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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+CLVIII, January 7, 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, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Owen Seaman
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2009 [EBook #30593]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH-CHARIVARI, JANUARY 7, 1920 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Lesley Halamek, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOLUME 158, JANUARY 7, 1920
+
+[Illustration: Punch. Vol. CLVIII.]
+
+  LONDON:
+  PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE, 10, BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.4.
+  1920.
+
+
+  Bradbury, Agnew & Co., Ltd.,
+  Printers,
+  Whitefriars, London, E.C.4.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: VOLUME CLVIII.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NEW WELLS FOR OLD.
+
+Over the top of Part II. of _The Outline of History_ I caught the
+smiling glance of the man in the opposite corner of the compartment.
+
+"Good stuff that," he said, indicating the History with a jerk of his
+head.
+
+"Quite," I agreed, maintaining my distance.
+
+"Immense," he continued. "And it means the dawn of a new life for
+me. I'm WELLS'S hero. Every time I've appeared in his half-yearly
+masterpiece, ever since _Tono Bungay_. And look at the mess he's made
+of my life. Often I've had to start it under the cloud of mysterious
+parentage. Invariably I have been endowed with a Mind (capital M).
+Think of those uphill fights of mine against adverse conditions.
+And my unhappy marriages. He has led me into every variation of
+infidelity. When I _did_ hit it off with my wife for once, he sent us
+to the Arctic regions as a punishment. In the depth of winter, too.
+
+But, now he's taken up this History, I'm free. The dam has burst and
+strange things come floating down ..."
+
+He sprang to his feet in his excitement. He was wearing a
+loose-fitting suit and what his master might call a lower middle-class
+hat.
+
+"And now I'm going to do all the things I've always wanted to do. A
+happy marriage; well-ordered life in the suburbs; warm slippers in the
+fender, and all that that stands for; kinemas, perhaps, and bowls. An
+allotment ..."
+
+"But," I objected, "this History won't occupy him for ever. There
+should be only about sixteen more parts. He'll have you out again next
+autumn."
+
+"But WELLS is getting the Suburban idea too." He was standing right
+over me, glaring horribly with excitement. The train had entered a
+tunnel and he was shouting bravely against the din. "Look in Part
+I. He acknowledges the help he has received from Mrs. WELLS. And her
+watchful criticism. That from _him_! I tell you I am free--free!"
+
+He was shaking me by the shoulders now, his face close to mine. "I
+shall have my allotment. Prize parsnips--giant marrows!"
+
+"Don't be too sure," I yelled--the tunnel seemed endless. "Remember
+poor old _Sherlock_. DOYLE raised _him_ from the dead. And you"--my
+voice rising to a scream--"he'll have you out--out--OUT!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I came to I heard my dentist remark to the doctor that I always had
+been a bad patient under gas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MR. PUNCH ON SILK STOCKINGS.
+
+DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Your article about Christmas presents was a great
+success. I took your advice about the silk stockings, and sent the
+following verses with them, which some of your married readers may
+care to cut out and keep for future use:--
+
+  Your stockings once, on Christmas Eve,
+    Would hang, your cot adorning,
+  And Father Christmas, we believe,
+    Would fill them ere the morning;
+  But since he spied your dainty toes
+    To exchange the parts he's willing:
+  He thinks it's his to send the hose
+    And yours to find the filling.
+  He lays his offerings at your feet
+    And hopes you won't deride them,
+  For he has nothing half so neat
+    As you to put inside them.
+
+There! I can only repeat that the results were excellent, and express
+my gratitude to you for the same.
+
+  Yours obediently,
+  GRATEFUL HUSBAND.
+
+P.S.--The ties I got this time were quite all right; she too must have
+read your article.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NATURE AND ART.
+
+_To Betty, who can afford to defy the laws of symmetry._
+
+    [Being reflections on the old theory, recently developed
+    before the Hellenic Society by Mr. JAY HAMBRIDGE, that certain
+    formulae of proportions found in nature--notably in the normal
+    ratio between a man's height and the span of his outstretched
+    arms (2: [**square root] 5)--constituted the basis of symmetry
+    in the art of the Greeks and, earlier, of the Egyptians.]
+
+  Betty, I fear you don't conform
+  Precisely to the female norm
+    From dainty foot to charming noddle,
+  But, closely measured, span by span,
+  Seem built upon a private plan
+  Not found in ANNIE KELLERMAN
+    Or in the well-known Melos model.
+
+  If you compare your width and height--
+  Arms horizontal, left and right--
+    With ancient types of pure perfection,
+  The ratio may not, it's true,
+  Be as the root of 5 to 2,
+  But what, my dear, has that to do
+    With laws of natural selection?
+
+  Let Mr. HAMBRIDGE to your shape
+  Apply his T-square and his tape,
+    And wish that you were more archaic;
+  Why should I care? I love you best
+  For what no compasses can test,
+  For graces not to be expressed
+    In terms however algebraic.
+
+  I love you for the lips and eyes
+  That none may hope to standardize
+    On any system known to Hellas;
+  And what I like about your smile
+  Has no relation to the style
+  Of any pyramid of Nile
+    Figured by mathematic fellahs.
+
+  Though your proportions mayn't agree
+  With FECHNER'S pedant formulae,
+    I don't complain of such disparity;
+  Too flawless that perfection shows;
+  For me a larger comfort flows
+  From human failings (take your nose--
+    I like its quaint irregularity).
+
+  Indeed I love you best of all
+  For those defects by which you fall
+    Short of the pattern you should follow;
+  As I would fain be loved for mine,
+  Speaking as one whose own design
+  Lacks something of the perfect line
+    Affected by the young Apollo.
+
+  O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW TO GAIN A JOURNALISTIC POSITION.
+
+Young aspirants are always endeavouring to secure posts on our leading
+newspapers, and complain bitterly that their letters of application
+are ignored by obtuse editors. To help them in this sad ambition Mr.
+Punch has composed a series of letters to divers editors which he
+guarantees will prove eminently satisfactory.
+
+_To the Editor of "The Daily News."_
+
+SIR,--I regard the insufferable LLOYD GEORGE as the most dangerous,
+the most malignant, the most incompetent politician who has ever
+attempted to misrule this country. The iniquity of the Coalition will
+make enlightened rulers like LENIN and TROTSKY blush for the human
+race. I feel with you that till the real Liberal party returns to
+power England will never know peace and prosperity. Then and then only
+will brotherly friendship between England and Germany be renewed. Then
+and then only shall we see cheap milk, cheap coal, abundant housing,
+the Free Breakfast Table and the Large Cocoa Cup. To show my devotion
+to the cause you so nobly advocate I may say that I have actually
+read every article contributed by Mr. MASTERMAN to your paper. I am
+strongly in favour of an _entente_ with Labour, by which Labour should
+agree not to contest any seats where the true Asquithians stand a
+chance. I enclose as a specimen of my work the first of a series
+of articles on "How LLOYD GEORGE lost the War," which I am sure
+will be invaluable at by-elections.
+
+_To the Editor of "The Daily Mail."_
+
+SIR,--I am young and, if possible, growing younger daily. My motto
+is "Hustle and Bustle" and not "Dilly and Dally." I live on standard
+bread, in a wooden hut embowered, when feasible, with sweet peas. My
+ear is always close to the ground, and I can confidently predict what
+the man in the street will be thinking about the day after tomorrow.
+Politically, I am opposed to the Wastrels, the Wee Frees and the
+Bolsheviks, and am not prepared as yet to back Labour unreservedly.
+I can express myself brightly and briefly on any topical subject.
+Herewith I send specimen articles (length three hundred words)
+on "Poker Bridge," "Are we having Wetter Washdays?" and "The
+Woggle-Wiggle Dance." Should there be no vacancy on your staff
+I should be prepared to accept one on any other of your
+publications--_The Weekly Dispatch_, _The Times_ or _The Rainbow_.
+
+_To the Editor of "The Manchester Guardian."_
+
+SIR,--I was a Conscientious Objector during the War. I conscientiously
+object to everything still, including the Peace Treaty. I speak and
+write fifteen languages and dialects, including Oxford English. I have
+a comprehensive knowledge of social and political life in Continental
+Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Polynesia. I have also resided
+in England. I have a deep conviction that under all conditions,
+everywhere and at all times, England is invariably and absolutely
+in the wrong. In home politics I am resolutely opposed to all the
+Coalition has done, is doing or will do. It is my firm opinion that
+the actions of England would become less deplorable, less criminal if
+Mr. ASQUITH returned to power. I enclose as specimens of my mentality
+two intensely human articles which I doubt not will find a home in
+your columns: "Proportional Representation in Jugo-Slavia" (length
+four thousand five hundred words) and "Futurism under TROTSKY" (length
+five thousand words).
