PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 153.

November 28, 1917.

CHARIVARIA.

“How the Germans never got wind of it,” writes a correspondent
of the British attack on the HINDENBURG line, “is a mystery.” The
failure of certain M.P.’s to ask questions about it in Parliament
beforehand may have had something to do with it.

An order has been promulgated fixing the composition of horse
chaff. The approach of the pantomime season is thought to be
responsible for it.

“We are particularly anxious,” writes the Ministry of Food,
“that Christmas plum-puddings should not be kept for any length of
time.” A Young Patriots’ League has been formed, we understand,
whose members are bent on carrying out Lord RHONDDA’S wishes at any
cost to their parents.

Another birthplace of ST. GEORGE has been captured in Palestine.
It is now definitely established that the sainted warrior’s habit
of trying to carry-on in two places at the same time was the
subject of much adverse criticism by the military experts of the
period.

A Camberley man charged with deserting the Navy and joining the
Army explained that he was tired of waiting for TIRPITZ to come
out. We are informed that Commander CARLYON BELLAIRS, M.P., and
Admiral W.H. HENDERSON have been asked to enlighten the poor fellow
as to the true state of affairs.

A skull of the Bronze Age has been found on Salisbury Plain.
Several hats of the brass age have also been seen in the
vicinity.

Imports of ostrich feathers have fallen from £33,000 in
1915 to £182 in 1917. Ostrich farmers, it appears, are on the
verge of ruin as the result of their inability to obtain scissors
and other suitable foodstuffs for the birds.

“Measures are being taken to check pacifists,” says Sir GEORGE
CAVE. Prison-yard measures, we hope.

A Stoke Newington constable has discovered a happy method of
taking people’s minds off their food troubles. During the last
month he has served fifty of them with dog-summonses.

Five hundred pounds have been sent to the CHANCELLOR OF THE
EXCHEQUER by an anonymous donor. It is thought that the man is
concealing his identity to avoid being made a baronet.

“What is the use of corporations if they can do nothing useful?”
asks Councillor STOCK, of Margate. It is an alluring topic, but a
patriotic Press has decided that it must be postponed in favour of
the War.

During trench-digging on Salisbury Plain the skeleton of a young
man, apparently buried about the year 600 B.C., was unearthed. The
skull was partially fractured, evidently by a battle-axe. Foul play
is suspected.

Sugar was sold for half-a-guinea a pound at a charity sale in
the South of England, and local grocers are complaining bitterly of
unfair competition.

A contemporary points out that there is a soldier in the North
Staffordshire Regiment whose name is DOUGLAS HAIG. Riots are
reported in Germany.

“Can Fish Smell?” asks a weekly paper headline. We can only say
that in our experience they sometimes do, especially on a
Monday.

An employer pleading for an applicant before the Egham Tribunal
stated that he had an oil-engine which nobody else would go near.
We cannot help thinking that much might be done with a little tact,
such as going up to the engine quietly and stroking its face, or
even making a noise like a piece of oily waste.

Germany’s new Hymn of Hate has been published. To give greater
effect to the thing and make it more fearful, Germans who
contemplate singing it are requested to grow side-whiskers.

It is rumoured that since his recent tirade at York against
newspapers Dr. LYTTELTON has been made an Honorary Member of the
Society of Correctors of the Press.

The Evening News informs us that Mr. HENRY WHITE, a
grave-digger of Hellingly, has just dug his thousandth grave.
Congratulations to our contemporary upon being the first to spread
the joyful news.

Unfortunately, says The Daily Mail, Lord NORTHCLIFFE
cannot be in four places at once. Pending a direct contradiction
from the new Viscount himself, we can only counsel the country to
bear this announcement with fortitude.

Only the other day The Daily Chronicle referred to the
Premier as “Mr. George,” just as if it had always been a penny
paper.

The rush to a certain Northern suburb has died down. The rumour
that there was a polite grocer there turns out to be cruelly at
variance with the facts.

JOY-RIDING UP-TO-DATE.
THE UNDEFEATED WAR-PROFITEER.

Another Sex-Problem.

“Plaintiff was the daughter of an officer in the Royal Irish
Constabulary, and was a grand-nephew of Dr. Abernethy, the famous
surgeon.”—Evening Paper.

From a recent novel:—

“His face was of the good oatmeal type, and grew upon one.”

Useful in these days of rations.

“He does try to be Biblical sometimes. In the Paris speech he
used the unnatural word ‘yea’ twice. Each time it gave one shudders
down the back.”

No doubt next time, in view of our obligations to U.S.A., the
PRIME MINISTER will say “Yep.”

THE VICTORY.

[For J.B., with the author’s affectionate
pride.]

HINDENBURG TO MACKENSEN.

O.S.

THE LITERARY ADVISER.

No, he does not appear in the Gazette. War establishments
know him not and his appointment throws no additional labour upon
the staff of Messrs. COX AND CO. Unofficially he is known as O.C.
Split Infinitives. His duties are to see that the standard of
literary excellence, which makes the correspondence of the Corps a
pleasure to receive, is maintained at the high level set by the
Corps Commander himself. Indeed the velvety quality of our prose is
the envy of all other formations.

