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diff --git a/27421.txt b/27421.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b8016f --- /dev/null +++ b/27421.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2181 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch or the London Charivari, October 10, +1920, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Owen Seaman + +Release Date: December 5, 2008 [EBook #27421] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, CHARIVARI, OCT 20, 1920 *** + + + + +Produced by Neville Allen, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. + + Vol. 159. + + October 20, 1920. + + + CHARIVARIA. + +"Whenever I am in London," writes an American journalist, "I never miss +the House of Commons." Nor do we, during the Recess. + + * * * + +"If Lord KENYON wishes, I am prepared to fight him with any weapon he +chooses to name at any time," announced Sir CLAUDE CHAMPION DE CRESPIGNY +recently to a representative of _The Star_. In sporting circles it is +thought that, in spite of his recent declaration, Mr. C. B. COCHRAN may +consent to stage the encounter. + + * * * + +At the Air Conference last week Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON, M. P., +said the Government should appoint experts to control the weather. It +looks as if _The Daily Mail_ was not going to have things all its own +way. + + * * * + +"The object of Poland," says M. DOMBSKI, "is peace, hard work and +production." These were at one time the object of England, and she still +hopes to get peace. + + * * * + +Mr. PUSSYFOOT JOHNSON has told a Glasgow audience that he is no +kill-joy, but smokes cigars. It is also said that he has been seen going +the pace playing dominoes. + + * * * + +"An apple a day keeps the doctor away." We can only add that the price +of apples is enough to keep anybody away. + + * * * + +"What is a Penny Roll?" asks a headline. The answer is "Three +half-pence." + + * * * + +The average boarding-house, says a gossip writer, is not what it seems. +No, unfortunately it is what it is. + + * * * + +We understand that the world's record fast has been accomplished by a +Scotsman, who has succeeded in remaining in Prohibition America for +seven months and three days. + + * * * + +South Sea Islanders, when greeting friends, says _Tit Bits_, fling a jar +of water over them. Cats on night duty are now putting a kindlier +interpretation on the treatment they receive. + + * * * + +An employee at a coal-mine in Ohio is reported to have died from +overwork. There is consolation in the fact that this could not possibly +happen in England. + + * * * + +Three Glasgow workmen have started on a walk to London. With the +possibility of a vote in favour of a dry Scotland we suppose they +started early to avoid the rush. + + * * * + +It is still very doubtful whether JACK DEMPSEY can meet JESS WILLARD, +says a sporting paper. A dear old lady thinks he might get over the +difficulty by dropping him a letter. + + * * * + +It is reported that the captain of a village fire brigade recently +declined to call his men out to a fire because it was raining. +Unfortunately the owner of the fire was too busy to keep it going till +the first fine day. + + * * * + +A clerk employed behind the counter at a post-office in the South of +England recently rescued a young girl from drowning. In order to show +their appreciation of the young man's bravery, local residents have now +decided to purchase their stamps at his post-office. + + * * * + +"Life is uncertain and often full of trouble," bewails a writer in the +"Picture" Press. Still, in our opinion it's the only thing worth living. + + * * * + +On two separate occasions last week a cat entered one of the largest +churches in Yorkshire whilst a wedding was in progress. This supports +our belief that feline society is contemplating the introduction of more +ceremony into their own marriage system. + + * * * + +Ex-sailors on the reserve need not be alarmed by the repeated rumours +that a surprise mobilisation of the Fleet may be ordered very shortly, +as we now have it on good authority that, in order to ensure its +complete success, plenty of notice will be given to them beforehand. + + * * * + +Women are said to be fonder than men are of morbid stage plays. Weddings +also have a greater fascination for them. + + * * * + +Mr. T. A. EDISON is reported to have invented a machine to record +communication with the other world. As a final experiment an attempt is +to be made to get into touch with the POET LAUREATE. + + * * * + +The motor-car of polished steel and no paint-work is the latest +innovation. It is said that this will do away with the objection of +pedestrians that under present conditions one cannot be knocked down +without soiling one's clothing. + + * * * + +"Water," says an official of the Metropolitan Water Board, "costs far +too much to waste to-day." Adulterated with whisky, we believe it costs +about eightpence a time. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: DIPLOMACY. + +_Mistress._ "NORAH, WILL YOU TRY TO HAVE THE STEAK A LITTLE MORE +UNDERDONE?" + +_Norah_ (_bristling up_). "IS IT FINDING FAULT YE ARE?" + +_Mistress._ "OH, NO, NO! I MERELY THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NICER FOR YOU NOT +TO REMAIN OVER THE FIRE SO LONG." + + * * * * * + + The Music of the Future. + + "MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. + + For Sale, one small Economic Roller, 1 Brown's triple action Roller, + 2 Eastern Produce Roll Breakers, 1 Updraft Sirocco Dryer--all the + above in good order and can be seen working. 1 Saw Mill, good order. + 1 Souter's roll Breaker, fair order."--_Ceylon Paper._ + + * * * * * + + "Mr. ---- won L400,000 at Aix-les-Bains. The lucky player, _who was + educated at Harrow_...."--_Daily Paper._ + +The italics are Mr. Punch's. Are our public schools beginning to +advertise? + + * * * * * + +FALLING PRICES. + +(_With grateful acknowledgments to the Commercial Statistician of "The +Times."_) + + Sad is the sight, but not so strange, + When the dead leaf to earth declines: + I have observed this annual change + As one of Autumn's surest signs; + But oh, how very odd it is + To mark the falling prices of commodities. + + One had supposed the boom of War + (Still raging with the desperate Turk), + Whose closure seemed past praying for, + Would carry on its hideous work + And swell for years and years + The bulging waistcoats of our profiteers. + + But lo! a lot of useful wares + Within my modest range have come; + Trousers, I hear, are sold (in pairs) + At three-fifteen--a paltry sum; + And you can even get + Dittos as low as thirteen pounds the set. + + I can afford a further lump + Of sugar in my cocoa--yes, + And cocoa too is on the slump, + Its "second grade" now costs me less; + And green peas (marrowfat) + Are down to fourpence. I can run to that. + + And, though my coffers, sadly thinned, + May not command a home-killed ham, + And though the fees for pilchards (tinned) + And eggs (to eat) and strawberry-jam + Are still beyond my means + (The same remark applies to butter-beans); + + Yet milk (condensed) and salmon ("pink"), + And arrowroot and pines (preserved)-- + All "easier," I am glad to think-- + These, and a soul not yet unnerved, + Shall keep me going strong, + Now that the price of boots is not so long. + + O. S. + + * * * * * + +GONE AWAY! + +It seems to me that our local Hunt wants waking up. In some places, I +believe, there are still people who "cheerily rouse the slumbering morn" +by hunting the fox or the fox-cub, and, if one cannot let slumbering +morns lie, there is no jollier way of rousing them. But in our village +we hunt the 8.52. Morning after morning, if you watch from a high place, +you can see our bowlers and squash hats just above the hedgerows bobbing +down to the covert side. That one bobbing last is me. + +As we trudge homeward under the star-lit skies all our racy anecdotes +are of the fine fast runs we have had with the 8.52, the brave swinging +of the tail carriage, the heavy work over the points, the check and find +again at East Croydon main.... Those who arrive early at the meet in the +morning (but, as I have hinted, I am not one of these) stroll about the +platform, I am told, talking of the rare old times when the 8.52 used to +be the 8.51, pulling out their watches every now and then and saying to +the station-master, "She's twenty-five seconds late," for all season +ticket-holders have special permission from the railway company to put +trains into the feminine gender. This is a slight compensation for +having to pay again when they are challenged and can only pull out a +complimentary pass to the Chrysanthemum Show. + +As for myself, no one can say that I lack the sporting spirit, and if I +am late in the field it is because there is not enough noise and bustle +about our Hunt. It needs, I submit, the romantic colour and pageantry +that fire an Englishman's blood and rouse him irrevocably from his +marmalade. + +In this connection, as we say so charmingly at our office, I have laid +certain preliminary proposals before Enderby and Jackson. A lot of the +sportsmen who hunt the 8.52 in our village do so in motor-cars, which is +hardly playing the game. Of