+
+_To the Editor of "The Spectator."_
+
+SIR,--In offering my services to you I may point out how happily my
+up-bringing and mental training have fitted me for a post on your
+staff. The child of an Archdeacon (who was also honorary chaplain to a
+rifle club), I was born in a house with earth-filled walls and brought
+up in intimate association with a large number of most intelligent
+animals. If desired I am prepared to relate anecdotes of the family
+bull-dog and a pet she-goat which will verify my description. I feel
+with you that England can only be saved by relying on a Free-Trading,
+Non-Socialist, Church Establishment. I loathe alike Mr. ASQUITH and
+Mr. LLOYD GEORGE, and think that the intellect of England, which
+blossoms so luxuriously in country rectories and deaneries, finds
+its best expression in Lord HUGH CECIL. As a specimen of my literary
+ability I enclose a middle article on "The Sense of Obligation in
+Tom-Cats."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A "POSITIVELY LAST" APPEARANCE.
+
+MR. PUNCH. "ACCEPT THIS POOR TRIBUTE IN RECOGNITION OF MUCH GOOD
+ENTERTAINMENT IN THE PAST. I DON'T KNOW WHAT MY ARTISTS WOULD HAVE
+DONE WITHOUT YOU."
+
+[The recent withdrawal of horsed cabs from certain ranks in the London
+district foreshadows the final extinction of this venerable type.]]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Club Grouser._ "WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS?"
+
+_Waiter._ "THAT'S GAME PIE, SIR."
+
+_Club Grouser._ "UMPH! THINK I MUST HAVE GOT A BIT OF THE FOOTBALL."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+It is rumoured that Professor PORTA has sent a message to Mr. LLOYD
+GEORGE, wishing him a Happy New World.
+
+* * *
+
+Mr. Justice ROWLATT has decided that photography is not a profession.
+With some actresses, of course, it is just a disease.
+
+* * *
+
+The gentleman who drew 1920 in a fifty-pound sweepstake as the date
+of the ex-Kaiser's trial is now prepared to sell his chance for
+sixpence-halfpenny.
+
+* * *
+
+"He is not a politician," says Mr. R. HARCOURT in _The Times_,
+referring to Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES. It will be interesting to see how
+Sir AUCKLAND accepts this compliment.
+
+* * *
+
+A letter posted at Hull for Odessa in July, 1914, has just been
+returned to the sender. The postal authorities are thought to take the
+view that the sender should be given an opportunity of adding a few
+seasonable observations to his previous remarks.
+
+* * *
+
+It is all nonsense to say that there can be no change in the present
+high prices. They can always go higher.
+
+* * *
+
+Owing to the strike of cabmen in Glasgow a number of people had to
+walk home on New Year's Eve. It is not said how the others got home,
+but we have made a guess.
+
+* * *
+
+On enquiry about the erection of huge new premises in the Strand by
+the American Bush Terminal Company, we gather that London is not to be
+removed, but will be allowed to remain next door.
+
+* * *
+
+Inspector MOSS of the Great Eastern Railway Police has just had his
+pocket picked and thirty pounds stolen. It is only fair to say that
+he was in plain clothes and the thief did not know he was a police
+officer.
+
+* * *
+
+A history of the Ministry of Munitions is to be compiled at a cost
+of L9,648. To keep the expense down to this modest sum by economy in
+printing Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL will be referred to throughout as "X."
+
+* * *
+
+A man has been charged with damaging a London omnibus. He pleaded that
+the vehicle pushed him first.
+
+* * *
+
+Mrs. PAYNE, the only woman mouse-trap-maker in London, has retired
+from the business. It is said that a number of mice hope to arrange a
+farewell cheese.
+
+* * *
+
+At a recent meeting of the Peace Conference it was decided that
+the troubles in Egypt and India should in future be referred to as
+Honorary Wars.
+
+* * *
+
+The Indians much appreciate CHARLIE CHAPLIN, says _The Weekly
+Dispatch_. We felt confident that this film comedian would come into
+his own some day.
+
+* * *
+
+Only two minor railway accidents were reported in December, but a
+South Coast train which started that month is reported to have run
+into the New Year.
+
+* * *
+
+It is estimated that _The Outline of History_ by Mr. H. G. WELLS
+will be concluded this year. It would be a pleasing compliment to the
+author if at the end of that time Parliament made it illegal for any
+more history to happen.
+
+* * *
+
+The Thames angler who was asked in the Club at night if he had had any
+luck that day, and replied that he had not had a bite, is thought to
+be an impostor.
+
+* * *
+
+An Insurance official states that thin people live longer than stout.
+This is probably due to the fact that when thin people stand sideways
+the motor-car doesn't get a real chance.
+
+* * *
+
+"It is just twenty months since we experienced the last hostile
+air-raid," states an evening paper. Should this indiscreet statement
+reach the ears of certain Government Officials it is feared that one
+or two of our picturesque anti-aircraft stations may be dismantled.
+
+* * *
+
+According to an American paper, a lawyer has left New York for Mexico,
+in order to try to explain to the inhabitants the meaning of Peace
+and the benefits to be derived from joining the League of Nations. We
+understand he has made full arrangements for leaving a widow and two
+young children.
+
+* * *
+
+Our heart goes out to the tenant of an experimental paper-house who
+discovered, on going up-stairs, that his two-year-old son in a fit of
+ungovernable passion had torn up his nursery.
+
+* * *
+
+A man has written to _The Daily Mail_ advocating the alteration of
+the calendar to thirteen months of twenty-eight days each, _with two
+Christmas Days in Leap Year_. The writer--to do him justice--did not
+sign himself "Paterfamilias."
+
+* * *
+
+The New Poor Dance Club, which has opened in the West End, is having
+its vicissitudes. Last week, it is reported, a distinguished stranger
+mistook a waiter for one of the members, and the waiters have
+threatened to strike if it occurs again.
+
+* * *
+
+Los Angeles, California, says a New York cable, is suffering from an
+unprecedented crime wave. A proposal by President CARRANZA to draw a
+_cordon sanitaire_ round the place has not yet reached Washington.
+
+* * *
+
+"Are dark people cleverer than fair?" asks a contemporary. These
+clumsy attempts to destroy the Coalition spirit are too transparent to
+be successful.
+
+* * *
+
+Intending visitors to the Zoological Gardens in Ph[oe]nix Park,
+Dublin, are now required to get a permit from the military
+authorities. A daring attempt by a Sinn Feiner to approach the
+Viceregal Lodge under cover of a cassowary is said to be responsible
+for the order.
+
+* * *
+
+The ex-Kaiser, it is stated, has asked the Prussian Government
+if there would be any objection to his settling in Peru as a
+cattle-raiser. The probability that the Crown Prince will settle in
+France for a spell as a watch-lifter is thought to have fired the
+ex-Imperial imagination.
+
+* * *
+
+A report from Chicago states that, as a result of the prevailing
+taste for wood-alcohol, a number of citizens successfully revived the
+ancient custom of seeing the Aurora Borealis in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "HURRY UP, JOHNSON--WHAT A TIME YOU TAKE!"
+
+"I CAN'T GET THROUGH THESE BEASTLY TROOPS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The charm of a pleasing figure depends upon an uneasy fitting
+    corset."
+
+    _Advt. in Canadian Paper._
+
+_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "There would also be great competition for carniferous timber
+    from other countries."
+
+    _Scotch Paper._
+
+Not so much now that the meat-shortage is over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Dundee leads the way in Scotland in a new phase of sport for
+    ladies.
+
+    The innovation was created by the City Magistrates to-day,
+    when an application for a billiard-room license in the new
+    City Hall was granted.
+
+    Under the license ladies will be permitted to cross cues with
+    gentlemen partners in a public billiard-room."--_Local Paper._
+
+It is supposed that their worships were under the impression that
+billiards was a new form of shinty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE TUBE CURE.
+
+    [It has been observed that employees in the Tubes never catch
+    cold while at work, and doctors, questioned by an evening
+    paper, have said that "the Tube atmosphere should be quite
+    likely to cure a cold if breathed long enough--say for an hour
+    at a stretch."]
+
+  To-day, when I acquire a cold
+    (Rude Boreas having blustered),
+  I do not, as in times of old,
+    Immerse my feet in mustard;
+  I put a penny in a slot
+    At some Tube railway station
+  And draw a ticket for a not
+    Far distant destination.
+
+  I shun the crowded lifts, although
+    They're right enough in their way,
+  And make my calm, unruffled, slow
+    Descension by the stairway;
+  'Tis there a man can be alone,
+    Immune from all intrusion;
+  I doubt if there was ever known
+    Its equal for seclusion.
+
+  Where no invading footsteps fall
+    I quaff the healthy vapours,
+  While glancing at my ease through all
+    The illustrated papers;
+  And since I've found the bottom stair
+    A place they don't upholster,
+  I always take when going there
+    A small pneumatic bolster.
+
+  Not till an hour or twain have gone,
+    Thus pleasantly expended,
+  Do I proceed to carry on,
+    And, when my journey's ended,
+  I find all dread bacilli slain--
+    No germ shows his (or her) face--
+  And so, my cherry self again,
+    Come blithely to the surface.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A BUNCH OF POETS.
+
+Mr. Obadiah Geek has broken his long silence to some purpose. Those
+who remember his pre-war achievements in the field of polychromatic
+romanticism will hardly be prepared for his present development, which
+lifts him at a bound from the overcrowded ranks of lyric-writers to
+the uncongested heights whereon recline the great masters of epic
+poetry. And yet it was perhaps inevitable. The thunder and the reek of
+war (the last two years of which, we believe, were spent by Mr. Geek
+in the Egg Control Department) could scarcely have failed to imprint
+their mark on the author of _Eros in Eruption_; and so he has given
+us a real epic, whose very title, _Ad Astra_, is symbolic of the
+high altitudes in which he so triumphantly and so securely navigates.