Apart from duties wholly literary, he is also O.C. Code Names.
The stock-in-trade for this skilled labour is an H.B. pencil and a
Webster Dictionary. The routine is simplicity itself. As soon as
anybody informs him of a new arrival in the area he fishes out the
dictionary, plays Tit-Tat-Toe with the H.B., writes out the word
that it lands upon at the end of his rhyme, and, hey presto! there
is another day’s work done.

But one day, for the sake of greater secrecy, it became
necessary to rename all the units of the area, and the Literary
Adviser suddenly found himself put to it to provide about three
hundred new Code Names at once. Heroically he set to work with his
dictionary, his H.B. pencil, and his little rhyme. For two days the
Resplendent Ones in the General Staff Office bore patiently with
the muttering madman in the corner. For two days he fluttered the
leaves of his dictionary and whispered hoarsely to himself,
“Tit-tat-toe, my-first-go,
three-jolly-nigger-boys-all-in-a-row,” picking out word
after word with unerring accuracy until the dictionary was a waste
of punctures and three generations of H.B.’s had passed away.
Before the second day was out the jingle had done its dreadful
work. It was as much as the clerks could do to avoid keeping step
with it. The climax came when the Senior Resplendent One, looking
down at the telegram he was writing, found to his horror that he
had written, “Situation quiet Tit-Tat-Toe. Hostile artillery
activity normal Tit-Tat-Toe,” and so on, substituting this
abomination in place of the official stop, (“Ack-Ack-Ack”)
throughout.

It was enough. Still gibbering, the Literary Adviser was hurled
forth from the office and told to work his witchcraft in
solitude.

Paler, thinner and older by years he emerged from his retirement
triumphant, and the new code names went forth to a flourish of
trumpets or rather of the hooters of the despatch-riders.

Then it began. For days he was subjected to rigorous criticisms
of his selection. “Signals” tripped him up first by pointing out
two units with the same name, and they also went on to point out
that the word was spelt “cable” in the first instance and “cabal”
in the second. The gunners, working in groups, complained bitterly
that a babel had arisen through the similarity of the words
allotted to their groups. One infuriated battery commander said it
was as much as he could do to get anyone else on the telephone but
himself.

Touched to the quick by criticism (when was it ever otherwise
amongst his kind?) the Adviser set aside his real work (he was, of
course, writing a book about the War) and applied himself to, the
task of straightening the tangle. Obviously the ideal combination
would be for each unit to have a code name that nobody could
mistake no matter how badly it was pronounced. And to this ideal he
applied himself. Often, on fine afternoons, the serenity of the
country-side was disturbed by the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, “Soap—Silk—Salvage—Sympathy,” to see
if any dangerous similarity existed. At dinner a glaze would
suddenly come over his eyes, his lips would move involuntarily and
mutter, as he gazed into vacancy,
“Mustard—Mutton—Meat—Muffin.”

Histrionic effort played no small part in these attempts and led
to a good deal of misunderstanding, for he felt it incumbent on him
to try his codes in every possible dialect. Instead of the usual
cheery “Good morning,” a major of a famous Highland regiment was
scandalised by an elderly subaltern blethering out,
“Cannibal—Custard—Claymore—Caramel,” in an
abominable Scotch accent. Another day (on receipt of written
orders) he was compelled to visit the line to see if things had
been built as reported, or, if it was just optimism again.
Half-an-hour later a sentry brought him down the trench at the
point of the bayonet for muttering as he rounded the traverse,
“Galoot—Gunning—Grumble—Grumpy,” in
pseudo-Wessex. Naturally, to Native Yorkshire this sounded like
pure Bosch.

Ah! but he won through in the end. The man who has stood five
years of unsuccessful story-writing for magazines is not the kind
to let himself be beaten easily. There could be no doubt of the
final result. When the revised list was issued the response to the
inquiry, “Hullo, is that Sink?” was met by a “No, this is Smack,”
that crashed through the thickest intellect.

But vaulting ambition had o’erleapt itself. As a covering note
to the new issue he had put up the following letter:—

“Ref. G K etc., etc., of 10th inst. On November 3rd all previous
issues of Code Names will be cancelled in favour of the more
euphonious nomenclature which is forwarded herewith.”

A shriek of joy echoed through the corps. “Euphonious!” What a
word! What a discovery in a foreign country! The joy of the signal
operators, on whom something of the spirit of the old-time
bus-drivers has descended, was indescribable. You had only to pick
up the receiver at any time and the still small voices of the busy
signal world could be heard chortling, “Hullo-oo? Hullo,
Euphonious! How’s your father? Yes, give me Crump.” Or, “No, I
can’t get the General; he’s left his euphonious receiver off.”

Poor Euphonious (he has never been called by anything else
since)—they have threatened to make him O.C. Recreations for
Troops.

BIRDS OF ILL OMEN.

MR. PUNCH. “ONLY GOT HIM IN THE TAIL, SIR.”

THE MAN FROM WHITEHALL. “YES, BUT I MEAN TO GET THE NEXT ONE IN
THE NECK.”

Mistress. “I HOPE YOU’RE DOING WHAT YOU CAN TO ECONOMISE
THE FOOD.”

Cook. “OH, YES’M. WE’VE PUT THE CAT ON
MILK-AN’-WATER.”

PARS WITH A PUNCH.

ALL THE REAL NEWS ABOUT MEN, WOMEN AND
THINGS.
BY OUR RAMBLING GOSSIP.