the stout-hearted fellows who follow on +foot, both Enderby and Jackson pass in front of my house and may be +discerned dimly through a gap in the hedge, which was probably made for +that purpose by the previous tenant. Or it may have been because the +gate-latch sticks and he did not jump well. Enderby asserts that my +house is nine minutes from the station, and Jackson says it is six, and +therein lies the whole difference between optimism and pessimism. All I +know is that, if I gather my hat, coat, _Times_, stick, pipe, tobacco +and matches and put as many as possible of them in appropriate places +just after Enderby has passed the gap, I catch the 8.52 nicely. If I do +these things just after Jackson has passed I catch it nastily, just +about the rear buffers. My proposal is that Enderby and Jackson should +encourage me a little by wearing scarlet coats, so that I can see them +twinkling more brightly through the gap in my hedge, and if they will do +this I will promise to provide them both with hunting horns. I have +pointed out that a "View halloo" from Enderby, followed by a stirring + + "Tantivvy, Tantivvy, Tantivvy; + Tra-la, Tra-la, Tra-la" + +from Jackson, will, if any power on earth can do it, bring me from my +toast in time for my train in the morning. + +I have explained to them that nothing can be pleasanter or more +beautiful for the baker, the butcher and the grocer to look at every +morning than Enderby and Jackson dressed in pink, with a despatch-case +in one hand and a hunting-horn in the other. There must be other +sportsmen situated as I am, and I should like to see all the little +lanes streaming with pink coats; and it would be very nice too if they +all brought their dogs to see them off, as some do already. + +I am quite prepared to admit that neither Enderby nor Jackson sees eye +to eye with me in this matter. They argue that ample notice is given of +the imminent arrival of the 8.52 by the express train which passes +through the cutting at 8.43, and is popularly known as "the warner." I +have replied that I cannot hear express trains when I am eating toast, +and that the only warner I recognise is PLUM WARNER, who cannot by any +stretch of language be called an express train. There the matter rests +at present, and I suppose in a few days I shall miss the 8.52 again. + +Happily I have now found out what to do when this occurs. Enderby and +Jackson believe that the next train is the 10.15; but that is their +narrow-minded parochialism. They are quite wrong. About ten minutes +after the 8.52 has gone away another perfectly good train steals panting +from the undergrowth. When one has missed the 8.52 one cannot wait on +the platform till 10.15, nor, on the other hand, having waved an airy +good morning to the butcher, the baker and the grocer as I trotted +along, can I very well go back and undo it. And then the derision at +home, the half-drunk stirrup-cup of coffee standing tepid and forlorn. +But, as I say, the 9.5 is a perfectly sound train. It is quite true that +it goes to Brighton, but the weather has been very warm of late. I hate +these splits in the local Hunt, but there it is. + + EVOE. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: "THE RESOURCES OF CIVILISATION." + +MR. LLOYD GEORGE. "STICK TO IT, BONAR. POOR OLD SISYPHUS NEVER HAD AN +IMPLEMENT LIKE THIS." + + * * * * * + +Illustration: HIGH LIFE ON THE UNDERGROUND. + +_Lady (to tiresome individual)._ "I'VE ALREADY TOLD YOU--HAMMERSMITH IS +THE NEXT BUT ONE. THE NEXT IS BARON'S COURT. THAT'S MY STATION, NOT +YOURS." + +_The Individual._ "AHEM! THE BARONESS, I PRESOOM?" + + * * * * * + +THE DINING GLADIATOR; + +OR, WAR TO THE KNIFE (AND FORK). + +(_Being further Extracts from a certain Diary_). + +_August 4th, 1914._--Declaration of War. I hereby take a solemn oath not +to relax my efforts to win this struggle for England, even if it costs +me my last drop of ink. + +Began my series of powerful articles by calling for KITCHENER, of whom I +now, if guardedly, approve. Lunched at the Carlton and dined at the Ritz +to let all the world see that I am not downhearted. + + * * * + +Spent the morning at the War Office, showing everyone how the work there +ought to be done. Then to Downing Street to put things right there. + +Lunched at Claridge's with six Leading Ladies, all of them cheery souls. + + * * * + +Week-ended at Melton. Some good tennis and bridge. Fear that none of our +generals really knows his job. + + * * * + +I have been wondering to-day if any other military journalist could +possibly know such a lot of the Smart Set, and so intimately as I do. I +am extraordinary lucky in having all these nice people to fall back on +when I am worn out with War-winning and Tribunal duties. + + * * * + +Wrote a wonderful article on the importance of dressing up some one to +look like HINDENBURG and dropping him at night by parachute from an +aeroplane into the German lines near Head-Quarters. It would have to be +a biggish man who can speak German well--Mr. CHESTERTON perhaps, but I +have never met Mr. CHESTERTON, as he seems never to lunch or dine at the +Ritz; or even Lord HALDANE. Once safely landed (my article goes on to +explain) he would make his way to German H. Q., being mistaken for the +real HINDENBURG, kill him and then issue orders to the Army which would +quickly put the Germans in our power. Strange that no one else has +thought of this. + + * * * + +It is very awkward to be the only man in London who has the truth in +him. Relieved some of my embarrassment by a glass or two of remarkable +1794 brandy. + + * * * + +WINSTON came to Carryon Hall to dine and we discussed his future. I +mapped out the next six months for him very carefully, and he promised +to follow my counsel; but I am afraid that Lady RANDOLPH may interfere. + + * * * + +My HINDENBURG article not in _The Times_ yet. Cannot think what is +coming to journalism. And NORTHCLIFFE calls himself a hustler. + +Sent for the PRIME MINISTER and gave him a piece of my mind. He ought to +be more careful in future. + + * * * + +Lunched at the Carlton with GEORGE GRAVES and had some valuable War +talk. + +In the afternoon to the Tribunal, where all excuses were disregarded and +everyone packed off to the recruiting officer. + +In the evening to a first-class revue at the Palace. + + * * * + +Had gratifying visit from ANATOLE FRANCE'S friend, M. PUTOIS, who told +me that the French look to me as the only Englishman capable of winning +the War. My articles are read everywhere, and some have been set to +music. + + * * * + +More men must be obtained, and therefore wrote a capital article calling +on all criminals to cease their labours during the War, in order to +release the police for the army. After this effort, which was very +tiring, lunched at the Ritz with ETHEL LEVEY, LAVERY and SOVERAL. Some +good riddles were asked. A discussion followed on ladies' boots, and +whether toes should be pointed or square. From this we passed to +stockings and then to lingerie. Tore myself away to attend to my +Tribunal duties. + + * * * + +Met the GLOOMY DEAN in the Mall and walked with him to the Rag., where +he left me. A most diverting man. He told me a capital story about a +curate and an egg. + + * * * + +Finished a rattling good article on a way to make our army look more +impressive to the foe, namely by fitting each man with a dummy man on +either side of him. Bosch aeroplane observers would imagine then that we +were three times as strong as we are, and some very desirable results +might follow. + + * * * + +Sent for NORTHCLIFFE and told him that unless my articles are treated +with more respect I cannot go on and the War will be lost. He seemed to +be impressed, but you never know. + +Lunched at Claridge's with Lady CUNARD, Lady DIANA MANNERS and GEORGE +ROBEY. We were all very witty. + +In the afternoon saw ROBERTSON at the W.O. and told him of my dummy +soldier idea. He roared with delight. + + * * * + +Wrote one of my best articles, on the importance of either L. G. +learning French or CLEMENCEAU learning English. Very depressed all day; +have lost my appetite. + + * * * + +Dined at the Ritz. A large party, including Lady CUNARD and Lady DIANA +MANNERS. The Princess of X. was present and I found her intelligent. +Afterwards to Lady Y.'s for bridge. The cards were mad, but we had some +wonderful rubbers, the four best players in London being concerned. + + * * * + +Wrote one of my best articles, on the importance of eating and drinking +and being merry during great national crises. Urged among other things +the addition of restaurant cars to all trains, even those on the Tubes. +It is madness to encourage seriousness, as _The Times_ is doing. + + * * * + +My eating article not printed. Practice, however, is more than precept, +and I shall continue to do my bite. + +(_To be continued._) + + E. V. L. + +Illustration: THE END OF AN IMPERFECT DAY. + +"ONE OF THOSE TINS OF SALMON, PLEASE." + + * * * * * + +Another Sex-Problem. + + "SALE OF LIVE AND DEAD FARM STOCK. + 6 Steers in milk and in Calf." + + _Local Paper._ + + * * * * * + + "In the second part of the programme Miss ---- was associated with + Mr. ---- in 'It was a Lover and His Last.'"