+Outwardly it is a story of the War, but there is little difficulty in
+probing the allegory; and those who follow the hero's vicissitudes
+as a private in the Gasoliers, right through to his victorious
+advancement to the rank of Acting Lance-Corporal, unpaid (and there is
+a symbolism even in the "unpaid"), will readily supply the application
+to the affairs of everyday life.
+
+The ten thousand odd lines of this inspired poem are liberally
+enlivened with those characteristic flashes which Mr. Geek's previous
+efforts have led us to expect. Nothing could be happier than
+the following, descriptive of the hero's early days on the
+barrack-square:--
+
+  The Sergeant rolled his eyes toward the azure
+  And called down curses on my bloody head...
+  "You buzz about," his peroration ran,
+  "Like a bluebottle in a sugar-bowl.
+  Thank God we have a Navy!" and my feet,
+  Turned outward, as they had been drilled to turn,
+  At forty-five degrees or thereabouts,
+  Itched to join issue with his swollen paunch;
+  But I refrained.
+
+Or again:--
+
+  Fame, the skyscraper, hath a thousand floors;
+  And some toil slowly upward, stair by stair,
+  And stagger and halt and faint upon the way;
+  Others, more fortunate, achieve the top
+  At one swift elevation, by the lift.
+
+Mr. Geek, whatever his method of progression may have been, has
+certainly "achieved the top"--if indeed he has not gone over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _Throbs_, Miss Gramercy Gingham-Potts reveals a depth of feeling
+and delicacy of expression that should secure her the right of entry
+to every art-calendar and birthday-book. Her Muse is, perhaps, a
+trifle anaemic, but to many none the less interesting on that account;
+its very fragility, in fact, constitutes its chief appeal. She has an
+engaging gift of definition that, combined with a keen appreciation
+of the obvious, makes her verses particularly susceptible to quotation.
+For instance:--
+
+  The maiden asked, "What is a kiss?"
+        The poet wrote:
+  "Kisses are stamps that frank with bliss
+        Love's contract-note."
+
+While for effectively studied simplicity it would be difficult to
+match the lyrical gem to which Miss Gingham-Potts has given the
+arresting title, "Farewell":--
+
+  The birds sing sweet in Summer;
+    The daisies hear their song;
+  But Winter's come, and they are dumb
+              So long.
+
+  I told my love in Summer,
+    So pure and brave and strong;
+  But frosts came on; my love is gone;
+              So long!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A new volume by the author of _Swings and Roundabouts_ is something
+of an event; and in _Bottles and Jugs_ Mr. Ughtred Biggs makes another
+fascinating raid on the garbage-bins of London's underworld. Mr. Biggs
+is a stark realist, and his unminced meat may prove too strong for
+some stomachs; but those who can digest the fare he offers will
+find it wonderfully sustaining. Here is no condiment of verbiage, no
+dressing of the picturesque. Life is served up high, and almost raw.
+By way of illustration we cannot do better than quote from the opening
+poem, "Bill's Wife," in which the calculated roughness of the rhythm
+is redolent of the pervading atmosphere:--
+
+  At the corner of the street
+    Stands the Blue-faced Pig;
+  Outside a barrel-organ is playing
+    And the people are dancing a jig.
+
+  A woman waits there grimly;
+    Her eyes are set and her lips drawn thin;
+  For Bill, her man, is in the public,
+    Soaking his soul in gin.
+
+Students of sociology might do worse than devote careful attention to
+these gaunt chronicles of Slumland.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following stanzas, taken from a poem entitled "Reconstruction,"
+are a favourable example of Mr. Thor Pinmoney's somewhat unequal
+genius:--
+
+  By strife we live, but boredom slays;
+  My mind from out this office strays
+  And takes me back to the spacious days
+      When I counted socks in Ordnance.
+
+  I hate my pen; I hate my stool;
+  What am I but a nerveless tool?
+  But we did not work by rote or rule
+      When I counted socks in Ordnance....
+
+  There are times even now when it really seems
+  I'm back in a suburb of shell-shocked Rheims;
+  But the office echoes my waking screams
+  When I find it was only in my dreams
+      I was counting socks in Ordnance.
+
+Unfortunately, all Mr. Pinmoney's efforts do not come up to this
+standard, and we should be almost inclined to wonder whether the
+writer has not after all mistaken his vocation, were it not for the
+really brilliant piece of work which brings the volume (_Pegasus Comes
+Home_) to a close. We make no apology for reproducing this masterpiece
+in full:--
+
+  Man comes
+    And goes.
+  What then?
+    Who knows?
+
+Here we have the whole philosophy of life and the life hereafter
+summed up. If he never writes another line Mr. Pinmoney is by this
+assured of a permanent place in the anthology of post-bellum poetry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Replying to the toast of his health, Mr. Lloyd George said it
+    was a great boon that a large industrial community should have
+    been founded amongst these lovely surroundings, a boon not
+    only for the workers, but also for their little children, who
+    would have the advantage of being reared in georgeous mountain
+    air."--_Daily Paper._
+
+Lloyd-Georgeous, in fact.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MANNERS AND MODES.
+
+HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE OF A LADY WHO DREAMS THAT SHE HAS GONE TO A BALL IN
+HER NIGHT-GOWN AND FOUND HERSELF SHOCKINGLY OVERDRESSED.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE "FIRST HUNDRED" OF LOEB.
+
+    [The Loeb Classical Library, founded by a munificent American
+    millionaire, Mr. JAMES LOEB (_prononcez_ "Lobe"), and edited
+    by Dr. E. CAPPS, Mr. T. E. PAGE and Dr. W. H. D. ROUSE, has
+    now reached its hundredth volume.]
+
+  When ways are foul and days are damp,
+  When agitators rage and ramp,
+  And SMILLIE, with the aid of CRAMP,
+      Threatens to rend the globe;
+  When margarine is scarce, or beef,
+  And drinks are dear and few and brief,
+  I find refreshment and relief
+      And comfort in my LOEB.
+
+  Good print, good company, a text
+  By no vain annotations vexed
+  Which call from students sore perplexed
+      The patience of a Job;
+  And, page by page, a first-rate crib,
+  Neither too faithful nor too glib--
+  That, without fulsomeness or fib,
+      Is what we get in LOEB.
+
+  Let scientists on various fronts
+  Indulge in their atomic stunts,
+  Or harness to our prams and punts
+      The puissant radiobe;
+  Me rather it delights to roam
+  Across the salt AEgean foam
+  With old Odysseus, far from home,
+      And bless the name of LOEB.
+
+  To soar with PLATO to the heights;
+  To find in PLUTARCH'S kings and knights
+  The human touch that more delights
+      Than crown or regal robe;
+  To taste the fresh Pierian springs,
+  To see CATULLUS scorch his wings
+  With the fierce flame that sears and stings--
+  For this I thank thee, LOEB.
+
+  I've made no fortune out of beer;
+  I'm not a plutocrat or peer,
+  Nor yet a bloated profiteer,
+      An OM or e'en an OBE;
+  But if I'd thirty pounds to spare
+  I'd go and blow them then and there
+  Upon the Hundred Books that bear
+      The sign and seal of LOEB.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: BEHIND THE SCENES IN CINEMA-LAND.
+
+_The Rescuer._ "I'M NOT A VERY GRACEFUL DIVER, YOU KNOW. WHAT ABOUT
+EMPLOYING A PROFESSIONAL SWIMMER FOR THIS PART OF THE SHOW?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A NEWSPAPER SCOOP.
+
+(_With the British Army in France._)
+
+"I spotted him by the fountain-pen stains on his vest and the
+thunderbolts sticking out of his pockets," said Frederick. "So I went
+up to him and said, 'You are Wuffle of _The Daily Hooter_, the man who
+wiped-up Whitehall and is now engaged in freezing-out France?"
+
+"What did he say?" asked Percival.
+
+"Whipped out a note-book and asked me to tell him all about it. I said
+I was pining for the white cliffs of Albion and that the call of
+the counting-house and cash-box was ringing in my ears, but that I
+couldn't get demobilised because the Colonel's pet Pomeranian had
+conceived a fancy for me and wouldn't take its underdone chop from
+anyone else. I also hinted that I and a few friends could tell him
+things that would make his biggest journalistic scoops look like
+paragraphs in a parish magazine, so he invited me to bring you round
+this afternoon to split an infinitive with him."
+
+"Wuffle?" said Binnie. "That's the man who wrote about 'gilded
+subalterns loafing luxuriously in cushioned cars in a giddy round of
+useless and pampered ease'?"
+
+"Well, I won't say he wrote it, but he signed it. No single man living
+could write all the stuff Wuffle signs. It's turned out as they
+turn out cheap motor-cars. One man roughs it out, passes it to the
+adjective department, thence to the punctuation-room, where they
+sprinkle it with commas and exclamation marks, and then Wuffle touches
+it up, fits it with headlines and signs it. Oh, I forgot. Before it
+goes to press the libel expert looks it over to see that it isn't
+actionable."