(With acknowledgments to some of our contemporaries.)

A Long-Felt Want.

The opening, next week, of a Training School for Bus and Tube
Travellers will, it is hoped, supply a long-felt want in the
Metropolis. I understand that a month’s course at the establishment
will enable the feeblest of mortals to hold his own and more in the
fearful mêlée that rages daily round train and
vehicle. I have a prospectus before me as I write; here are some of
its sub-heads: “The Strap-Hanger’s Stranglehold,” “Foot
Frightfulness,” “How to Enter a Bus Secretly,” “The Umbrella
Barrage,” “Explosives—When their Use is Justified,” “What to
do when the Conductor Falls off the Bus.” This certainly promises a
speedy amelioration of present-day travelling conditions.

Timbuctoo Tosh.

Last week, when all those ridiculous rumours anent Timbuctoo
were flying about, you will remember how I warned you to set no
faith in them. You will admit that I was a good counsellor. Nothing
has happened at Timbuctoo. I doubt very much whether
anything could happen there.

Hush!

On the other hand, keep your eye on a spot not a thousand miles
away from Clubland. Something will certainly happen there some day,
and, when it does, bear in mind that I warned you.

Amazing Discovery.

Mr. ROOSEVELT’S discovery that, unknown to himself, he has been
blind in one eye for over a year, is surely surpassed by the
experience of Mr. Caractacus Crowsfeet, the popular M.P. for
Slushington, who has just learnt, as the result of a cerebral
operation, that he possesses no brain whatever. “It is indeed
remarkable,” said Mr. C. to me the other day, “for I can truthfully
assert that in all my arduous political labours of the past ten
years I have never felt the need or even noticed the absence of
this organ.” He coughed modestly. “I have always maintained that in
politics it is the man, not the mind, that counts.”

She Has One!

Mrs. Zebulon Napthaliski proposes to spend the winter on her
Brighton estate. “Yes—I have received my sugar card,”
she told me, in answer to my eager query. “More than that I cannot
say.”

Fare and Foliage.

That charming fashion of decorating the dinner-table with
foliage will be all the rage this winter. Well-known London
hostesses, basket on arm, may daily be seen in Mayfair garnering
fallen leaves from lawn, path or roadside. Some very daring Society
women are dispensing altogether with a cloth, the table being
covered with a complete layer of leaves. I doubt, however, whether
this will become popular, guests showing a tendency to mislay their
knives and forks in the foliage.

A Bon Mot.

Have you heard the latest bon mot that is going the round
of the clubs? Mrs. Savory Beet, of Pacifist fame, has, as you will
recall, announced her intention of taking up war work. “Ah!” was
the comment of a cynical bachelor, “it was a case of her taking up
something or being [pg 363] taken up herself!” His audience
simply screamed with laughter.

Watch Out!

Don’t be surprised if you hear of some sensational political
developments in the near future. The Minister who said recently
that the inevitable sequel to war was peace, was, in the opinion of
those competent to judge but, by reason of their official position,
unable to criticise, hinting at proposals which, if the signs and
portents of the time go for anything, would have far-reaching
effects on the question of Electoral Representation. I will say no
more. Time alone will disclose my meaning.

Urchin (with an inborn terror of the Force). “OO, MUVVER!
IT WON’T, WILL IT?”

OMINOUS.

“——went every morning to a firm of sausage-makers by
whom he was employed as a horse-dealer.”—Irish
Paper.

“Rome, Saturday.

“The announcement is made to-day of the award by the King [of
Italy] of gold medals to Lieutenant Giuseppe Castruccio and I
sentence him to three months’ hard.”—Manchester Evening
Chronicle.

When will British journalists learn not to interfere with the
internal affairs of friendly nations?

THE LAST MATCH.

OUR SAMSONS.

“Wanted at once.—Reliable Man for carrying off motor
lorry.”—Clitheroe Advertiser.

“To-day the man possesses a second tumb, serviceable for all
ordinary purposes.”—Belfast Evening Telegraph.

In these days of restricted rations it seems a superflous
luxury.

“Diamond Brooch, 15 cwt., set with three blue white diamonds;
make a handsome present; £9 9s.”—Derby Daily
Telegraph.

It seems a lot for the money; but personally we would sooner
have the same weight of coals.

THE WAY DOWN.

SYDNEY SMITH, or NAPOLEON or MARCUS AURELIUS (somebody about
that time) said that after ten days any letter would answer itself.
You see what he meant. Left to itself your invitation from the
Duchess to lunch next Tuesday is no longer a matter to worry about
by Wednesday morning. You were either there or not there; it is
unnecessary to write now and say that a previous invitation from
the PRIME MINISTER—and so on. It was NAPOLEON’S idea (or Dr.
JOHNSON’S or MARK ANTONY’S—one of that circle) that all
correspondence can be treated in this manner.

I have followed these early Masters (or whichever one it was) to
the best of my ability. At any given moment in the last few years
there have been ten letters that I absolutely must write,
thirty which I ought to write, and fifty which any other
person in my position would have written. Probably I have
written two. After all, when your profession is writing, you have
some excuse on returning home in the evenings for demanding a
change of occupation. No doubt if I were a coal-heaver by day, my
wife would see to the fire after dinner while I wrote letters. As
it is, she does the correspondence, while I gaze into the fire and
think about things.