--_Australian Paper._ + +Let us hope she will remain so. + + * * * * * + + "Rejoicing in a measure of freedom after the harassing restrictions + of the war, Scotsmen are not eager to thrust their necks into the + nose again."--_Daily Paper._ + +They prefer, we imagine, to thrust the nose of the bottle into their +necks. + + * * * * * + + "Every British voter on the sea coast is at heart a sailor."--_Daily + Chronicle._ + +At heart, no doubt. But how many have found to their cost that it is in +fact another organ which affords the ultimate test of sailorship. + + * * * * * + +CHECK BY THE QUEEN. + +I had never before seen the Fairy Queen in such an agitated condition. +She came dashing in, her cheeks glowing, her eyes aflame, her tiny form +positively quivering with indignation and excitement. + +In her hand she held a small scrap of paper, which she waved about in a +frantic manner just in front of my nose. + +"Look," she said, "look! My Press Agency sent it me this morning. Did +you ever hear of such a thing? It's outrageous, it's incredible, +it's.... Oh, don't sit staring there as if it didn't matter. Can't you +say something--suggest something?" + +"Your Majesty," I said humbly, for one has to be a little careful when +dealing with incensed Royalty, "I haven't been able to read it yet." + +"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said with quick contrition; "I'm afraid I'm apt +to get a little carried away when I'm upset. But surely this is more +than anybody could be expected to stand, mortal or immortal." + +She settled down on the desk in front of me, spreading out the crumpled +bit of paper on the blotter and holding the ends down with her little +hands. + +"There," she said--"read it." And this is what I read:-- + + "M----'s FAIRY RING DESTROYER. + + After prolonged experiments we have succeeded in producing a + preparation which checks the growth of unsightly rings on Lawns, &c. + Two pounds of the Destroyer per square pole is sufficient for a + single dressing. Full particulars with each consignment." + +"'Unsightly'!" said the Queen in a trembling voice. "Do you see that?" +and she pointed to the offending word with a tiny forefinger. +"'Prolonged experiments' too. Do you know, I remember now that I _have_ +had complaints from some of our Garden Settlements about discomfort; but +of course I never dreamed of anyone doing it on purpose. Do you +think--oh, do you think"--she looked at me with tears in her bright +eyes--"that it's really true that human beings are beginning to get +tired of us? That we're"--she dropped her voice and I saw that she could +hardly get out the next words--"out-of-date?" + +Her falling tears made tiny marks on the blotting-paper. + +"Of course not," I said stoutly. "On the contrary, you're coming in +stronger than ever. Why, one might almost look upon you as one of the +newest fashionable crazes, like motor-scooters and cinema stars and +indiscreet memoirs." I hardly knew what I was saying, it was so dreadful +to see her cry. + +"Oh, I hope not," she said, half-laughing and hastily dabbing her nose +with a ridiculous atom of swansdown which she produced from a minute +reticule. + +"As to these gentlemen," I continued, pointing contemptuously to the +announcement, "we'll very soon settle them." I seized a sheet of paper +and began scribbling away as hard as I could go. + +The Queen amused herself meanwhile by balancing on the letter-scales. +She seemed almost happy. I heard her murmur to herself, "Dear me. Two +ounces. I shall have to start dieting. No more honey----" + +"There," I said presently, "send them that, and we shall see what we +shall see." + +This is what I had written:-- + +"We, Titania, Queen of Fairyland, Empress of the Kingdom of Dreams, +Grand Dame of the Order of Absolute Darlings, etc., etc., beg to draw +the attention of Messrs. M---- to the enclosed paragraph, impinging +gravely on the ancient and indisputable rights and prerogatives of +ourselves and our loyal subjects, which appeared in their recent seed +catalogue. We feel that the inclusion of the aforesaid paragraph must be +due to some oversight, since Messrs. M---- can hardly be unaware of the +fact that it is only owing to the co-operation of ourselves and our +subjects that they are able to carry on their business with success. We +are unwilling to resort to extreme measures, but unless the paragraph is +immediately withdrawn we shall be obliged to take steps accordingly, in +which case Messrs. M---- are warned that the whole of next year's flower +crop may prove an utter and complete failure. Given under our Royal Hand +and Seal. TITANIA R." + +The Queen seemed very pleased when I read it over to her. + +"It's perfectly splendid," she said, clapping her hands. "How silly of +me not to have thought of it; but I was so distracted. Won't it make +them sit up? And of course we could do it easily, though it would be +rather dreadful, wouldn't it? I shall have it copied out the minute I +get home and sent off to-night. By the way" (a little anxiously) "there +aren't any split infinitives in it, are there? My chamberlain's rather +peculiar about them--they make him ill. Extraordinary, isn't it? +But--don't tell anyone--I never quite understand myself what they are or +where they split, though it certainly does sound very uncomfortable." + +I reassured her on that point. + +"Oh, then _that_'s all right," she said; "and I don't think even he +would ever have thought of 'impinging'; it's lovely, isn't it? Thank you +very much indeed," she added, as she folded up the paper and slipped it +under her girdle. "You are a most helpful person. I really think I +must--" I felt a touch on my cheek, lighter than the caress of a +butterfly's wing, softer than the tip of a baby's finger, sweeter than +the perfume of jessamine at night. For a moment the Queen continued to +flutter close about me, radiant and shining. I shut my dazzled eyes for +an instant. When I opened them she was gone. + +I can't help wondering what Messrs. M---- will do. They'll be rather +rash if they persist. And yet it does seem a little----Well, doesn't it? + + R. F. + + * * * * * + +NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN. + +THE BEE. + + I never, never could admit + The virtues of the bee; + I thought she seemed a dreadful prig + When I was small, and now I'm big + I see she is a hypocrite, + And so, of course, are we. + + It's true she rushes to and fro + With business promptitude, + But what about the busy ant? + Oh, let us clear our minds of cant-- + Why _is_ it that we love her so? + _She manufactures food._ + + But not for us. If it were shown + She organised the feast + For _us_ to eat, one might agree + About her virtue; but, you see, + She does it for herself alone, + The greedy little beast! + + So grasping is the little dear + That every now and then + She readjusts the ration scales + By simply murdering the males, + With many a base, malicious jeer + At "idle gentlemen." + + Nor does a man of us cry "Shame!" + Though every man would own + If there is one high hope for which + He labours on at fever-pitch + It is not honour, wealth or fame-- + He wants to be a drone. + + Why is it, then, we don't abhor + This horrid little prude? + Why don't we cast the foullest slur + On such a Prussian character? + Because, as I remarked before, + _She manufactures food_. + + The world is full of beasts, my son, + And I know two or three + That any parent might employ + To be a model for their boy, + But take my word, we've overdone + The insufferable bee. + + A. P. H. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: THE NEW POOR. + +"I REMEMBER THE TIME-- + +--WHEN I THOUGHT-- + +--I NEVER SHOULD RIDE IN A BUS-- + +--AND NOW-- + +--I AM ALMOST CERTAIN-- + +--I NEVER SHALL." + + * * * * * + +Illustration: CURE FOR INSOMNIA. MESMERISE YOURSELF. + + * * * * * + +THE CONSPIRATORS + +IV. + + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--The other evening I was sitting at an open-air cafe +whose coffee is better than its social reputation. To be exact it is a +low haunt. I always go there and have a cup of coffee in a glass when I +am wondering what to do next and feeling it is about time something was +happening. One of my acquaintances came and sat down at my table. To +confess the truth he has once been a pickpocket, the sort of +professional who followed the trade in the old dull days of peace for +the excitement it furnished. He has since served in the Foreign Legion, +and says that now he cannot bring himself to return to his normal work, +since by contrast it is so very tame. For a time he was stranded, but +now the international conspiracy business provides him with just the +sport he was looking for. + +After a little conversation about pocket-picking, as it used to be in +the good old days, he asked me if I was interested in communist plots. I +said I was interested in anything. He looked round the cafe to see that +all was well, leant across the table and asked me if I was not +_particularly_ interested in communist plots. "Yes," I whispered, "as +long as it's a plot I'm interested in it, even though it is a communist +one." + +He grew suspicious; why was I so interested? There is always a lot of +whispering and mutual suspicion about on these occasions. I told him of +these letters