+
+"Anyway, he's the responsible party," said Binnie, "and I would fain
+have converse with the Wuffle. That 'gilded subaltern' bit was ringing
+in my head like a dirge the other night when I was wearily trudging
+the seven kilometres from St. Denis camp because there was no one to
+give me a lift."
+
+That afternoon Frederick introduced his friends to Wuffle.
+
+"Sorry we're late," he said, "but Percival and Binnie here have
+been engaged with the Pioneer-Sergeant discussing the best method of
+converting a whippet-tank into a roller for the tennis-courts."
+
+At that moment a motor-lorry rumbled by, and Binnie, recollecting a
+passage in Wuffle's latest article about "motor-lorries rushing madly
+about with apparently no purpose in view," jumped excitedly to the
+door.
+
+"'Magneto Maggie' leading," he shouted, "and 'The Sparking Spitfire'
+is just behind. Care to double your bet on 'Maggie' at evens,
+Percival?"
+
+"Not yet," replied Percival cautiously. "It's only the first lap yet,
+and 'Maggie' sometimes jibs a bit when she passes the Remount Depot."
+
+Wuffle had his fountain-pen at the alert and looked inquiringly at
+Frederick.
+
+"I suppose it _is_ another example of deliberate waste," said the
+latter. "But we've got the lorries eating their heads off in the
+garages and the petrol is simply aching to be evaporated, so we give
+the drivers exercise and ourselves some excitement over organising
+these Area Circuit Steeplechases."
+
+"Why not trans-ship the lorries?" suggested Wuffle.
+
+"That would never do, old prune," said Frederick. "The troops would
+have nothing to guard."
+
+"Send the men home," persisted Wuffle.
+
+"Come, my willowy asparagus," replied Frederick in horrified tones,
+"we must have troops to find us work to do. Of course it's sometimes
+difficult to keep the men employed, and then we have to make dumps of
+empty biscuit tins and things for them to guard."
+
+"I fixed up a real beauty at Le Glaxo, not ten kilometres from here,"
+chipped in Percival. "If you'd like to see it there's a train going in
+about twenty minutes."
+
+Wuffle jumped up with alacrity.
+
+"I'd be awfully glad to get a snapshot of it," said he, disappearing
+in search of his hat and coat.
+
+Frederick took the opportunity to make a few scathing remarks to
+Percival.
+
+"It's just like you, you mouldy old citron," he said. "I start a
+little experiment in _tirage de jambe_, and you put your heavy hoof
+in and spoil the whole business. You know jolly well that Le Glaxo was
+completely closed down months ago."
+
+"Oh, put another penny in your brain-meter and try to realise that
+you aren't the only one who's grown up," replied Percival impatiently.
+"Your brain-waves move about as quick as G.P.O. telegraph messages.
+I'd got the scheme worked out while you were putting over your old
+musical-comedy gags."
+
+Since the departure of the British, Le Glaxo's only excitement is the
+arrival of its one train per day. Ignoring the sensation caused by
+the detraining of four persons simultaneously, Percival led his party
+along a muddy rough lane.
+
+"The dump is about four kilometres away and the road gets rather bad
+towards the end," he said, maliciously edging Wuffle into a bit of
+swamp. "Sorry; I was going to warn you about that."
+
+Wuffle scraped mud from his trousers and followed the leader over a
+rough wall into a hidden ditch. A breathless climb up a hill and a
+steady trudge over plough-land found Wuffle still game, but, after
+he had got his camera ready for action on the cheerful assurance that
+they were nearing their quarry, a disappointed cry from the leader
+dashed his hopes.
+
+"Hang it!" said Percival, "I forgot. The dump was moved to Pont
+Antoine last Tuesday. Come along; it's only three kilometres away."
+
+Strangely enough, Pont Antoine was also a blank. Binnie suggested
+trying Monceau, two kilometres further on; but when they arrived
+there, fatigued and dirty, a thin drizzle was falling and it was
+almost dark. Percival confessed himself baffled.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," said he to Wuffle; "I can't find it now, and
+the point is how are we going to get back? There isn't a railway for
+miles."
+
+"Don't any of our lorries or cars pass here?" asked Wuffle.
+
+"Oh, yes. But they won't give _you_ a lift. The orders are dead strict
+against civilians riding in W.D. vehicles."
+
+"It's the result of the articles in the papers about waste," said
+Frederick sympathetically. "But I don't suppose there would be any
+objection to your hanging on and running behind."
+
+Wuffle looked round disconsolately. In the gloom the lighted windows
+of the tiny Hotel de l'Univers blinked invitingly.
+
+"I think I'll stop here for the night," he said, "and telephone for a
+car to fetch me to-morrow."
+
+"Right-o!" said Percival. "And when it's thoroughly light you
+might--you _might_ be able to find the dump. So long."
+
+As they rumbled uncomfortably home on a fortuitous three-ton lorry,
+Percival looked round for applause.
+
+"_C'est bien fait, mon vieux_," chuckled Binnie. "I'll bet the Wuffle
+won't go dump-hunting again in a hurry. And he won't be able to do any
+damage from that little estaminet for a day or two."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The well-advertised series of articles in _The Daily Hooter_ commenced
+a few days later. The conspirators studied them diligently in gleeful
+anticipation of finding their contribution to journalistic enterprise.
+It came at the end, in a brief paragraph.
+
+"When I had collected my material for this powerful indictment, etc.,
+etc." (ran the article), "I met a party of irresponsible subalterns
+bent on the old, old army pastime of leg-pulling. For the sake of
+exercise and amusement I permitted them to conduct me on a wild-goose
+chase after an imaginary dump, which luckily led me to a sequestered
+little hotel where I was able to write my articles in peace and
+quietude. But to return to the main question. I unhesitatingly
+affirm..."
+
+Percival, who was reading aloud, let the paper fall limply from his
+hand.
+
+"Frederick," he said, "put your biggest boots on and kick me. The
+word-merchant was laughing at us all the time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: COMMERCIAL CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.
+
+TRAPPING IMITATION ERMINE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The letter about the Bloomsbury cat that bought her own cat's
+    meat in your issue of December 6th is interesting."
+
+    _A Correspondent in "The Spectator."_
+
+The cat would, however, have shown more regard for the feelings of our
+justly-esteemed contemporary if it had wrapped up its purchase in some
+other publication.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In his defence, ---- said that he had really intended
+    marrying the girl, but that he came to the realization that
+    she was extremely ejaljoujs, hence his bjreach.
+
+    jThe court found that this was sufficient ground to justify
+    jjjustify jujjjj jstjijfjy his breach of promise."--_Canadian
+    Paper._
+
+It is evident, however, that the Court did not arrive at this decision
+without considerable hesitation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+More Headaches for Historians.
+
+    "The revellers passed the time in dancing and singing until
+    St. Paul's clock struck midnight. Then 'Auld Lang Syne' was
+    sung with enthusiasm and, after repeated cheers, the crowd
+    dispersed."--_Times._
+
+    "It was typical of the largest crowd that has watched round
+    the cathedral the passing of the year that at the moment when
+    midnight struck it should be engaged in one tremendous jostle
+    and push, rough and tumble, and that no one thought to strike
+    up the tune--traditional to the occasion--of 'Auld Lang
+    Syne.'"--_Star._
+
+    "The gigantic Hindenburg figure of Militarism in the centre of
+    the room melted away with the appearance of the Peace Angel,
+    reputed to be the fairest lady in Chelsea, who had climbed a
+    ladder within his leviathan bulk."--_Times._
+
+    "When twelve o'clock struck The God of War _should_ have
+    collapsed gracefully to give place to the most beautiful
+    artist's model in Chelsea, draped as the Goddess of Peace.
+    But something went wrong with the ropes, and the God of War
+    floated a yard or two into the air, just sufficiently high to
+    show us the feet and knees of the Goddess of Peace."--_Evening
+    Standard._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The famous flood-test of the Parisian, the stone ouave on
+    the Bridge of Alma, is in water up to his waist."--_Provincial
+    Paper._
+
+Surely an understatement. The "ouave" seems to have had his Z washed
+away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a _feuilleton_:--
+
+    "James put his cold hands in his pockets and buttoned up his
+    coat collar before turning out to his work."--_Weekly Paper._
+
+This is not so easy as it sounds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Teuton (released after internment for the duration, to
+old business friend who is trying to avoid him)._ "WELL, MINE FRIENT,
+AND WHERE HAF YOU PEEN HIDING YOURSELF THE LAST FOUR OR FIFE YEARS?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WORDS OF WISDOM.
+
+  "Come, all you young seamen, take heed now to me,
+  A hard-case old sailorman bred to the sea,
+  As sailed the seas over afore you was born,
+  An' learned 'em by heart from the Hook to the Horn.
+
+  "Don't hold by the ratlines when going aloft
+  (Which I've told you afore but can't tell you too oft),
+  Or you'll strike one that's rotten as sure as you live,
+  And it's too late to learn when you've once felt it give;
+  If you don't hit the bulwarks you'll sure hit the sea,
+  For them rotten ratlines--they're the devil," says he.