You will say, no doubt, that this was all very well before the
War, but that in the Army a little writing would be a pleasant
change after the day’s duties. Allow me to disillusion you. If,
three years ago, I ever conceived a glorious future in which my
autograph might be of value to the more promiscuous collectors,
that conception has now been shattered. Three years in the Army has
absolutely spoilt the market. Even were I revered in the year 2,000
A.D. as SHAKSPEARE is revered now, my half-million autographs,
scattered so lavishly on charge-sheets, passes, chits,
requisitions, indents and applications would keep the price at a
dead level of about ten a penny. No, I have had enough of writing
in the Army and I never want to sign my own name again. “Yours
sincerely, HERBERT ASQUITH,” “Faithfully yours, J.
JELLICOE”—these by all means; but not my own.

However, I wrote a letter the other day; it was to the bank. It
informed them that I had arrived in London for a time and should be
troubling them again shortly, London being to all appearances an
expensive place. It also called attention to my new address—a
small furnished flat in which Celia and I can just turn round if we
do it separately. When it was written, there came the question of
posting it. I was all for waiting till the next morning, but Celia
explained that there was actually a letter-box on our own floor,
twenty yards down the passage. I took the letter along and dropped
it into the slit.

Then a wonderful thing happened. It went

Flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—FLOP.

I listened intently, hoping for more … but that was all.
Deeply disappointed that it was over, but absolutely thrilled with
my discovery, I hurried back to Celia.

“Any letters you want posted?” I said in an off-hand way.

“No, thank you,” she said.

“Have you written any while we’ve been here?”

“I don’t think I’ve had anything to write.”

“I think,” I said reproachfully, “it’s quite time you wrote to
your—your bank or your mother or somebody.”

She looked at me and seemed to be struggling for words.

“I know exactly what you’re going to say,” I said, “but don’t
say it; write a little letter instead.”

“Well, as a matter of fact I must just write a note to
the laundress.”

“To the laundress,” I said. “Of course, just a note.”

When it was written I insisted on her coming with me to post it.
With great generosity I allowed her to place it in the slit. A
delightful thing happened. It went

Flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-
flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—FLOP.

Right down to the letter-box in the hall. Two flipperties a
floor. (A simple calculation shows that we are perched on the fifth
floor. I am glad now that we live so high. It must be very dull to
be on the fourth floor with only eight flipperties, unbearable to
be on the first with only two.)

“O-oh! How fas-cinating!” said Celia.

“Now don’t you think you ought to write to your mother?”

“Oh, I must.”

She wrote. We posted it. It went

Flipperty-flipperty——However, you know all
about that now.

Since this great discovery of mine, life has been a more
pleasurable business. We feel now that there are romantic
possibilities about letters setting forth on their journey from our
floor. To start life with so many flipperties might lead to
anything. Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a
tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think
we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something. We
are waiting to hear some magic letter go
flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty … and behold!
there is no FLOP … and still it goes
on—flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—growing
fainter in the distance … until it arrives at some wonderland of
its own. One day it must happen so. For we cannot listen always for
that FLOP, and hear it always; nothing in this world is as
inevitable as that. One day we shall look at each other with awe in
our faces and say, “But it’s still flipperting!” and from that time
forward the Hill of Campden will be a place holy and enchanted.
Perhaps on Midsummer Eve—

At any rate I am sure that it is the only way in which to post a
letter to Father Christmas.

Well, what I want to say is this: if I have been a bad
correspondent in the past I am a good one now; and Celia, who was
always a good one, is a better one. It takes at least ten letters a
day to satisfy us, and we prefer to catch ten different posts. With
the ten in your hand together there is always a temptation to waste
them in one wild rush of flipperties, all catching each other up.
It would be a great moment, but I do not think we can afford it
yet; we must wait until we get even more practised at
letter-writing. And even then I am doubtful; for it might be that,
lost in the confusion of that one wild rush, the magic letter would
start on its way—flipperty-flipperty—to the
never-land, and we should forever have missed it.

So, friends, acquaintances, yes, and even strangers. I beg you
now to give me another chance. I will answer your letters, how
gladly. I still think that NAPOLEON (or CANUTE or the younger
PLINY—one of the pre-Raphaelites) took a perfectly correct
view of his correspondence … but then he Never had a
letter-box which went

Flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—FLOP.

A.A.M.

The H.D. and Q. Department.

“Major-General F.G. Bond is gazetted Director of Quartering at
the War Office.”

Pacifists beware!

“DIRTY WORK
AT
DOWNING STREET.

BY
HORATIO BOTTOMLEY.”

John Bull.

They shouldn’t have let him in.

Officer. “WHY WERE YOU NOT AT ROLL-CALL LAST NIGHT?”

Defaulter. “WELL, SIR, WITH THIS ‘ERE CAMP CAMOUFLAGED SO
MUCH, I COULDN’T FIND MY WAY OUT OF THE CANTEEN.”

COUNTER TACTICS.