I was writing to you on the subject. This made him more +than suspicious; positively hostile. Who was this Charles? he wanted to +know. I told him all about you; explained that you were a good friend of +mine; quite all right--one of us. + +He rather took to the description of you, dropped all signs of doubt or +anxiety and wondered if we couldn't get hold of you to come and take +coffee with us one evening? You may rest assured, Charles, that there is +now one cafe in Central Europe where you are regarded as a first-class +fellow, even though your acquaintance has yet to be made; _bon +camarade_; not above picking a pocket or two yourself in a moment of +enthusiasm. You must come here and show yourself one day. You need have +no fear. We never pick each others' pockets; it isn't considered +etiquette. + +"I am now a Young Socialist," said my friend with great pride. The Young +Socialists are the worst communists there are. + +"Really?" said I; "the last time we had a chat you were an ardent German +Monarchist." + +He produced his Matriculation card; it wasn't in his proper name, but, +as he explained, one name is as good as another and he has had so many +from time to time that now he cannot rightly say which is his own. I +asked him to elaborate the Young Socialists' programme of murder and +sudden death, a subject which, as a proposed victim, had a morbid +fascination for me. He said he knew nothing about that; their +everlasting talk bored him and he never attended the public meetings. It +was the committee work which interested him. + +He told me about the first committee meeting he attended. He wasn't a +member of the committee at the time, a fact which put difficulties in +the way of his attending the meeting, as it was held behind closed +doors. All the doors were closed and locked, including the cupboard +door. He was in the cupboard. I wondered what they would have done to +him if they had found him there. He told me he had had plenty of time to +wonder that himself when he had once got himself locked in. + +"Begin at the beginning," said I. + +It was a question, first, of getting round the door-keeper. He made +friends with that door-keeper, took him out to supper, gave him a kirsch +with his coffee and a cigar with his kirsch. He told the door-keeper +that he was the most distinguished door-keeper he had ever met. He +encouraged him to go through his ailments and his grievances and was +visibly distressed by the recital. He got in the habit of sitting with +the door-keeper while he was keeping the door for the committee +assembled inside. And, when he thought the friendship was sufficiently +advanced, he poured forth his inmost heart to that door-keeper. He said +that Young Socialism was to him the breath of life, and the tragedy was +that he was always kept on the outskirts of it. He said he would give +anything to take part in a committee meeting, or anyhow to hear the +great ones at it; and, to make this sound plausible, he expounded a +scheme of Young Socialism of his own, which was far more drastic and +bloodthirsty than anything that had yet occurred to any committee. + +The door-keeper didn't believe there could be anybody who really cared +all that much for communism; for his part he kept the door because there +was money to be made easily that way. At the next committee meeting he +made more money and made it more easily, and my friend was safely locked +up in the cupboard before the committee arrived. What with the heat +inside, the thought that the door-keeper might be more cunning than had +appeared and a persistent desire to sneeze, he questioned all the time +whether he was the right man in the right place. The committee meanwhile +did little more than vote its own salaries from the central fund and +quarrel amongst itself who should be treasurer. + +Later proceedings of the committee, as noted in the cupboard, were more +interesting. When the question turned on finding someone trustworthy and +competent to take secret instructions to comrades in France and England, +my friend very nearly burst forth from his shelf to say to them, "I'm +your man!" He restrained himself, however, and thought out a more +elaborate scheme than that. + +He secured a front seat at the next public meeting of the section, +applauded vigorously when the President referred to the need of more +briskness in France and England and asked for a private interview after +the meeting was over. In a few well-chosen words he offered his services +to run messages over the frontier. Off his platform the President was +quite a practical man and, though he didn't use these words, he +indicated to my friend as follows: "If you are a genuine blackguard the +police won't let you go; if you are not a genuine blackguard you are not +really one of us." + +My friend said that that would be all right, and they agreed to meet +later on. He then went to the police and explained that he was about to +be entrusted with important letters to carry over the frontier, if they +would afford the necessary facilities. The police also were practical +and, without wishing in any way to hurt his feelings, raised the +question of his being genuine. Genuine was, of course, the very last +thing he was claiming to be, but he understood what they meant, said +that that would be all right and arranged a later appointment. He then +called on the President and found him duly suspicious. + +"I've had a talk with the police," said my friend, "and I've told them +all about you and your messages, and they are going to give me the +facilities and I am going to give them the messages." + +This was the first occasion on which the President had had to handle the +plain truth, and he didn't know what to do or say next. + +"Give me some dud messages, of course," said my friend, and the +President, thinking what a bright young Socialist this was, complied. + +He then went back to the police. "I've had a talk with the President," +said he, "and I've told them all about you and your interest in the +messages, and here the messages are; and you needn't worry to read them +because they are dud." + +The police had also got so unused to the truth from such quarters that +they were taken aback when they met it. + +"And now have I your full confidence?" said he, and they said that he +might take it that he had. He then went back to the President. + +"Good morning, Mr. President," said he. "I have given your messages to +the police and told them they are dud messages, so that now I have their +full confidence and can move about as I like. Give me the real messages +and I'll be getting on with my journey." + +Throwing precaution to the winds, the President wrote out the real +messages in full and handed them to him. + +"Come, come, come," said he, "you must be more careful than that," and +he told him what he ought to do to make sure. He did it. + +My friend then proceeded to the frontier, where, by arrangement, he was +arrested. In the inside pocket of his inside coat a bundle of messages +were found. The police nodded at him. + +"Yes," they said, "here are the messages all right. We don't know that +they help much, but we suppose that we mustn't blame you." + +"Come, come, come," said my friend, "if you doubt me, search me." They +did so, and, written on linen and sewn into the lining of his coat, they +found some more messages, which really did help them. Yours ever, HENRY. + +(_To be continued._) + + * * * * * + +Illustration: _Profiteer Host._ "I'M AFRAID WE'LL HAVE TO DRINK THE +FIZZ OUT OF PORT GLASSES." + +_Profiteer Guest._ "OH, WE DON'T MIND ROUGHIN' IT; WE'RE ALL SPORTSMEN, +I TAKE IT." + + * * * * * + +RELATIVES WITHOUT ANTECEDENTS. + + "YOUTHFUL HOSTESSES.--A few years ago when a bachelor entertained he + invited his aunt or his mother to act as hostess for him. Now he + asks his grand-daughter."--_Daily Paper._ + + * * * * * + + "Ostensibly Lit was a move to check the ever-rising cost of living, + Land in a way not fully realised by the public Lit was a method of + riveting control on the industry." + +_Evening Paper._ + +With money flung about like this the cost of living is bound to go up +again. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: SINISTER SIGNS FROM SOUTH KENSINGTON. + +_Alarmed House Agent._ "MADAM, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY PARTNER?" + +_Client._ "I was just giving particulars of my flat, which I am anxious +to let, and when I said, 'No premium required,' he crumpled up as if +he'd been shot." + + * * * * * + +_SI JEUNESSE SAVAIT._ + + [The taking of finger-prints of all new-born babies is advocated. + These will be useful for identification at trials, inquests, etc., + since the pattern of the print does not change from the cradle to + the grave.] + + With paternal pride I used to glow + When the neighbours dropped their pleasant hints + How like Daddy Reginald would grow, + But to-day they took his finger-prints; + Now I am convinced they spoke in haste-- + Such expressions show a lack of taste. + + Operator was a kindly man, + Formerly a sergeant of police; + Dipped our Reggie's digits in a pan + Filled with printers' ink and oil and grease, + Pressed them on a card and soothed his moans, + Saying "Diddums" in official tones. + + Mother stood and gazed upon the thing, + Lovingly as doting mothers do; + Asked, "Does Reggie's hieroglyphic bring + Memories of famous men to you-- + Men who, having made their lives sublime, + Left their thumb-prints on the sands of time? + + "Will it be his destiny to write + Or to earn a living with his brains? + Will he share a 'loop' with GRAHAME WHITE? + Do his 'arches' pair with those of BAINES? + Is there similarity between + Reggie's 'whorls' and those of M. MASSINE?" + + Operator coughed behind his hand, + Moved his feet and shook his hoary head, + Thrust his fingers in his bellyband, + Then at last reluctantly he said, + "I've encountered in the course of biz + Many prints that much resembled his. + + "One, I mind me, such impressions made; + P'r'aps you never heard of Ginger Hicks, + Him what done in uncle with a spade + Down in Canning Town in ninety-six? + Ginger was a wrong 'un from the fust; + As a child he bellowed fit to bust. + + "Then there was another, something like, + Got a lifer seven years ago; + Surely you remember Mealy Mike, + Robbery with violence at Bow? + Michael's thumb-print, though of larger size, + Was the spit of Reggie's otherwise. + + "Then again his lines could be compared--" + Mother snatched her precious up and fled, + Pausing once to ask him how he dared + Put such notions in um's little head. + Her departure mid a storm of kissing + Put the lid on further reminiscing. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: ALADDIN AND THE MINER'S LAMP. + +THE GENIE. "I AM THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP. I THINK YOU SUMMONED ME." + +MR. SMILLIE. "YES, I KNOW. BUT I DIDN'T REALISE YOU'D BE SO UGLY." + + * * * * * + +Illustration: "YES, A NICE LITTLE BUS. BUT I SAY, OLD TOP, THE +FOOTBOARDS ARE DEUCEDLY LOW. IF YOU RAN OVER ANYONE YOU MIGHT BE +CAPSIZED--WHAT?" + + * * * * * + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY SHOCKER. + +John Antony Grunch was one of the mildest, most innocent men I ever +knew. He had a wife to whom he was devoted with a dog-like devotion; he +went to church; he was shy and reserved, and he held a mediocre position +in a firm of envelope-makers in the City. But he had a romantic soul, +and whenever the public craving for envelopes fell off--and that is +seldom--he used to allay his secret passion for danger, devilry and +excitement by writing sensational novels. One of these was recently +published, and John Antony is now dead. The novel did it. + +Yet it was a very mild sort of "shocker," about a very ordinary murder. +The villain simply slew one of his typists in the counting-house with a +sword-umbrella and concealed his guilt by putting her in a pillar-box. +But it had "power," and it was very favourably reviewed. One critic said +that "the author, who was obviously a woman, had treated with singular +delicacy and feeling the ever-urgent problem of female employment in our +great industrial centres." Another said that the book was "a brilliant +burlesque of the fashionable type of detective fiction." Another wrote +that "it was a conscientious analysis of a perplexing phase of +agricultural life." John thought that must refer to the page where he +had described the allotments at Shepherd's Bush. But he was pleased and +surprised by what they said. + +What he did _not_ like was the interpretation offered by his family and +his friends, who at once decided that the work was the autobiography of +John Antony. You see, the scene was laid in London, and John lived in +London; the murdered girl was a typist, and there were two typists in +John's office; and, to crown all, the villain in the book had a +boar-hound, and John himself had a Skye-terrier. The thing was as plain +as could be. Men he met in the City said, "How's that boar-hound of +yours?" or "I like that bit where you hit the policeman. When did you do +that?" "_You_," mark you. Old friends took him aside and whispered, +"Very sorry to hear you don't hit it off with Mrs. Grunch; I always +thought you were such a happy couple." His wife's family said, "Poor +Gladys! what a life she must have had!" His own family said, "Poor John! +what a life she must have led him to make him go off with that +adventuress!" Several people identified the adventuress as Miss Crook, +the Secretary of the local Mothers' Welfare League, of which John was a +vice-president. + +The fog of suspicion swelled and spread and penetrated into every cranny +and level of society. No servants would come near the house, or if they +did they soon stumbled on a copy of the shocker while doing the +drawing-room, read it voraciously and rushed screaming out of the +front-door. When he took a parcel of washing to the post-office the +officials refused to accept it until he had opened it and shown that +there were no bodies in it. + +The animal kingdom is very sensitive to the suspicion of guilt. John +noticed that dogs avoided him, horses neighed at him, earwigs fled from +him in horror, caterpillars madly spun themselves into cocoons as he +approached, owls hooted, snakes hissed. Only Mrs. Grunch remained +faithful. + +But one morning at breakfast Mrs. Grunch said, "Pass the salt, please, +John." John didn't hear. He was reading a letter. Mrs. Grunch said +again, "Pass the salt, please, John." John was still engrossed. Mrs. +Grunch wanted the salt pretty badly, so she got up and fetched it. As +she did so she noticed that the handwriting of the letter was the +handwriting of A Woman. Worse, it was written on the embossed paper of +the Mothers' Welfare League. It must be from Miss Crook. _And it was._ +It was about the annual outing. "Ah, ha!" said Mrs. Grunch. (I am afraid +that "Ah, ha!" doesn't really convey to you the sort of sound she made, +but you must just imagine.) "Ah, ha! So _that_'s why you couldn't pass +the salt!" + +Mad with rage, hatred, fear, chagrin, pique, jealousy and indigestion, +John rushed out of the house and went to the office. At the door of the +office he met one of the typists. He held the door open for her. She +simpered and refused to go in front of him. Being still mad with rage, +hatred, chagrin and all those other things, John made a cross gesture +with his umbrella. With a shrill, shuddering shriek of "Murder!" the +girl cantered violently down Ludgate Hill and was never seen again. +Entering the office, John found two detectives waiting to ask him a few +questions in connection with the Newcastle Pig-sty Murder, which had +been done with some pointed instrument, probably an umbrella. + +After that _The Daily Horror_ rang up and asked if he would contribute +an article to their series on "Is Bigamy Worth While?" + +Having had enough rushing for one day John walked slowly out into the +street, trying to remember the various ways in which his characters had +committed suicide. He threw himself over the Embankment wall into the +river, but fell in a dinghy which he had not noticed; he bought some +poison, but the chemist recognised his face from a photograph in the +Literary Column of _The Druggist_ and gave him ipecacuanha (none of you +can spell that); he thought of cutting his throat, but broke his +thumb-nail trying to open the big blade, and gave it up. Desperate, he +decided to go home. At Victoria he was hustled along the platform on the +pretence that there is more room in the rear of trains. Finally he was +hustled on to the line and electrocuted. + +And everybody said, "So it _was_ true." + + A. P. H. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: "THERE BE MRS. ROUSE'S, OVER AGIN THE CHURCH. I BELIEVE +SHE DO PUT UP WITH LODGERS." + + * * * * * + +Commercial Candour. + +From an Indian trade-circular:-- + + "We believe in making a Small Profit and selling Everybody rather + than making a Big Profit and selling only a Few." + + * * * * * + + "Wanted for Tea Estate, Nilgiris, good climate + Superintendent."--_Indian Paper._ + +We could do with one here, too. + + * * * * * + + "THE WANDERING JEW, + E. TEMPLE THURSTON'S WANDERFUL PLAY." + +_Advt. in Daily Paper._ + +And still the wander grew. + + * * * * * + + "When the Prime Minister, accompanied by Mr. Lloyd George, appeared + a magnificent ovation was accorded them."--_Welsh Paper._ + +This tends to confirm the statements in the anti-Coalition Press that +the PRIME MINISTER was beside himself. + + * * * * * + +From an examination-paper at a girls' school:-- + +_Question._ Why are the days in summer longer than those in winter? + +_Answer._ Because they are warmer and therefore expand. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: _Visitor._ "LUCKY TO FIND A HAIRDRESSER IN A SMALL +VILLAGE LIKE THIS." + +_Native._ "WELL, BE RIGHTS IT'S MY SON'S BUSINESS AND 'E'S AWAY; BUT +I'VE DONE A WUNNERFUL DEAL OF 'ORSE-CLIPPIN'." + + * * * * * + +ERNEST EXPERIMENTS. + +There is no doubt that Ernest was to blame. I know, of course, that he +meant well. But a passion for fresh air, unless it is checked in time, +is bound to lead one into all sorts of trouble. + +You see, Ernest suffers so from theories. He has theories about eating, +sleeping and waking, talking and thinking; but those on fresh air are +the worst (or perhaps I ought to say the best) of all. Not that we, who +constitute his family, would object to his theories if he didn't get us +involved in them as well; but that is exactly what does happen. There +was, for example, the camping-out proposition. + +It began with Mother sitting at a table one evening in the early autumn +and jotting down figures. Her brow was troubled. "We really can't afford +a holiday this year, girls," she said, "though I suppose we shall _have_ +to. What with the price of everything just now and--" She then went on +to speak with hostility of things like the Government and Sir ERIC +GEDDES, though she is a peaceable woman as a rule. + +Whereupon Ernest, who was at the open window engaged in a little quiet +biceps-training (we won't allow him to do the more rowdy muscular +exercises in the living-room), remarked, "But why should we be subjected +to these eternal trammels of civilisation? Isn't the open country man's +rightful heritage?" + +"I see the prices have gone up at the select boarding-house where we +stayed last year and met such nice people," went on Mother, ignoring +Ernest. "It's five guineas a week each now." + +"Monstrous," put in Ernest again. "Five guineas a week just to breathe +the pure air of Heaven." + +"Oh, they give you more than that," said Mother, "though I suspect the +meat isn't English." + +Ernest laughed sardonically. "Now let me tell you of my plan," he said, +taking a newspaper cutting from his pocket. "Here is my solution to the +holiday problem, and it certainly doesn't cost five guineas a week. Why +not adopt it?" + +"Why, it's an umbrella," commented Mother, feeling for her glasses. "But +surely you don't expect it to rain all the time?" + +"That is not an umbrella, it is an illustration of a portable tent," +explained Ernest. "The canvas folds up and can be carried in the pocket, +while the pole also folds and is convertible into a walking-stick by +day. Thus you are able to camp where you will; throw off the shackles of +convention----" + +"It may be all right for throwing off the shackles of convention," +remarked Mother, "but nothing would induce me to undress in a thing like +that." + +"But when it's erected it's perfectly solid----" + +"So am I," said Mother, "and I like room to turn round. No, Ernest, I am +as fond of fresh air as anyone--you know I always have my bedroom window +open at least two inches at night--but air is not everything. Give me a +comfortable bed and good catering if I am to go on holiday and enjoy it. +_You_ can please yourself." + +That is the mistake Mother made. Ernest ought not to be allowed to +please himself. He doesn't know what is good for him. And, when he +departed on his walking tour accompanied by his tent, his sponge-bag, a +copy of OMAR KHAYYAM, but very little else, Mother felt uneasy. + +"What will happen if you get your feet wet?" she asked. "I'm sure you +ought to take more things with you, Ernest." + +"What more do I want?" he demanded, "'A loaf of bread beneath the +bough----'" + +"A loaf of bread indeed!" echoed Mother. "Fiddlesticks! Mind you get at +least three good meals a day." She then gave him the address of the +boarding-house where we had finally decided to spend our holidays and +told him to send her a wire at once if he got a cold in the head. + + * * * + +It was the hour of dinner at the Select Boarding Establishment (sep. +tables, 3 mins. sea, elec. lt., mod.) where we had spent ten days of our +entirely select holiday. Everyone was assembled in the lounge hall +waiting for the gong to announce the meal. Mother, basking her soul in +the atmosphere of gentility, was chatting with the half-sister of a +bishop, who was just remarking that Mother must call on her in town, +when a strange _fracas_ was heard at the back of the hall; a moment +later a strange figure thrust itself in our midst and looked wildly +round. + +"Ernest!" murmured Mother faintly. She was a wise woman to know her own +child under the circumstances. Perhaps she identified the tent-pole to +which he was still clinging. Otherwise he was scarcely recognisable. His +hair was wild and unkempt, his clothing torn and damaged. His boots +clung to his feet by the uppers only and were held together by fragments +of a sponge-bag. + +"Mother!" said Ernest, singling her out from amongst the gay throng. The +moment was dramatic. + +"I--I was arrested," went on Ernest. He spoke in a purely conversational +tone, but it's surprising how far the human voice will carry at times. +Everybody about the place, including the lift-boy and the Belgian +waiter, seemed to hear that remark. + +"Arrested?" whispered Mother in reverberating tone-waves. + +"Yes. How was I to know that I had pitched my tent on private property +and was unwittingly trespassing? They would have prosecuted me if I +hadn't----" + +"You had better come up to my room and explain there," interposed +Mother; and we followed her, a broken woman, to the lift. People fell +aside to make a passage for us. + +Mother held up until she got to her own room. Then she sat down and +cried. "Why did you disgrace us like this?" she asked at last of Ernest. +"Was it necessary for you to come _here_?" + +"I had to," said Ernest apologetically. "You see I hadn't any money." + +Mother looked up quickly. "But what of the extra ten pounds I insisted +on your taking with you in case of emergency?" + +Ernest appeared slightly shame-faced. "Well, when those fatuous asses +hauled me up for trespassing they left me in the charge of a gamekeeper +while they 'phoned for the police. I induced the chap to let me go, and +I had to square him with a tenner." + +There was a long pause. Mother's mind seemed to be working at some +abstruse calculation. Then she dried her eyes and looked up with the +triumphant smile of the woman who gets the last word and wins her point. + +"And so, Ernest," she said, "it _did_ cost you five guineas a week to +'breathe the pure air of Heaven' after all." + + * * * * * + +Illustration: "SORRY TO HEAR YOUR HUSBAND IS LAID UP AGAIN, MRS. +GRIGGS." + +"YES. THE TROUBLE IS HE BE AN OLD MAN, AND HE _WILL_ TURN A DEAF EAR TO +THE WRITIN' ON THE WALL." + + * * * * * + +PRAWLING'S THEORY. + +(_By a Student of Jargon._) + +By the courtesy of Professor Prawling, F. R. S., who has supplied us +with the MS. of his recent lecture before the Psycho-Economical Society, +we are in a position to give our readers a full account of that masterly +and epoch-making address, of which, strange to say, no adequate notice +has so far appeared in any newspaper. + +Professor Prawling's credentials, we may premise, are of a nature to +inspire the utmost confidence. His father, Theodore Prawling, was the +inventor of the speedle, that remarkable implement, fully described by +_Punch_ in the early seventies, which rendered possible the +emulsification of all gelatinoid substances and revolutionised the +marmalade industry. He is duly commemorated by the fine statue which is +one of the principal features of Dundee. His son, however, has even +greater claims on our respect and admiration. Educated at the High +School, Crieff, and the Universities of Glasgow, Upsala, the Sorbonne +and Princeton, he is generally recognised in the United States as the +foremost authority on Paedological Gongorism and the cognate science of +Mendelian Economics. + +The problem with which he grapples in his latest contribution to these +fascinating studies may be tersely summed up in a single sentence: Can a +healthy metabolism be superinduced on an economic system already showing +symptoms of extrinsic conglucination? + +Professor Prawling is of opinion that it _can_, but only if and when the +evils of co-partnership and co-operation have been neutralized by a +diastolic synthesis. To compute exactly the extent to which these evils +have been developed he has devised a syncretic abacus, in which, on the +principle of the spectroscope, the aplanatic foci are arranged in +fluorescent nodules each equidistant from the metacentre. With a +frankness that cannot be too highly commended, Professor Prawling admits +that this instrument is founded on BENTHAM'S Panopticon. But the +deviations from BENTHAM and the expansions of his machine are far more +remarkable than the resemblances to it. Prawling--if he will allow us +the familiarity--is not a utilitarian. His aim is to re-establish our +textile pre-eminence by reconciling monistic individualism with the +fullest solidarity of the social complex. He is meticulously careful in +stressing the point that the demarcations arrived at by the use of his +abacus are not absolute, but conditioned by EINSTEIN'S theory of +relativity. The ancillary industries, each moving in its orbit, whether +jurassic or botulistic, must be placed on a contractual basis with +liberty of preferential retaliation. Thus the whole industrial polyphony +is linked up by enharmonic modulations, and thrombosis--or, at any rate, +conglucination--of the central ganglia of commerce is reduced to +negligible dimensions. + +At this juncture it is well to point out in the interests of clarity +that regurgitation can only be avoided by a rigorous adhesion to the +canon of CRITTENDEN--that the unit of nutrition must vary inversely with +the square of dilution. + +It will thus be seen that by the logical application of a few simple and +easily apprehended principles Professor Prawling has built up a great +edifice of practical economics, which, whether we regard it in its +subliminal or its pragmatic aspects, cannot fail to have influence on +the dynamics of International Industrialism. + +One word more. The conglucination theory appeals with especial force to +_Punch_, because it reminds him of the kindred and remarkable +speculation on Snooling discussed by him many years ago. The new theory, +like the old, deserves to be treated "in no spirit of sedentary +sentimentalism, but in its largest and most oleaginous entirety. It is +no plan for fixing hat-pegs in a passage, nor is it a mode of treating +neuralgia with treacle." How true and appropriate this is. _Mutatis +mutandis_ we may add the further statement that it is "the truest and +tenderest thesis that can occupy the most calculating cosmopolite." The +corporate pursuit of a granulated conglucination is perhaps the highest +achievement of which the present generation is capable. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: "I TRUST YOU'LL EXCUSE ME MENTIONING IT, MY GOOD FELLOW, +BUT THAT IS THE RIGHT ENTRANCE--ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ROAD." + + * * * * * + +More Impending Apologies. + + "Cardinal Dubois, Archbishop of Rouen, has been translated, as most + of us expected, to the Archbishopric in Paris. Being a very + distinguished man of letters, the Academie Francaise would like to + include him among the Immorals, but, alas! they are 'full inside.'" + + _Evening Paper._ + + * * * * * + +HEADLINING. + +The thrilling incident of the stray cat at "Chez Nous" is never likely +to get into the newspapers. On the other hand, lots of incidents which +do get in never deserve to. It's all a question of head-lining, which is +the bluff by which the public is induced to read matter it would +otherwise skip. + +The affair began while I was in the City. I learnt afterwards that +Marjorie (my wife) was crooning to her needles the unmetrical jumper +lullaby, "Six purl, eight plain; then the same all over again." Anyhow +she was knitting, when she suddenly found herself looking into the +wistful eyes of a tortoiseshell cat which had appeared--merely appeared. + +As she told me, she softly exclaimed, "A cat!" (right first time); then, +because it looked so wistful, she directed the maid to set before the +creature a saucer of milk. In fact-- + + HOMELESS BLACK-AND-TAN. + LUCKY CHANCE CALL. + TOOTING GOOD SAMARITAN. + +When I arrived home, Marjorie ran into the hall to give me one of her +smooth evening kisses. I stepped forward to exchange it for one of my +stubbly ones when-- + +"Oh, Jack," said Marjorie, "you've trodden on her!" + +"'Her,'" I said. "Who's 'her'?" + +"The dearest little tortoiseshell stray cat," replied Marjorie. "You +really might have been more careful." + +"I say, that's rather unfair," I said. "I stagger home tired to the +teeth after a particularly thin day in the City, followed by a +sardine-tin journey, and my own wife turns on me in favour of the first +outcast cat that comes along. It's enough to drive a man to dope." Or, +as the headlines would have it:-- + + NEAR BREAKING-POINT. + STRAIN OF BUSINESS LIFE. + ORIGIN OF THE DRUG HABIT. + +After a bath and a change I felt better, and came down to dinner humming +a sentimental ballad in Marjorie's honour. But the word "love" died on +my lips when I saw that in the lap of Marjorie's pretty pink gown +reposed the stray cat. The colour-clash and the misapplication of +caresses which should have been my monopoly threw me back with a jerk to +a state of bearishness. + +"Surely you're not going to keep that animal?" I asked. + +"Of course I am, as long as she likes to stay," said Marjorie. "She's +very fond of me, aren't you, pussy? Fonder than my husband, I 'spect." + +"I know these stray cats," I said. "Stiff with microbes. Tribes of mangy +lovers prowling round the house. A nest of kittens in my top-hat. I +know." + +"Poor li'l pussy," cooed Marjorie. "Don'tum listen to the big coarse +man." + +"Coarse be----" + +In other (and more suitable) words-- + + HUSBAND'S PROFANITY. + MASK OFF AFTER TWO YEARS. + PEEVISH ABOUT WIFE'S PET. + +Marjorie said coldly that she didn't know I had such a temper. I said +hotly that I didn't know she could be so infantile. + +We went on discovering things we hadn't known about each other:-- + + THE TESTING TIME + IN CONJUGAL FELICITY, + IS IT THE THIRD YEAR? + +Dinner was an ordeal. I felt miles apart from Marjorie. A great gulf +filled with black-and-yellow cat lay between us. Once only the topic of +the beast arose (on the subject of fish-bones) and just as I was +becoming big and coarse again the maid entered with the joint. She must +have heard what I said. + + SHOULD SERVANTS TELL? + BACKDOOR SCANDAL. + +Still, the meal itself was a cheering one, and, after Marjorie had +risen, the sentimental ballad mood gained on me again. After all, what +was a stray cat compared with one's marriage vows? If the dear girl +wanted to keep the thing we would have it vetted, definitely named, and +warned as to followers. + +Marjorie's voice interrupted my amiable planning. "Puss, puss," she +called. I joined her and stated my decision to relent. + +"But she's vanished," said Marjorie. She had. And she has never come +back. Ah! those stray cats. + + NINE LIVES SPENT WHERE? + FOUR-FOOTED NOMADS. + FICKLE FELINE FRIENDSHIPS. + +"Look here, old girl," I said, "I take back all I said about your little +friend. I'm with you that she was the dearest, most hygienic, most moral +cat that ever strafed a mouse." + +"Perhaps it's all for the best that she's gone," said Marjorie. + +The dear girl inclined her head towards my shoulder. Well, well. + + WHAT EVERY WOMAN WANTS + TO KNOW. + IS KISSING DYING OUT? + PRACTICIANS SAY "NO." + + * * * * * + +More Precocity. + + "Unfurnished Rooms wanted (two or three), with attendance; one + child, 4-1/2 years; at business all day."--_Provincial Paper._ + + * * * * * + +LOVE'S HANDICAP. + +[A daily paper points out that many girls find their sweethearts in +print, and expresses the hope that when "a real man comes along he may +be as brave and tender, as cheery and clean-living," as these heroes of +fiction.] + + Dear lady, put down for a minute + That book which you eagerly scan, + Intent upon finding within it + Your perfect ideal of a man; + Its pages reflectively closing, + Consider a moment the strain + Your standard may soon be imposing + Upon some susceptible swain. + + Those heroes whose fortunes you follow + I've noticed are able to show + The unparalleled charms of Apollo, + The muscles of SAMSON and Co.; + But he who comes seeking to win you + May have, for supporting his plea, + A palpable shortage of sinew + And beauty distinctly C 3. + + And, unprepossessing in mien, he + May also lack some of the art + With which Saccharissa the Tweeny + Was wooed by Sir Marmaduke, Bart.; + His tongue may (conceivably) stammer, + His heart (not impossibly) quake, + And in stress of emotion his grammar + May even develop a shake. + + But pause ere you "spurn his addresses;" + His merits may still be as high + As the sort that your hero possesses, + Though they leap not so quick to the eye; + At the least, you've the comfort of knowing, + Since his heart at _your_ feet he has placed, + That in one thing at least he is showing + A wholly impeccable taste. + + * * * * * + +How Some Advertisers "Tell the Tale." + + "We spin the yarn ourselves." + + _Advt. in Daily Paper._ + + * * * * * + +"'FULL TERM.'" + +AN IMPRESSION AT CAMBRIDGE. + + I watch the faces of the 'men,' boys in so many cases, jumping from + their trains; from the north, the south, the east, the west they + come, and they come not alone but _dona ferentes_--they carry + tennis-racquets, golf-sticks, cycles, sidecars, kitbags, + gladstone-bags, trunks, hold-alls."--_Evening Paper._ + +Hefty chaps, these post-war undergraduates. + + * * * * * + + "Question.--How much has the time for crossing the ocean been + shortened since the day of Columbus? + + T. E. C. + + Answer.--Idaho is a North American Indian word meaning 'Gem of the + Mountains' or 'Sunrise Mountains.'" + + _Boston (Massachusetts) Herald._ + +We hope that T. E. C. isn't going to be put off with such a simple +device as this. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: _Injured Party._ "IT'S ALL VERY WELL, PASSON, FOR YOU TO +SAY WOT 'ORRIBLE LANGWIDGE, BUT 'APPEN YOUR MISSIS AIN'T SUCH A GOOD +SHOT WITH A FLAT-IRON AS MINE IS." + + * * * * * + +OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. + +(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) + +There is certainly this to be said of Mr. HUGH WALPOLE--that, having +devised a tale of gloom, he allows no weak consideration for his +readers' feelings to deter him from making the worst of it. I write, +having but now emerged, blinking a little at the familiar sunlight (yet +oddly invigorated too), from a perusal of the four-hundred-and-seventy +pages of his _Captives_ (MACMILLAN). Of course I have nothing like space +to detail for you its plot. Summarised, it tells the life of a young +woman, _Maggie Cardinal_, whom one may briefly call the bemused victim +of religions--and relations. You never knew any well-intentioned heroine +who had such abysmal luck with both. Her clergyman father, a bad hat, +who spared us his acquaintance by expiring on the first page; her +semi-moribund aunts in their detestable London home; the circle of the +Inner Saints, with their intrigues that centred in the ugly little +meeting-house; the seaside parish with its spiritually-dead atmosphere, +in which _Maggie's_ hopeless married life is spent--all these and more +are realised with an art that is almost devastating in its unforced +effect. Sometimes I hoped that such universal drabness was too bad to be +true; one caught touches of manipulation, times in which these poor +_Captives_ seemed bound less by the chains of circumstance than by the +wires of Mr. WALPOLE. The queer result was that I found myself believing +in his compellingly human characters, but protesting that such unbroken +misfortune could not, or need not, have encompassed them. To take an +example, when _Maggie's_ "tipsy" uncle was shown into the Vicarage +drawing-room on her "At Home day," no other guests had yet arrived. +Surely therefore (save for peremptory orders from Mr. WALPOLE) she might +somehow have removed the culprit to another room, or at least denied +herself to subsequent callers, who included (of course) the most +influential and scandal-mongering of the parish ladies. That is the kind +of rather piled-up agony that made me suspect Mr. WALPOLE of letting his +fortitude get at times the better of his commonsense. But he has written +a big book. + + * * * * * + +Mr. E. F. BENSON, of whom it might justly be said that he produces not +books but libraries (and the quality of his output under these +circumstances remains for me amongst the literary wonders of the age), +has been at it again. Hardly have I finished laughing over _Queen +Lucia_, when I find him claiming a wholly different interest with a +volume of personal recollections called _Our Family Affairs_ (CASSELL). +By its theme and treatment this is work standing naturally a little +outside criticism; but I can say at once that Mr. BENSON has never +written with a more sympathetic charm than in these pictures of the +childhood of himself and his sister and brothers; of the various +scholastic and ecclesiastical homes to which the increasing dignities of +that rather alarming parent, the Archbishop, transported his family; and +(quite the best and most attractive portrait in the collection) of the +mother whom all of them united to adore. There is an actual photograph +of her here, taken at the age of twenty, which goes far to explain how +she came to be the heroine of the story; the lurking gaiety and laughter +of it quaintly foretelling the great ecclesiastical lady who, on one +occasion when the Archbishop was absent, could announce to her +enraptured children that family prayers should be remitted, "as a +treat!" Schooldays at Wellington; Cambridge; some topical memoirs of the +Georgian _regime_ in Athens, and (what will interest many readers most +of all) the history of the origin of that famous lady, _Dodo_--these are +but a selection from the contents of a volume that should find hosts of +friends. + + * * * * * + +_The Girl in Fancy Dress_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) was so very much +disguised in one way and another that _Anthony_, the hero, when he asked +her to marry him, even for the second time, was taking considerable +risks. The speed of the affair must also have been bewildering. +_Cynthia_, the heiress, arrives on a Thursday to stay with his people, +but, having tumbled out of a motor-car into a wet ditch on her way, she +is dressed, rather like a stage coster-girl, in garments borrowed from a +cottager. Naturally, as of course a nursery-governess is much more +likely than an heiress to look like that, _Anthony's_ people mistake her +for a poor country cousin who is also expected, and _Cynthia_, +discovering that her host and hostess and their dreary daughters intend +the heiress to marry _Anthony_ and, worse than that, that he has called +her "the goose with the golden eggs," fosters the mistake and does her +best to pay them all out. She leaves on the following Tuesday, but +before that _Anthony_ has taken her to one dance as a peasant girl and +she has talked to him at another disguised as a green domino, and he has +proposed to her as his cousin and withdrawn his declaration when he +finds she isn't. Next he sees her as _Lady Teazle_ in amateur +theatricals, and then comes his final meeting with her in her proper +person, which brings about a satisfactory ending for everyone but +_Cynthia's_ other lover. I don't say that all these things couldn't have +happened; I only say that as a rule they don't. Apart from that, the +bright bustling action of Mrs. J. E. BUCKROSE'S story has a cheerful +charm of its own, and _Cynthia_, as poor relation of one of the +anxiously best families in a little country town, provides some amusing +situations--for the reader. + + * * * * * + +If the shade of ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON is jealous of its rights and its +copyrights, Mr. JEFFREY FARNOL may look to be hauled up before the +Recording Angel, on his arrival, in the matter of his _Black Bartlemy's +Treasure_ (SAMPSON LOW), which he might just as well have called _Black +Bartlemy's Treasure Island_ and have done. Never was such frank adoption +of ideas; and yet no God-fearing, adventure-loving Englishman will +regret it. For all my devotion to R. L. S. I heartily enjoyed this +elaboration of his idea, split me (to quote the thorough-going language +of it)--split me crosswise else! There are forty-seven chapters and a +bloody fight in every one of them, save in the dozen set apart for an +interval of refreshment and romance in the middle. Nay, but was not the +primitive romance a gentler combat, itself, between _Martin Conisby_ and +_Lady Joan Brandon_, marooned, solitary, upon the Island where they did +find (and lose) a treasure even greater than _Black Bartlemy's_? After +having "consorted with pirates and like rogues" and having "endured much +of harms and dangers, as battle, shipwreck, prison and solitude," it +seemed we had sighted happiness at last. But even at the very end things +took an ill turn and our _Martin_, our dear _Martin_, is left stranded +and in sorry plight. Yet must there be a sequel to this. Had he been +left to die on the Island he could not have told us his story thus far; +moreover his last word is that the tale is yet to finish. May I be there +to hear! + + * * * * * + +I rather think that the lady who elects to write under the name of O. +DOUGLAS did less than justice to the peculiar quality of her own gifts +in calling her last story _Penny Plain_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). Because +really such confectionery as this, covered inches deep with the sweetest +and smoothest and pinkest of sugar, could never in these days be bought +for many pennies, while as for "plain"...! Most of the plot (which +really isn't at all the right word for such caramel-stuff) takes place +in a small Scottish town, where lives a family of book-children, +mothered by an elder sister named _Jean_, all of them rich in char-r-rm +but poor in cash. To this town comes, first, a pleasant single lady with +a lord for her brother; secondly an aged man full of money; and, because +the family (and the tale) is what it is, _Jean_, in fewer chapters than +you would easily credit, has clasped the young lord to her breast and is +saying the correct things to the family lawyer of the aged man +concerning the responsibilities of being his heiress. So there you have +it. I doubt whether anything even temporarily unpleasant so much as +suggests itself; for "O. DOUGLAS" has apparently discovered that, in a +world still struggling with stale peace-bread, her pink sugar-cakes are +not only cheerful to cook but likely to prove highly remunerative. + + * * * * * + +Illustration: TACT IN TIME. + +_King Alfred_ (_to shopman_). "AH! I SEE YOU STOCK MY PATENT +CANDLE-CLOCKS. HOW ARE THEY SELLING?" + +_Shopman._ "THEY'RE SELLING LIKE HOT----I MEAN THERE'S QUITE A RUN ON +THEM, YOUR MAJESTY." + + * * * * * + +A Confession. + + "The ---- Manufacturing Co. (The Profiteering Stranglers)." _Advt. in + Provincial Paper._ + + * * * * * + + "Wanted, 1,000 pairs running shoes for local expeditionary force + about to be organised."--_North China Daily News._ + +The wise commander always prepares for a retreat. + + * * * * * + + The limits of age for entrance to the [Royal Air Force] college will + be from 157-1/2 to 1 years."--_Daily Paper._ + + "Percy ---- has recently joined the R. A. F. He is only 199 years of + age."--_Local Paper._ + +We are sorry for PERCY, who will probably get the "push" as soon as the +authorities find out that he has exceeded their very liberal age-limit. + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch or the London Charivari, October +20, 1920, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, CHARIVARI, OCT 20, 1920 *** + +***** This file should be named 27421.txt or 27421.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/4/2/27421/ + +Produced by Neville Allen, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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