, and
+     a member of the Board has presented an A B C time-table."--_Daily
+     News._
+
+_Anonymous Benefactor_ (_when the secret of his name leaks out_): "No, no,
+don't thank me.... It was last year's."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Headlines to adjoining columns in _The Toronto Daily Star_:--
+
+"MAYOR TO CALL MEETING    |    "MAYOR CALLS 'GLOBE'S'
+TO DISCUSS SCRIPTURE."    |    REPORT A 'BLASTED LIE.'"
+
+These Mayors lead a life full of variety.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PLEASURES OF THE POINT TO POINT.
+
+_Good and encouraging Samaritan_ (_helping sportsman to remount after
+immersion in the brook_). "NEXT OLD BRUCK BE HEAPS BIGGER'N THIS UN, AND HE
+DO HAVE A TURRIBLE LOT O' WATER IN HE JUST NOW."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+_Dodo the Second_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), by E. F. BENSON. Doesn't the very
+title-page sound like a leaf from your dead past? I protest that for my own
+part I was back on hearing it in the naughty nineties, the very beginning
+of them indeed (the fact that I was also back in the school-room did little
+to impair the thrill) and agog to read the clever, audacious book that all
+the wonderful people who lived in those days were talking about. And
+behold! here they all are again--not the people who talked, but the
+audacious characters. Only the trouble is that we have all in the interval
+become so much more audacious ourselves that their efforts in this kind
+seem to fail to produce the old impression. This is by no means to say that
+I didn't enjoy _Dodo the Second_. I enjoyed it very much indeed; and so
+will you. For one thing, it was the jolliest experience to recognize so
+many old friends--_Dodo_ herself (now of course the _Princess Waldenech_),
+and the wicked _Prince_, and the rest of them. Of _Dodo_ at least it may be
+said, moreover, that she has matured credibly; this middle-aging lady is
+exactly what the siren of twenty years ago would have developed into, still
+beautiful, still alluring, and still (I must add) capable of infecting
+everyone else in a conversation with exactly her own trick of cheap and
+rather fatiguing brilliance. Added to all this there is now a new
+generation of characters, several of whom are quite pleasant company; for
+them and for one very impressive piece of descriptive work in the account
+of a gathering storm, this Twenty Years After may be heartily welcomed.
+Indeed one leaves _Dodo_ of 1914 so vigorously alive that I am not without
+hope of her turning up yet again as a grandmother in 1934.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have discovered from _The Rebellion of Esther_ (ALSTON RIVERS) why it is
+that my sympathies, usually at the disposal of insurgents, are withheld
+from the Suffragette. Anyone who is genuinely out to assert a principle, at
+the cost of quarrelling with established authority, has a certain merit of
+altruism which even the most law-abiding may count as a mitigating
+circumstance, however unworthy the end in view; but the egoism of a young
+lady (like Miss MARGARET LEGGE'S heroine) who in whatever cause defies all
+institutions with the latent motive of asserting herself will induce even
+the most lawless to support warmly the powers of suppression. _Miss Esther
+Ballinger_ had a number of real grievances, but her point of view was
+typified in her attitude towards the illicit and incidental motherhood of
+one of her acquaintances. Without hearing the facts, she pronounced it to
+be "a courageous stand against conventional morality," which it just
+possibly might have proved to be upon enquiry, and by no means a weak
+surrender to immediate desires, as much more probably it was in fact. From
+my knowledge of _Esther_ she had but one reason for expressing this
+opinion, and that was the personal pleasure of saying the unorthodox thing,
+an element which accounts for much of the unconventionality of that
+intellectual class of townsfolk figuring broadcast in the book, and largely
+discounts the value of its criticisms. I suspected the same flaw in her
+expressed convictions on religious, political and feminist matters, and I
+shouldn't be surprised to learn, though there is no hint of it, that she
+stopped short of complete revolt in her own big affair because she realized
+instinctively that even a passionate pose may lose its attractions if it
+has to be maintained for a lifetime. Miss MARGARET LEGGE, though alive to
+the young person's faults, regards her as, on the whole, deep-thinking and
+right-minded; and I would not for a moment have our personal difference of
+opinion discourage anybody from reading a carefully studied and ably
+written novel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The attitude of Militarist to Pacifist has the makings of a very pretty
+comedy. When the Mystics (with the Friends and the Tolstoians) were
+evangelical enough to preach their message of peace even to the point of
+non-resistance, they were broadly scouted as sentimental and idealistic
+idiots, and reminded of a nature red in tooth and claw rampant in this most