About a year ago I paid a visit to my hosier and haberdasher
with the intention of purchasing a few things with which to tide
over the remaining months of winter. After the preliminary
discussion of atmospherics had been got through, the usual raffle
of garments was spread about for my inspection. I viewed it
dispassionately. Then, discarding the little vesties of
warm-blooded youth and the double-width vestums of rheumatic old
age, I chose several commonplace woollen affairs and was preparing
to leave when my hosier and haberdasher leaned across the counter
and whispered in my ear.

“If I may advise you, Sir, you would be wise to make a large
selection of these articles. We do not expect to replace them.”

He glanced cautiously at an elderly gentleman who was stirring
up a box of ties, then, lowering his voice another semitone, added,
“The mills are now being used exclusively for Government work.” He
insinuated the death-sentence effect very cleverly, and at that
moment, coming to his support, as it were, the old gentleman
tottered up, seized upon two garments and carried them off from
under my very fingers. As he went out a middle-aged lady entered
and made straight for the residue upon the counter. A feeling of
panic came upon me. “Right you are,” I exclaimed hurriedly, “I’ll
take the lot.” As a matter of fact she only wanted a pair of gloves
for her nephew in France.

A few days later, still having the wool shortage in mind, I
approached my hosier and haberdasher on the subject of shirts. For
a second or two he looked thoughtfully at the toe of his boot. Then
coming suddenly to a decision he disappeared stealthily into the
back premises, from which he presently emerged carrying a large
bale of flannel, which he cast caber-wise upon the counter.

“There,” he said triumphantly, “I don’t suppose there’s another
piece of flannel like that in the country.” He fingered it with an
expert touch.

“You don’t say so,” I said as I rubbed it reverently between my
finger and thumb, just to show that he wasn’t the only one who
could do it.

“I’m afraid it’s only too true,” he confessed, “and I may add
that, after we have sold out our present stocks, flannel of any
kind will be absolutely unobtainable.”

“None at all?” I asked, horror-struck at the vision of my public
life in 1920—a bow cravat over a double-width vestum.

He shook his head and smiled wisely.

I am instinctively against hoarding, but I knew that if I did
not buy it Jones would, and then some fine day, when nobody else
had a shirt left, he would swagger about and make my life
intolerable. This decided me and I bought the piece.

A few days later it occurred to me that it might be advisable to
lay down some socks. My idea was in perfect unison with that of my
hosier and haberdasher. Socks were going to be unprocurable in a
few months. I patted myself on the back and bought up the 1916
vintage of Llama-Llama [pg 366] footwear. The following week
thirty-seven shirts arrived and I had to buy a new
chest-of-drawers.

This, as I have stated before, was about a year ago. Yesterday I
paid my hosier and haberdasher another visit. If all the bone
factories had not been too exclusively engaged, etc., etc., I
wished to buy a collar stud. There was an elderly man standing in
the shop. He was quite alone, contemplating a mountain of garments.
There were little vesties, double-width vestums, and ordinary
woollen affairs.

You could have knocked me over with a dress-sock.

And where was my hosier and haberdasher? Had the
stranger—just awakened to the value of his
possessions—entered the shop and suddenly cast all this
treasure upon the counter? I imagined the shock of this procedure
on a man like my hosier and haberdasher, whose heart was perhaps a
trifle woolly. Had he collapsed? I glanced surreptitiously behind a
parapet of clocked socks.

A moment later, from somewhere in the back premises, he appeared
carrying a large bale of flannel, which he cast caber-wise upon the
counter. I was dumbfounded.

Then I knew the truth.

“Sir,” I said, turning to the stranger, “I believe you are about
to make a selection from these articles (I indicated them
individually), which you imagine to be the last of their race?”

He nodded at me in a bewildered sort of way.

“In a few months,” I continued remorselessly, “they will be
absolutely unprocurable” (he gave a start of recognition), “and
you, having bought them, will sneak through life with the feelings
of a food-hoarder, mingled with those of the man who slew the last
Camberwell Beauty. I know the state of mind. But you need not
distress yourself. These garments (I indicated them again) will
only be unprocurable because they are in your possession. I have
about half-a-ton myself, which, until a few minutes age, would have
been quite unprocurable. But I have changed my mind and, if you
will come with me, you can take your choice with a clear
conscience, and (I glanced maliciously at my faded hosier and
haberdasher) at the prices which were prevalent a year ago.”

I linked my arm with that of the stranger, and together we
passed out of the shop into the unpolluted light of day.

Mother (to child who has been naughty). “AREN’T YOU
RATHER ASHAMED OF YOURSELF?”

Child. “WELL, MOTHER, I WASN’T. BUT NOW THAT YOU’VE
SUGGESTED IT I AM.”

PRETENDING.

W.H.O.

It is understood that the FOOD-CONTROLLER has protested against
the forcible feeding of hunger-strikers. If they want to commit the
Yappy Dispatch, why shouldn’t they?

ST. GEORGE OUT-DRAGONS THE DRAGON.

[With Mr. Punch’s jubilant compliments to Sir DOUGLAS HAIG and his
Tanks.]

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, November 19th.—Such a rush of Peers to the
House of Commons has seldom been seen. Lord WIMBORNE, who knows
something of congested districts, arrived early and secured the
coveted seat over the clock. Lord CURZON, holding a watching brief
for the War Cabinet, was only just in time to secure a place; and
Lord COURTNEY and several others found “standing room only.” If we
have many more crises Sir ALFRED MOND will have to make provision
for strap-hangers.