+
+  "Now if you should see, as you like enough may,
+  When tramping the docks for a ship some fine day,
+  A spanking full-rigger just ready for sea,
+  And think she's just all that a hooker should be,
+  Take 'eed you don't ship with a skipper that drinks--
+  You'd better by half play at fan-tan with Chinks!--
+  For that'll mean nothing but muddle an' mess,
+  It may be much more and it can't be much less,
+  What with wrangling and jangling to drive a man daft,
+  And rank bad dis-cip-line both forrard and aft,
+  A ship that's ill-found and a crew out of 'and,
+  And a touch-and-go chance she may never reach land,
+  But go down in a squall or broach to in a sea,
+  For them drunken skippers--they're the devil," says he.
+
+  "And if you go further and pause to admire
+  A ship that's as neat as your heart could desire,
+  As smart as a frigate aloft and alow,
+  Her brasswork like gold and her planking like snow,
+  Look round for a mate by whose twang it is plain
+  That his home port is somewhere round Boston or Maine,
+  With a jaw that's the cut of a square block of wood,
+  And beat it, my son, while the going is good!
+  There'll be scraping and scouring from morning till night
+  To keep that brass shiny and keep them decks white,
+  And belaying-pin soup both for dinner and tea,
+  For them smart down-easters--they're the devil," says he.
+
+  "But if by good fortune you chance for to get
+  A ship that ain't hungry or wicked or wet,
+  That answers her hellum both a-weather and lee,
+  Goes well on a bowline and well running free,
+  A skipper that's neither a fool nor a brute,
+  And mates not too free with the toe of their boot,
+  A sails and a bo'sun that's bred to their trade,
+  And a slush with a notion how vittles is made,
+  And a crowd that ain't half of 'em Dagoes or Dutch,
+  Or Mexican greasers or niggers or such,
+  You stick to her close as you would to your wife,
+  She's the sort that you only find once in your life;
+  And ships is like women, you take it from me,
+  That, if they _are_ bad 'uns, they're the devil," says he.
+
+  C. F. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "With regard to prison labour, it is stated that the
+    manufacture of war stories had continued to employ every
+    available inmate."
+
+    _Christian Science Monitor._
+
+We had wondered where some of them came from.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SOUNDING THE "ALL CLEAR."
+
+WITH GRATEFUL COMPLIMENTS TO THE GALLANT VOLUNTEERS OF THE BRITISH
+MINE CLEARANCE FORCE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "HULLO, GEORGE! AND WHEN'S THE WAR GOING TO BE OVER,
+EH?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE QUESTIONABLE ALIEN.
+
+William, my hitherto unventuresome friend William, is going abroad. I
+cannot be certain why. Perhaps he no longer feels his heroism equal
+to the strain of living in a country fit for heroes. It may be that
+he has unwittingly incubated a bacillus which figures in novels as the
+"Call of the Wild." Anyhow, William is going abroad--so much so that,
+if he went any farther, he would be on his way home again.
+
+I need not say that I felt called upon to help William through this
+trying period, and our preparations proceeded satisfactorily until the
+clever geographers who arrange these things nowadays discovered that
+William could fetch the Far East by way of the Far West. Then the
+international complications set in. First, William's passport--a
+healthy enough document at the start--had to be carried round the
+diplomatic quarter of London until it broke out into a thick rash of
+supplementary _visas_. Next we sought out the moneychangers in their
+dens, to transmute William's viaticum bit by bit into four foreign
+currencies. Then a Great Power through whose territory William will
+have to pass apparently was nervous of his approach and instituted
+a grand inquisition into the status and antecedents of the Alien
+(William).
+
+We unfolded the paper on our table and stared at it aghast. Its area
+was rather less than a square yard; in colour it favoured the yolk of
+bad eggs; while all over its broad expanse were ruled compartments,
+half of them filled with questions that no gentleman would ask
+another, the other half left blank for William's indignant replies. We
+managed with great difficulty to squeeze into the panel provided all
+his baptismal titles--there are four of these besides "William"--and
+then attacked the first real poser:--
+
+_Are you in possession of 100 dollars, or less? If less, by how much?_
+
+William groaned. "Reach me down Todhunter's Arithmetic, will you?"
+said he.
+
+I did so, and turned up the Money Market page of our daily paper.
+Nothing was heard for the next five minutes but grunts and sighs of
+despair. We then gave it up on the understanding that William must
+make a point of winning heavily at bridge--or would it be euchre?--on
+the way across.
+
+_Have you ever been in the territory of the Great Power before?_
+
+"No," breathed William devoutly, "and, please Heaven, it shan't occur
+again!"
+
+_What is your reason for coming now?_
+
+"I suppose I'd better tell the truth," he said; "they'll never
+believe me if I say I've come to put DEMPSEY up to that right drive of
+CARPENTIER'S."
+
+_Were you ever in prison, an almshouse, or an institution for the
+treatment of the insane? If so, which?_
+
+"Take your time, William," I said; "think carefully."
+
+He gave a bitter laugh. "Do they want to know _all_ the gaols and
+asylums I've been in," he asked, "or only the more recent?"
+
+_Are you a polygamist?_
+
+William turned deathly pale. He then fixed me with a terrible stare of
+accusation and reproach.
+
+"No, no, William," I protested frantically, "I assure you on my honour
+that _I_ haven't been talking."
+
+This assurance calmed him somewhat. Bit by bit the colour came back to
+his cheeks and at length he was able to remark more hopefully: "Well,
+there's this to be said for it, most of my wives are sportswomen. I
+don't _think_ they'll give me away."
+
+_Are you an anarchist?_
+
+"No," answered William frankly, "but I possess a brother-in-law who
+has leanings towards Rosicrucianism. Next, please."
+
+The next was a very searching, legally-worded inquiry. It demanded at
+great length to be informed whether William was a person who advocated
+the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the
+Great Power, or all forms of Law, or believed in the propriety of
+assassinating any or every officer of the Great Power because of his
+official character.
+
+William took up the paper-knife with an expression of sheer animal
+ferocity. "Yes," he hissed, "the whole lot. Torturing them, too!"--and
+fell back into his chair with peal upon peal of maniacal laughter.
+
+     *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+William was practically a wreck before the inquisition came to an end.
+He had not even sufficient spirit left to fly at me for entering
+his distinguishing marks as "a general air of honesty, tempered by a
+slight inward squint."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Runner._ "BEAUTIFUL SCENT IN COVER TO-DAY, SIR."
+
+_Post-War Sportsman._ "OH--ER--IS THERE? I HAVEN'T NOTICED IT, BUT
+I'VE GOT A COLD IN MY HEAD."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The Board of Trade have awarded a silver cup to Mr. John
+    Bruce, D.S.C., skipper of the steam drifter _Pansy_, of Wick,
+    in recognition of the promptitude and ability with which
+    he rescued the domestic servant, Strawberry Bank, Hardgate,
+    pleaded guilty to having bemusic, stolen a gold safety pin,
+    a fountain pen, two pairs of gloves, two blouses and several
+    other articles of clothing."--_Fishing News._
+
+We never believe these fishing stories.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SONGS OF THE HOME.
+
+II.--THE DIAGNOSIS.
+
+  When Jimmy, our small but significant son,
+    Is prey of a temper capricious and hot,
+  And tires of a project as soon as begun,
+    And wants what he hasn't, and hates what he's got,
+  A dutiful father, I ponder and brood,
+    Essaying by reason and logic to find
+  The radical cause of the juvenile mood
+    In the intricate growth of the juvenile mind.
+
+  But women and reason were never allies;
+    The rule of a mother is logic of thumb;
+  The trouble concerns, she is quick to surmise,
+      His rum-ti-tiddily-um-ti-tum.
+
+  O woman (though angel in moments of pain,
+    When angels of pity are most _a propos_),
+  Why, why won't you listen when husbands explain
+    The things they have thought and the knowledge they know?
+  And why do you smile when they beg to repeat?
+    And why are you bored when they make it all clear?
+  And why do you label their emphasis "heat,"
+    And bid them "Be careful; the servants may hear"?
+
+  The argument leaves me, though ever more sure,
+    Reproachful and angry and sullen and dumb:
+  It leaves her reforming my diet, to cure
+        _My_ rum-ti-tiddily-um-ti-tum.
+
+  HENRY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANIMAL HELPS.
+
+(_By a Student of Domestic Economy._)
+
+Living in a remote country district, where the difficulty of obtaining
+servants is at present insurmountable--the nearest "pictures" are
+twelve miles off--I have been much impressed and encouraged by
+two letters in recent issues of _The Spectator_. One describes a
+Bloomsbury grocer's cat that bought her own cat's-meat; another
+recounts the exploits of a spaniel belonging to a house painter and
+glazier at Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), which, if given a penny, would
+immediately amble off to a grocer's shop and purchase a cake.
+
+Viewed in their true perspective, these exhibitions of animal
+intelligence seem to indicate fruitful possibilities of the employment
+of our dumb friends to assist us in these trying times. Many years
+ago I remember reading of a baboon which discharged the duties of a
+railway porter at a station in Cape Colony with great efficiency. I
+have unfortunately mislaid the reference, but so far as I can remember
+no mention was made of wages or tips; consequently the importation and
+employment of skilled simian labour on a large scale might go a long
+way towards reducing the expenses of our railway system.