+sordid of all possible worlds. Now that the Rationalists take up the case
+against war from another end, they are denounced as squalid souls, with a
+greengrocer's outlook, morbidly anxious about the price of peas and
+potatoes, and urged to remember that not by bread alone doth man live. In
+_The Foundations of International Polity_ (HEINEMANN), a series of lectures
+developing phases of the argument of the Great Illusion, Mr. NORMAN ANGELL
+incidentally deals with this greengrocery business. Nobody with knowledge
+of his shrewd and vigorous method will be surprised that without bluster or
+rhetoric he establishes a very clear verdict of acquittal. One has always
+the impression that the rationalist in him is deliberately repressing the
+mystic, lest his case be weakened by a suspicion of sentimentalism. For it
+must be obvious that not a cold, still less a squalid, but a generous
+purpose alone could inspire the fervour that flashes between the reasoned
+lines. When Mr. ANGELL pleads that policy is directed towards
+"self-interest," an easily misunderstandable pronouncement, it is no mean
+self-interest he has in view but a quality of high civilising and social
+value. He argues cogently that defence is not incompatible with, but rather
+a part of, rational pacifism, which is the protest against coercion;
+re-emphasises the difference between soldiering and policing; and
+illustrates the essential shallowness of that venerable tag, "Human nature
+doesn't change," by pointing to the decay of the duello, and the decline of
+the grill as a means of reasoning with heretics and witches. Were this
+learned Clerk a politician (which Heaven avert!), he would move for yet
+another increment to the Supplementary Navy Estimates--to wit, the price of
+a battleship to be expended in the distribution of this fighting pacifist's
+books to all journalists, attaches, clergymen, bazaar-openers, club
+oracles, professors, head-masters and other obvious people in both Germany
+and Britain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In his new satirical study of certain modern cranks and their
+unpleasantness Mr. OLIVER ONIONS has, I think, allowed his bitterness to
+outrun his sense of proportion. _A Crooked Mile_ (METHUEN) is a sequel to
+his earlier book, _The Two Kisses_. We meet again those two young women,
+_Dorothy_ and _Amory_, and the natural characteristics that they once
+presented seem now to be tortured into caricature. _Amory_ has indeed all
+my sympathy, so badgered is she by Mr. ONIONS, so relentlessly forced into
+ignominious positions; and I cannot feel, as I should do, that she would
+have achieved those ignominies without Mr. ONIONS' impelling hand behind
+her. I have myself considerable sympathy for cranks, and perhaps that is
+why I regard Mr. ONIONS' satire as a dry, gritty business. His humour is,
+of course, always a delightful thing, but here I fancy that he has not
+drawn the true line between comedy and farce, between satire that preserves
+the probabilities and indiscriminate exaggeration. Of the three Mr.
+ONIONSES who have at different times given me pleasure--the author of
+_Widdershins_, the author of _In Accordance with the Evidence_, and the
+author of _Little Devil Doubt_--I greatly prefer the first. In _A Crooked
+Mile_ there is one chapter worthy of all three of them--that chapter where
+_Amory_ discovers that her lover is going away with another woman. That is
+fine work. For the rest I hope that he will grow tired of his social satire
+and soon give us again some more of his delicate imagination and fancy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What I felt about _The Girl on the Green_ (METHUEN) was that, however
+charming and capable, she was not quite likely, after but a few short
+months of golf, to have put up such a good fight in her great match with
+the crack amateur, _Jim Beverley_, who was giving her a half. I couldn't
+manage to believe it. However, that was not my business, but MARK
+ALLERTON'S. According to him, _Frank_ took her match to the last green, in
+spite of a number of cats, headed by the Vicar's wife, who did their best
+to put her off her game. Yes, you are right to presume that what began as a
+single developed into a flirtsome, and that the twain lived happily ever
+after in a nice little dormy house, and that _Jim_ bested the HILTONS and
+the OUIMETS, while _Frank_ put permanently out of joint all the noses of
+all the Misses LEITCH. Those who not only play but talk, dream, read and
+generally live for golf will, I can say with confidence, be grateful to Mr.
+MARK ALLERTON for this easy, hopeful narrative.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Vendor of studs and buttons_ (_to vendor of inflating
+baby_). "NOW THEN, _FATHER_, NOT SO MUCH OF IT. GIVE AN OLD BATCHILER A
+CHARNST, CARN'T YER?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Morning Post_ on the Army and Navy Boxing Championships:--
+
+     "These men's middles were full of good things."
+
+Why don't they train better?
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+146, APRIL 22, 1914***
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