“His foil was carefully buttoned.”

MR. ASQUITH.

There was very little sign of passion in Mr. ASQUITH’S measured
criticism of the Allied Council and of the PRIME MINISTER’S speech
on the subject in Paris. His foil was carefully buttoned, and
though it administered a shrewd thrust now and again it was not
intended to draw blood.

At first the PRIME MINISTER followed this excellent example, and
contented himself with defending, and incidentally re-composing,
his Paris oration. The Allied Council, as now depicted, was a horse
of quite another colour from what it seemed in Paris. A further
example of camouflage, I suppose.

Only when he came to deal with his Press critics did he let
himself go, to the delight of the House, which loves him in his
swashbuckling mood. As he confessed, however, that he had
deliberately made “a disagreeable speech” in Paris in order to get
it talked about, the Press will probably consider itself
absolved.

Tuesday, November 20th.—Like John Bull, as
represented in last week’s cartoon, Lord LAMINGTON has arrived at
the conclusion that compulsory rationing must come, and the sooner
the better. Lord RHONDDA, however, is still hopeful that John will
tighten his own belt, and save him the trouble. “More Yapping and
Less Biting” should be our motto. But if we fail to live up to it,
the machinery for compulsory rationing is all ready. Indeed,
according to Lord DEVONPORT, it has been ready since April last,
when an “S.O.S.” to the local authorities was on the point of being
sent, but a timely increase in imports stopped it.

Nobody doubts Commander WEDGWOOD’S essential patriotism; he has
proved it like a knight of old on his body; but he is unfortunate
in some of his political associates, who take advantage of his
good-nature. A book with a preface by himself had been seized by
the police on suspicion of being seditious, and he loudly demanded
to be prosecuted. But Sir GEORGE CAVE was not inclined to set up a
legal presumption that the writer of a preface is responsible for
the rest of the book. If he were, a good many “forewords” would, I
imagine, never have been written.

Wednesday, November 21st.—By a strange oversight
the Royal Marines were not specifically mentioned in the recent
Vote of Thanks to the Services. Apparently the fact that this
country is proud of them is one of those things that must not be
told to the Marines. But Dr. MACNAMARA assured the House that the
omission should now be repaired.

There has been a shortage of provisions in the city where
Lady Godiva suffered from a shortage of clothes. Mr. CLYNES
was prompt with a remedy. A representative of the FOOD-CONTROLLER
has already been sent to Coventry.

Conscientious Objectors found a doughty champion in Lord HUGH
CECIL. Rarely has an unpopular case been fortified with a greater
wealth of legal, historical and ethical argument. Only once, when
he accused Mr. BONAR LAW of holding the same doctrine as Herr
BETHMANN-HOLLWEG, did he lose, for a moment, the sympathy of his
audience. But he soon recovered himself, and thereafter held the
House rapt with Cecilian harmonies.

To such a lofty plane, indeed, had the debate been lifted that
Mr. RONALD MCNEILL, tall as he is, had some difficulty in bringing
it down to earth again; and when the division was called the spell
was still working, and in a very big House the “Conchies” only lost
their votes by thirty-eight.

Thursday, November 22nd.—Pending the introduction
of the promised censorship of Parliamentary Questions, Mr. JOSEPH
KING is working overtime. No story is too fantastically impossible
to find a shelter under his hospitable hat. To-day it was a secret
treaty between the Russian Government (old style) and the French
Republic, by which Belgium was to be compensated at the expense of
Holland. Lord ROBERT CECIL denounced it as an invention of the
enemy. But I don’t suppose the denial had the smallest effect upon
Mr. KING, who probably went off and dined heartily on a magnum of
mare’s-nest soup.

A tremendous accession to the ranks of the Sinn Feiners has been
narrowly averted. When Members read the menu which, according to
Major NEWMAN, the Irish Government has adopted for political
prisoners—three good square meals a day, including an egg,
ten ounces of meat, a pound and a half of bread, two pints and a
half of milk, and real butter—they were strongly minded to
enlist under Mr. DE VALERA’S banner and get themselves arrested
forthwith. But Mr. DUKE’S emphatic denial shattered their dream of
repletion at the taxpayers’ expense.

A final attempt to get proportional representation included in
the Franchise Bill was heavily defeated. In a dashing attempt to
save it Sir MARK SYKES declared that the old Eatanswill methods of
electioneering had gone for ever—”no mouth was large enough
to kiss thirty thousand babies.” But the majority of the House
seemed to be more impressed by the self-sacrificing argument of
that eminent temperance advocate, Sir THOMAS WHITTAKER, who feared
that “P.R.” would lead to an increase in “milk-and-water
politicians.”

ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW FROM AFRICA.

“A Belgian East African communiqué says that before the
converging advance of the Anglo-German Belgian columns, the enemy
retired to the south bank of the Kilimbero.”—Mombasa
Times.

We seem to have met some of these Anglo-German columns in the
Pacifist Press.

“Our machines then bombed the General, in which the German
Head-quarters at Constantinople are reported to be
situated.”—Times.

The General must have been stout, even for a German.

“Not having regained consciousness the police are left with
little tangible evidence to work upon.”—Daily
Telegraph.

Let us hope they will soon come to.

HOW TO UTILISE OUR SKILLED CRAFTSMEN.