+
+But in view of certain obvious difficulties it is perhaps better to
+restrict our attention to the sphere of domestic service and farm
+labour. And here I would urge with all the power at my command the
+employment of the elephant. The greatest burden of household work
+is the washing of plates, and this is a task which elephants are
+peculiarly well fitted to undertake; also the cleaning of windows
+without the use of a ladder. A well-trained and amiable elephant,
+again, would enable parents to dispense with a perambulator. I admit
+that the initial outlay might be considerable, but the longevity of
+elephants is notorious, and it would always be possible to hire them
+out to travelling menageries.
+
+Another neglected asset is the well-known aptitude shown by poodles
+for digging out truffles, an accomplishment of which I often read in
+my youth. If truffles, why not potatoes?
+
+The extraordinary intelligence and affectionate disposition of the
+runner duck has often been commented on by our serious weeklies,
+but so far little attempt has been made to turn these qualities to
+practical account. They forage for themselves. Why should they not be
+taught to do so for their owners as well?
+
+One more point and I have done. Greek and Latin are going or gone,
+but a modicum of Mathematics seems to be indispensable to the modern
+curriculum. The domestic pig has on many occasions shown a capacity
+for mastering simple arithmetical processes, and we know that the
+pupil always ends by bettering his master. Under a more enlightened
+and humane _regime_ I confidently look forward to the time when
+our children will learn the Rule of Three, not from highly-paid and
+incompetent governesses, but from unsalaried porcine instructors,
+trained in the best Montessorian methods.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Visitor._ "HOW IS MRS. BROWN TO-DAY?"
+
+_Maid._ "WELL 'M, SHE EBBS AND FLOWS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Plutocratic Sportsmen.
+
+    "A gold course is being laid out in Ryde House Park, Isle of
+    Wight."--_Sunday Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The New Rich.
+
+    "Working Man (36) requires Lodgings, full or part board; car
+    ride or convenient Rolls-Royce."--_Provincial Paper._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lady requires gentleman Chauffeur, repair and clean car; good
+    dancer."--_Times._
+
+One who can "reverse," it is hoped.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Considering the greatness of the provocation, Centralia,
+    Wash., yesterday showed a calmness worthy of an American
+    community. There were no farther attempts at lynching after
+    the hanging of the secretary of the I.W.W. organisation on
+    Tuesday night." _American Paper._
+
+Oh, my friends, let us strive to emulate the calmness of Centralia,
+Wash.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A LETTER TO THE BACK-BLOCKS.
+
+DEAR GINGER,--A Merry Christmas to you! A bit late, you say? On the
+contrary, in plenty of time. It is next Christmas I am referring
+to. Over there, in your tropical land, when the sun stings your
+skin through your shirt and the sand blisters your feet through your
+boot-soles, when you butter your bread with a soup-ladle and the
+mercury boils merrily in the barometer, then, vainly pawing the air
+for mosquitoes with one hand and reaching for the siphon with the
+other, you gasp, "Gad! it must be getting on for Christmas-time."
+
+But over here in England, where the seasons wheel round without any
+appreciable difference in temperature, where, if it were not for the
+gentleman who writes the calendars, nobody would know whether to wear
+straw-hats or snow-shoes, Christmas comes sneaking up behind you and
+grabs you by the pocket before you have time to dodge. "Christmas Eve
+already!" you exclaim. "Christmas Eve! and there's dear old Tom
+in Penang and good old Dick in Patagonia and poor old Harry in
+Princetown, and I've not written a word of cheer to any of them and
+now have no time to do so." That's what happened to me this year,
+anyhow; but I'm determined it shall not occur again, so--A Merry
+Christmas to you, Ginger.
+
+This my first Yule in the Old Country, after many in foreign climes,
+was not an unqualified success. On the morning of Christmas Eve I
+went for a walk and lost myself. After wading through bog systems and
+bramble entanglements for some hours I came out behind a spinney and
+there spied a small urchin with red cheeks and a red woollen muffler
+standing beneath a holly-tree. On sighting me he gave vent to a loud
+and piteous howl. I asked him where his pain was, and he replied that
+he wanted some holly for decorations, but was too short to reach it.
+I thereupon swarmed the shrub, plucked and tossed the richly berried
+boughs to the poor little chap. In return he showed me where I
+lived--which indeed was not two hundred yards distant, but concealed
+by the thicket.
+
+Later in the day Edward came in to tea, much annoyed. Bolshevism, he
+declared, was within our gates. He had been out to collect Christmas
+decorations in his own private fenced spinney, and confound it if some
+scoundrels hadn't been and gone and stripped his pet holly-tree of
+every twig! Anarchy was yapping at the door.
+
+The Aunt soothed him, saying she had that very afternoon purchased a
+supply of splendid holly from a sweet little boy who had come round
+hawking it at sixpence a bough. I asked her if by any chance the dear
+little fellow had worn a red woollen comforter, and was not surprised
+when I heard that he had.
+
+No sooner had I fallen asleep that same night than I was aroused by
+an extraordinary din. I lay there, comatose and semi-conscious in
+the pitchy darkness, and wondered what had happened. Presently I
+distinguished the bray of trumps, and I knew. "Golly!" I whispered to
+myself, "I'm dead. Cheer-o!" Then I recollected something I had read
+concerning ye sports and customs of ye Ancient British and decided
+it must be "Waits." I crept to the window and by a glow of lanterns
+beheld the St. Gwithian Independent Brass Band grouped round the
+porch, blasting "Christians, awake!" through their brazen fog-horns.
+I fumbled about on the dressing-table, missed the matches but found a
+half-crown. "Take that and trot!" I snarled, hurling it at them with
+all my strength. The coin hit the trombone a glancing blow on the
+snout, ricochetted off the bassoon and bounded into the rockery.
+
+The music stopped abruptly as the bandsmen swarmed in pursuit of
+fortune. In half-an-hour's time they had pulled all Edward's cherished
+sedums and saxifrages up by the roots and turned over most of the
+smaller rocks without discovering the treasure. A conference in loud
+idiomatic Cornish then took place, with the result that two musicians
+were despatched to a neighbouring farm for picks, crow-bars and more
+lanterns; the remainder squatted on the flower-beds and whiled away
+the time of waiting by blasting "Good King Wenceslas" to the patient
+stars.
+
+In due course the messengers returned and the quarrying of the rockery
+began in earnest. By 4.15 A.M. they had most of it littered over the
+drive, but had struck some granite boulders which defied even the
+crowbars. A further conference was then held, but at this point Edward
+made a dramatic appearance, clad in lilac pyjamas, odd boots and
+a kimono of the Aunt's, which he had worn as King Alfred in some
+charades the night before, and in the darkness had donned in mistake
+for his dressing-gown. His address was impassioned and moving, but had
+no effect on the Waits, who could only be persuaded to abandon their
+silver mine at the price of a second half-crown.
+
+A day or so before Christmas I began to notice that everybody was
+getting presents--everybody except me, that is. This caused me pain.
+It gave the impression that I was not appreciated. I took thought for
+a space, then rode into Penzance, bought several articles I had been
+wanting for some time, wrote a few affectionate notes in disguised
+handwriting, such as "With dearest love from Flossie," "With hugs
+and kisses from Ermyntrude," etc., enclosed them with the articles,
+addressed and posted them to myself and rode home again.
+
+On Christmas morning I opened them in public with a vast flourish,
+and left the touching little dedications lying carelessly about where
+anybody could read them. From the glances of wonder and respect
+which flashed at me from all sides I gathered that everybody did. The
+sensation was both novel and pleasing. One parcel, however, there was
+which I had not sent myself. It had been forwarded on by the "Punch"
+Office, marked, "Please do not crush," and carefully tied and sealed.
+My heart leapt. "By Jove!" said I, "a genuine Christmas present.
+Somebody loves me after all. Perhaps a duchess has sent me her tiara."
+
+With trembling fingers I unlaced the strings. The household crowded
+about me, panting with envy and excitement. Reverently I folded the
+multitudinous wrappings back and revealed a very old, very dilapidated
+silk slipper, severely busted at the toe and stuffed with sticky
+sweets, a small female doll, and a note--"With all best wishes to
+PATLANDER for a happy Christmas, and many thanks for useful hints
+contained in _Punch_ issue, December 10th, 1919."
+
+I may remind you that in the issue mentioned was an epistle from me
+to you recommending the Post as a means of disposing of rubbish, with
+special reference to worn-out foot-gear. I only wish I knew who
+played this trick on me, Ginger; I would like to give him something in
+return--say an old footer-boot--with my foot inside.
+
+  Thine in sorrow,
+
+  PATLANDER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+New Golfing Records.
+
+    "Mr. ---- then holed his fourth for a three."--_Sunday Paper._
+
+    "---- played very fine golf on the outward journey and stood 5
+    up at the second hole."
+
+    _Evening Paper._
+
+We suppose that in each case the player's opponent wasn't looking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a sale catalogue:--
+
+    "Pretty Light Grey Georgette Jumper, trimmed Grey Wool and
+    Saxe Blue.
+
+    Usually 5 gns. 6-1/2 gns."
+
+No wonder they call it a jumper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        "ST. ----'S CHURCH.
+   6.30 p.m.--Preacher: The Vicar.
+  7.45 p.m.--Bach's Church Cantata,
+        'Sleepers, Wake.'"
+
+  _Provincial Paper._
+
+We suspect the organist of being a bit of a wag.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Slightly deaf Footman (announcing each guest in
+character)._ "MR. JONES--THE LAST OF THE BANDIES."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WHAT-NOT.
+
+"Look here," I said, "this is indeed serious. The what-not's
+moulting."
+
+"It's been like that for a long time," said Anna. "But I suppose it's
+getting worse."
+
+"I'm afraid so. And we _must_ have something reliable," I said, "to
+stand dishes and things on at meals. We can't pile them all on the
+table at once like a cairn. To tell you the truth," I added, "I've had
+my eye on an old oak dresser at Smalley's for a long time. It would be
+a good investment--at a price."
+
+"Yes," said Anna; "but I suppose the price would be the earth and the
+fulness thereof."
+
+"That is precisely what I propose to find out, and if they'll take
+anything less than thirty pounds it's ours. In the meantime," I added,
+"we'll dope the poor old what-not with furniture cream and see about
+driving it to market."
+
+There are two accepted methods of dealing at old furniture shops.
+The first is to approach them, well-groomed, be-ringed and perfumed,
+smoking a jewelled gasper and entering the shop with a circular
+movement of the arm to expose the gold wrist-watch that _will_ crawl
+up the sleeve at wrong moments, and to ask in a commanding voice, "How
+much is the--ah--oak-dresser--what?"
+
+The presiding genius (and being a dealer he is usually a genius), who
+had really ticketed the article thirty pounds, approaches it, removes
+the ticket by a little sleight-of-hand and says, "Thirty-eight
+guineas, Sir," without a blush (the dealer who blushes is hounded
+from the ring). This method of dealing is direct action of the most
+dangerous kind.
+
+The other method, and the one I most usually adopt, I can best
+illustrate by detailing my interview with the proprietor of Smalley's
+on the occasion when I went dressering.
+
+I sidled into the shop in garments carefully selected from my
+pre-wardrobe and wearing a vacant expression. Picking up a piece of
+china I examined it carefully, turning it upside down, as though
+to search for a pottery mark, which I probably should never have
+recognised.
+
+"H'm, not bad," I said.
+
+"One of the best bits of Dresden I've ever had," said the dealer. "I
+want----"
+
+"Ah, German," I said, putting the thing down hurriedly as though it
+might be mined. "It may be a good piece, but--what is the price of
+that brass fender?"
+
+"Seven-ten, old Dutch and a bargain," said the dealer laconically.
+
+"But probably wouldn't fit the fireplace in my mind. Though," I added
+to myself, "it might fit the one in our dining-room."
+
+I thought it about time to notice the dresser, not to attempt to buy
+it yet--oh dear no, but merely to fire the first shot in the campaign
+as it were.
+
+"What kind of a dresser do you call this?" I said. "Slightly
+moth-eaten, isn't it?"
+
+"That's nothing; merely age. It's Welsh," he added, "and a beauty.
+I wish I could get hold of more like it. Look at those legs; I'll
+guarantee you won't----Excuse me, Sir."
+
+An immaculately dressed individual had entered the shop, and the
+gentleman trading as Smalley called an assistant to serve him. By the
+time he returned to me I had wandered far into the recesses of the
+emporium and was busily examining a walnut stool with a woolwork seat.
+
+"You haven't one like this in oak, I suppose? This one," I said,
+"would hardly suite my suit. That sounds wrong, but you apprehend my
+meaning."
+
+"I haven't," he said simply. I could see that he was tiring rapidly,
+but wasn't absolutely ripe for plucking.
+
+So I priced about a dozen pieces of china, admired several pictures
+and pieces of Stuart needlework, descanted on the beauties of a set
+of wheatear chairs, pulled a small rosewood table about until its claw
+and ball feet nearly dropped off from exhaustion, and finally led him
+back to the Welsh dresser.
+
+"What's the price of the Scotsman?" I said easily, having seen thirty
+guineas on the ticket during the preliminary examination.
+
+"Twenty-nine pounds to you," he said wearily. He evidently knew the
+strict rules of the game.
+
+"But look at those legs," I said. "They're frightfully bent, aren't
+they?"
+
+"That's one of the best features about it," he said. "Real Queen Anne,
+those legs are."
+
+"Oh, were hers like that? I didn't know," I said. "Look here, I'll
+give you twenty-eight pounds, spot cash."
+
+"Very well," he said. "I like to do business."
+
+"I beg pardon," said a voice behind me, which, in turning, I
+discovered to belong to the assistant, "but that dresser's sold. The
+gentleman who's just left bought it."
+
+As I was looking for the ticket (which had disappeared), I couldn't
+help overhearing the assistant's aside to his employer.
+
+"Thirty-five guineas cash," he said.
+
+There is something, after all, to be said for direct action.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"OLD FOLKS' TEA.
+
+    On the day of the party the Chief Constable has arranged for
+    a staff of Special Constables to escort home any person
+    requiring assistance."--_Provincial Paper._
+
+This bears out what has recently appeared about the terrible results
+of the tea-drinking habit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "WANTED.--Skates and Boots for Leghorn Pullets."--_Advt. in
+    Canadian Paper._
+
+They need a lot of exercise in the cold weather.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"CINDERELLA."
+
+[Illustration: A HORSE-SENSE OF HUMOUR.
+
+_Pipchin_. . . . . . . . . . . Mr. STANLEY LUPINO.
+_Baroness Beauxchamps_ . . . . Mr. WILL EVANS.
+
+]
+
+It is a very delicate task that the annual pantomime imposes upon Mr.
+ARTHUR COLLINS. He has to "surpass himself," but he must not do it
+once for all or he would rob the critics of their most cherished
+phrase. He reminds me of the constructors of our Atlantic
+"greyhounds," each longer by a yard or two than the last, each swifter
+by a fraction of a knot, each with a few more tons displacement,
+all pronounced to be the final word in scientific invention, yet all
+reserving something for the next time.
+
+Certainly the present year marks an advance in one respect at
+least--that the grotesque and the beautiful are kept reasonably apart;
+the lovely colour-scheme, for instance, of the garden in Fairyland is
+undisturbed by any element of buffoonery. There was a revival too of
+topical allusiveness after the reticence proper to war-time; and the
+GEDDES family must be justifiably flattered by their admission to a
+choric refrain.
+
+The humour, of which Mr. STANLEY LUPINO bore the brunt, was here and
+there a little thin, and it is time that somebody let the Management
+of Drury Lane into the open secret that the pun, as an instrument of
+mirth, has long been a portion of the dreadful past. Mr. WILL EVANS,
+as the _Baroness Beauxchamps_, seldom let himself go, being no doubt
+held in restraint by a consciousness of his resemblance to Miss ELLEN
+TERRY. Not enough chance was given to Miss LILY LONG (the _Elder
+Sister_), who has a very nice sense of fun. As for Mr. CLAFF, who
+played the operatic _Baron_, his most humorous moment was when he
+meant to be most serious. This was in a song in praise of _Prince
+Charming_, "featuring" H.R.H. in a portrait curiously unlike the
+original.
+
+The two most effective incidents were borrowed from the Circus and the
+Halls. Mr. DU CALION, who had no other very obvious claims to play the
+part of a humorous courtier, did his famous ladder-feat--a perfectly
+gratuitous performance, for, though he was supposed to be rescuing
+_Cinderella_ through a top-storey window, she had the good sense to
+descend by the staircase, having ignored, as is the way of Love, the
+locked door that made this impossible.
+
+The other imported business was the work of a black horse, who
+preserved an expression of extreme gravity and detached boredom
+during the play of human wit around his person, dissimulating his own
+superior gifts of humour until called upon to illustrate them with
+some excellent circus-tricks.
+
+On the sentimental side, Miss MARIE BLANCHE, obedient to the
+inexorable tradition that a young hero of pantomime must be a woman,
+played _Prince Charming_ with the right manners that makyth man; and
+as _Cinderella_ Miss FLORENCE SMITHSON once more breathed that air of
+innocence which still remains unstaled by years of steady addiction
+to the heroine habit. Her vocal intrusions, always well received, were
+not always well timed; certainly it was an error of judgment to insert
+a solo at the cross-roads after she had told us that she hadn't a
+moment to spare if she was to get home from the ball before the rest
+of the family. But here again it was a matter of obedience to some
+unwritten and inscrutable law of pantomime which it is not for us, the
+profane, to question.
+
+And in this spirit I tender a grateful acknowledgment not only of
+the good things that my intelligence could appreciate in this lavish
+entertainment, but also of the other things that I can never hope to
+understand.
+
+  O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Commercial Candour.
+
+"Good Boots . . . . . . 25/-
+ No Better. . . . . . . 37/6."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Speaker (endeavouring to cultivate a patriotic spirit
+in the young)._ "AND NOW, CHILDREN, IF YOU SAW OUR GLORIOUS FLAG
+WAVING TRIUMPHANTLY OVER THE BATTLE-FIELD, WHAT WOULD YOU THINK?