First Lieutenant. “WHAT WAS THIS MAN BEFORE HE
JOINED?”  Petty Officer. “OPTICIAN, SIR.”

First Lieutenant. “WHAT HAD WE BETTER GIVE HIM TO
DO?”  Petty Officer. “THERE’S THEM PRISMATIC
SPOTTING GLASSES, SIR. THE LEATHER STRAP IS BROKEN OFF THEM. HE
COULD SPLICE IN A PIECE O’ COD LINE.”

LE POILU DE CARCASSONNE.

AT THE PLAY.

“LOYALTY.”

If you are a pernickety intellectual (soi-disant) you may
really permit yourself to be faintly amused at the fiery zeal of
the mystery-wrapt author of Loyalty for his (or, quite
possibly, her) country’s cause in this difficult hour. If you are
cast in the common human mould that nowadays is seen for the
glorious thing it is, you will respond to many single-minded,
wholesome thoughts in the impassioned statement of his thesis. And
if you happen to belong to that simple discredited breed, the
English, so long overshadowed by the nimbler Britons, you may have
quite a nice little private thrill of your own, a thrill of pride
in your precious stone, and begin to think with seriousness of the
advantages of “home rule all round” in an England-for-the-English
mood, and of the value of a nationalism that is as irrational as
conjugal or mother love—and as fine.

The author’s hero is an Englishman of the wandering type,
assistant editor on a crank paper. The play is a protracted debate
in four sessions, June, 1914; July, 1914; August, 1914; September,
1916. And here the author makes his most serious mistake, the
mistake made by Mr. HENRY ARTHUR JONES in his recent squib. If he
had contrived his Little Navy folk, the proprietor, editor and
revolving cranks as something more than mere caricatures, brands of
straw prepared for his consuming bonfires, he would have
strengthened, not weakened, his excellent case. He has quoted his
enemies’ mistakes without their excuses, their texts without their
contexts. And that is a form of propaganda which can only touch the
converted, or such of them as are not stirred by a sporting
instinct to a certain mood of protest and a wish that the other
fellow should be given a better start in the heresy hunt.

The dramatis personae, then, divide themselves into the
men of straw and the right sort. Of the former you have first
Sir Andrew Craig, chairman of the party in his constituency
and editor of The New Standard (there were indeed altogether
new standards of efficiency, mentality and hospitality in that
rather imaginative newspaper office of the First Act). Mr. FISHER
WHITE gave us the courtly-obstinate old man to the life (this
player has a way of removing straw). In the dramatic passage in
which, returning after being broken in a German prison, he relates
some of the horrors of which it is good for us to be reminded, he
rose to the height of his fine talent. His exquisite
elocution—a remarkable feat of virtuosity—was in itself
a sheer delight.

Mr. Stutchbury, the editor, pacifist and sentimental
democrat, was dealt to Mr. LENNOX PAWLE. He played his hand well.
There was never such an editor outside Bedlam; but Mr. PAWLE is a
resourceful person and by a score of clever tricks of gesture and
business made a reasonable figure of fun for our obloquy. All but
broken in the end, but still claiming that he had “the larger
vision” (as he certainly had the larger diameter), there was a
certain dignity of pathos in his exit, a late amende by an
otherwise remorseless puppet-maker. Mr. SYDNEY PAXTON as a pillar
of Nonconformity offered a clever study in the unctuous-grotesque;
Mr. VINCENT STERNROYD sketched a portrait of a nut-consuming
impenitent disarmamentist. The author is the first, so far as I
know, to give public emphasis to the queer fact of natural history
that there is some connection between extreme opinions and the
prominence of the Adam’s apple of the holder of them—a fact
on which I have often pondered.

Mr. M. MORAND, the aggressive Scots member of the election
committee, inspired to great heights of insobriety by the return of
his London-Scottish nephew from the Front, sounded a welcome human
note, as did Mr. SAM LIVESEY, the Labour Member of the committee,
shaken out of his detachment into an extreme explicitness of
language by a Zeppelin raid experience. Mr. GEORGE BELLAMY’S Welsh
Disestablisher and Mr. GRIFFITH HUMPHREYS’ exuberant German
press-agent of the pre-war period were both really shrewd
studies.

Of the right sort there were but five—and one of these,
the editor’s secretary, at heart an honest patriot, but in fact
eating the bread of shame, was perhaps not altogether of the right
sort. Still he did get off his chest at last the pent-up passion of
years, and very well he did it, with the help of Mr. RANDLE AYRTON,
whose subtle little touches, building up a picture of a
disheartened hack, were very adroit indeed.

THE LIGHTER SIDE OF EDITORIAL LIFE.

Frank Aylett . . . . . . . . MR. C. AUBREY SMITH.
Anthea Craig . . . . . . . . . . . MISS VIOLA TREE.