+(_Prolonged pause_) COME, COME, WHAT WOULD YOU ---- WELL, MY LITTLE
+MAN, WHAT WOULD YOU THINK?"
+
+_Small Boy._ "PLEASE, ZUR, THE WIND WERE BLOWIN'."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
+
+"I remember, I remember...." Still on every side echoes the poet's
+cry, while scarce a publisher but can prove that the thoughts of age
+make long, long books. Certainly not the shortest of these, but among
+the most readable, is _A Medley of Memories_ (ARNOLD), in which the
+Right Rev. Sir DAVID HUNTER-BLAIR has embodied the recollections of
+his very active career as Benedictine monk and a leading figure in the
+world of British Catholicism. Eton, Oxford, Rome, and (of course) his
+own famous monastery at Fort Augustus, are the chief scenes of it;
+and about them all Sir DAVID talks vividly, even brilliantly. I am not
+saying that all this pleasant garrulity would not have been the
+better for the blue pencil, especially in those chapters in which the
+writer's memory dwells almost to excess upon the births, marriages,
+deaths and dinner-parties of the orthodox Peerage. Elsewhere, however,
+Sir DAVID finds occasion in plenty for the exercise of a wit so
+dextrously handled that often his thrust is delivered before you have
+realized that the rapier has left its sheath. I had marked a score of
+examples for quotation (and now have space for none) and twice as many
+good stories. In the Oxford recollections it was pleasant to renew my
+own lively memories of a certain notorious lecture by Mr. WALTER WALSH
+on Ritualistic Societies, when violence was narrowly averted by the
+tactful chairmanship of the present LORD CHANCELLOR--a lecture from
+which (as Mr. BELLOC observed at the time) "each member of the large
+audience departed confirmed and strengthened in whatever convictions
+he might previously have entertained." I sincerely hope that Sir DAVID
+has yet in store for us those latter-day gleanings which he has been
+compelled to dismiss for the present as being too recent for print.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. G. B. STERN has set himself to study with sympathy and a candour
+which extenuates nothing the Jew in England in the circumstances of
+war, and in particular the Jew of German origin completely loyal to
+the country of his adoption, but suspected and persecuted by such
+simple folk (and journals) as are content to put their faith in
+equally simple proverbs about leopards and spots. I suppose if
+_Children of No Man's Land_ (DUCKWORTH) has a hero and heroine you
+will find them in _Richard Marcus_ and his sister _Deborah_. Young
+_Richard_, passionately English, with all the simple unquestioning
+loyalty of the public-school boy, counts the months to the day when
+he can testify to this by bearing arms in his country's defence, but
+finds nothing open but internment or (by much wangling) a possible
+niche in a Labour battalion. _Deborah's_ adventures are chiefly of the
+heart, or what passes for the heart with a common type of modern girl
+anxious to wring every sensation out of life that playing with
+fire can give. It does not do to betray one's age by expressing too
+confidently the idea that much of all the goings-on of _Deborah_
+and her friends _Gillian_ and _Antonia_ seems impossible. Mr. STERN
+certainly writes as if he knew what he was writing about, and there
+is so rich an exuberance in the way he crowds his canvas, and so much
+humour expressed and repressed in his point of view, that I found this
+a distinctly entertaining and instructive book.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Living Bayonets: A Record of the Last Push_ (LANE) is a fourth of the
+enthusiastic and fiery war-books of that eminently enthusiastic and
+inextinguishably fiery warrior-author, Lieutenant CONINGSBY DAWSON, of
+the Canadian Field Artillery. If he evinces, blatantly at times, the
+motives and perspective of the propagandist, he is justified by the
+fact that he most ardently practised the Hun hatred which he preaches.
+He states that he enjoyed the dangers and discomforts of so doing, and
+his assertion is proved to be a true one by his having returned again
+and again to the fray, notwithstanding every excuse and temptation to
+leave it. The book follows on after his _Khaki Courage_, and is
+also in the form of letters to his people at home. It takes up the
+narrative at April 14th, 1917, and carries it to the triumphant end.
+When, by reason of his wounds, he had to leave the Front and work in
+London and elsewhere, he naturally lost touch with the real business
+of the battle; even after his return to the Front in April, 1918, his
+letters lack their original sense of actuality, and I, reading them,
+began to wonder if he was ever going to recover his former style.
+Happily he does so, and with his letter of July 11th he gives a
+striking picture of a terrible incident of war, of which I don't
+remember to have read before, but, as I read it now, I seem to be
+witnessing it myself. From this point on he steadily develops his
+best, so that he ends on a fitting climax to all his writings of the
+War in his long final letter of October 6th--propaganda unashamed.
+The book should be thrust under the noses of those pacifists who now
+labour to minimise the past and to magnify the virtue and the value of
+their personal loving-kindness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It has ever been my misfortune that the presence in a story of two
+characters confusably alike, or a setting within drowning distance
+of a tide-race, will produce in me an almost insuperable sense of its
+having been "made on purpose." I had therefore a double stroke of bad
+luck in finding both these elements present in _The Splendid Fairing_
+(MILLS AND BOON). But the more credit to Miss CONSTANCE HOLME that,
+despite my increasing conviction that the wrong prodigal would return,
+and that the powers of nature were throughout almost visibly preparing
+to engulf him, the gentle and unforced power of her story did hold my
+attention till the final wave. Distinction shown in apparent absence
+of effort would, I think, be my verdict on her writing; she clearly
+knows her Northern farmer-folk with the sympathy of intimate
+experience. I hope I have not already suggested too much of the plot,
+a little tragedy of the commonplace dealing with the relations between
+two farming brothers, of whom the younger prospers while the elder
+fails, and the life-long jealousies of their women. Miss HOLME works,
+one may say, on a minute scale; the short but simple annals of the
+poor interest her to the extent of providing an entire volume of three
+hundred odd pages from the events of a single day. But though now and
+then the old Northern counsel to "get eendways wi' it" does hover in
+the background of one's mind I repeat that sincerity carries the thing
+through. For all that, however, _The Splendid Fairing_ did but confirm
+me in a previous impression that these Mary-call-the-cattle-home
+localities must remain more convenient to the local colourist than
+attractive to the inhabitants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The publication, as a foreword, of a "Glossary of Native Words" used
+in the text made me wonder whether I should be bored or instructed,
+or both, by _The Death Drum_ (HURST AND BLACKETT). Most happily I was
+neither. Miss MARGARET PETERSON has built her novel, perhaps a trifle
+hastily, about a quite uncommon theme and given it, in Uganda, a quite
+uncommon setting. It is the story of a half-caste who marries a white
+girl in order to avenge, in her degradation, his sister whom the
+English girl's brother had betrayed. I must not say that _Tom Davis_,
+the half-caste, is too much a white man--for Miss PETERSON, to do her
+justice, has distributed goodness and badness among her blacks and
+whites with a quite impartial hand--but he is too fine a fellow to
+carry out his own plan, and, before he has done any lasting harm to
+the girl he has come to love, he takes himself, by way of a native
+rising, to a lotus-covered lake, and so out of her life. It seems a
+pity that the happiness of the story's end couldn't include _Tom_, but
+his ancestry effectually barred the way, and Miss PETERSON has had to
+rely upon a very strong and not quite silent Englishman of the best
+type for her satisfactory finish.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Few authors have a shrewder idea than Mr. P. G. WODEHOUSE of what the
+British and American public want in the way of humour, and I do not
+know anyone more determined to supply their requirements. He would
+be a dull fellow indeed who did not appreciate the high spirits and
+humorous situations to be found in _A Damsel in Distress_ (JENKINS).
+It is no small feat to maintain a riot of irresponsible fun for more
+than three hundred pages, but Mr. WODEHOUSE gets going at once, and
+keeps up the pace to the end without even a pause to get his
+second wind. If some of the characters--a ridiculous peer, his more
+ridiculous sister and his most ridiculous butler--are of the "stock"
+variety, Mr. WODEHOUSE'S way of treating them is always fresh and
+amusing. But in his next frolic I beseech him to give golf and its
+tiresome lingo a complete rest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Customer._ "MAY I LOOK AT THAT TWELVE-GUINEA SUIT IN
+THE WINDOW? (_Catching sight of ticket_) GOOD GRACIOUS! IT'S TWELVE
+POUNDS THIRTEEN NOW."
+
+_Tailor._ "YESSIR--A BRIGHT LITTLE NOTION OF OURS, IF I MAY SAY SO. A
+TICKER ATTACHED, LIKE THOSE THINGS IN THE TAXICABS, TO KEEP THE PRICE
+UP-TO-DATE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Straying.--Wm. ----, for allowing three houses to stray on
+    the highway, was fined 20s."--_Local Paper._
+
+In these days landlords cannot be too careful.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Errata:
+
+Page 6: 'particlarly' corrected to 'particularly'.
+["... makes her verses particularly susceptible to quotation."]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+CLVIII, January 7, 1920, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH-CHARIVARI, JANUARY 7, 1920 ***
+
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