Then there was young Henry Craig, at the beginning an
undergraduate in his last term, at the end a V.C. in his last
resting-place. Mr. PERCIVAL CLARKE’S was an adequate pleasant
study. So also was Mr. PHILIP ANTHONY’S of a Canadian, full of
strange idioms, who butted in to just the wrong corner of Fleet
Street to put the editor wise about the intentions of a Germany in
which he had spent his last two years. And then there was
splendidly English Frank Aylett, exile returned, unspoilt by
the cynicism of party and paper, whose fortune came to him just at
the psychological moment, enabling him to give his proprietor
notice and fight and win a by-election in the astonied man’s own
constituency, besides carrying off his daughter (Miss VIOLA TREE),
who was the fifth of the right sort. What more plausible English
hero than Mr. C. AUBREY SMITH, except that he had to talk a good
deal more than seemed appropriate to his type? There was a
well-managed post-election scene when he was at his best (as was
the author). And all through there was good and sometimes glorious
sense for those to hear who had ears.

The programme promised us about a month’s interval between Acts
I. and II. It was actually less than that; but if Mr. J.H. SQUIRE’s
musicianly orchestra had not been there to charm us we might
conceivably have been bored.

T.

More Commercial Candour.

“FOR SALE.—A 45 H.P., 6 cyl.—Car, touring body,
fitted with every latest convenience. Exceptionally well sprung.
Just purchased by owner and run under 1,000 miles. Guaranteed over
25-galls. to the mile by Agents. Rs. 11,000.”—Indian
Paper.

“DIVERSION” IN THE BALKANS.

HEROES.

If the question were put to a company of young women, “What is
the most thrilling experience you can have in a London street?” the
odds are a thousand to one that they would reply that nothing could
be more thrilling than to meet a famous actor in plain clothes and
identify him. I am not a young woman myself, but I should be
inclined to share their opinion. There is something about an actor
in real life, moving along like a human being—one of
us—that always stirs my pulse. It is exciting enough to see
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE or Mr. ASQUITH or Sir OLIVER LODGE; but no one
stirs the imagination like an actor.

That is why I still tremble a little whenever I think of my good
fortune the other afternoon in the Haymarket, and why my pen shakes
as I commit the adventure to paper. For I met face to face two of
the most successful actors in London—at the present moment,
in the world.

I was walking up the Haymarket in the rain, hoping, in spite of
the new prohibitive rates, that I might see an empty cab, when I
met them coming down. They were walking with a man whom I did not
recognise, and, like me, were getting wet. One thinks of successful
actors as riding always in taxis; but taxis are very rare nowadays,
particularly in the wet, and somehow it did not seem unnatural that
they should be on foot. I am glad enough that they were, or I
should have missed my frisson; and others would have
suffered a similar loss, for the recognition was not only on my
part but on that of several passers-by, and it was instantaneous.
Indeed, I heard one lady tell her companion the name of the play
they are in and the extraordinary length of its run, and since she
spoke loudly I thought how delightful it must be to be a theatrical
celebrity and hear cordial things like that as you move about.
Neither of them paid any attention, however, although their friend
showed signs that the flattery had not escaped him; the two
Illustrions (to coin a word) merely walked on, superior to our
homage, and disappeared into Charles Street, where the stage door
of His Majesty’s is.

Pouring though it was, and grovelling admirer of footlight
favourites as I am, somehow I never thought to offer either of them
my umbrella. But then one doesn’t offer an umbrella to a donkey or
a camel, even though they are two of the stars of Chu Chin
Chow.

ANOTHER INJUSTICE.

From a Sinn Fein speech:—

“When Ireland was silent England did not hear her cry
out.”—Wicklow News-Letter.

“WHY SHOULD A RABBIT COST 2s. 3d.?

“This question from a reader induces me to postpone until next
week my analysis of the high cost of onions.”—Empire
News.

On the principle that it is better to make sure of the rabbit
before arranging about the stuffing.

“Stockholm, Tuesday.

“News from Finland shows that the Socialist leaders have lost
control of the workmen, and all kinds of excesses are taking place.
The present Commandant at Tornea was a sailor, the head of the
passport office was a tailor, and the chief telegraphic censor a
tinker.”—Central News.

We miss the soldier, to say nothing of “apothecary, ploughboy,
thief.”

“Scholars and tragedians between them seem to have appropriated
the right to keep Shakespeare’s memory green. But there are other
Richmonds in the field, humble Richmonds, not well read … John of
Gaunt, crying that his England ‘never did nor never shall lie at
the proud foot of a conqueror….'”—The Times.

The writer who thus deprived the Bastard in King
John of his famous lines was, we infer, one of the “other
Richmonds.”

SUGAR.

AN ELEGIAC ODE.

‘TATERS.

SCENE: At “The Plough and Horses.”

“You seen Parson lately, George?”

“Not lately I ain’t, Luther.”

“Not since ‘is ‘taters be out o’ ground?”

“No. Finest crop in village, some do say.”

“That be right—sev’ral ton of ’em there be.”

“What to goodness do ‘e want ’em all for, then? ‘Im an’ ‘s wife
an’ a maid ‘ll never eat all them ‘taters.”

“I’ll tell you what ‘e says to me, for ‘appen ‘e’ll say it to
you, George, when ‘e comes acrost you next. ‘E says to me, ‘I’ve
growed as many potatoes as I’ve had strength to grow, an’ they’ve
prospered exceedin’ly,’ ‘e says, ‘thank God! So if any deservin’
folk in my parish gets through wi’ their own crop an’ wants more
later on they ‘as only to come to me, for I’ve growed more ‘an my
‘ouse’old ‘ll eat if they was to eat all day.'”

“‘E be proud o’ that?”

“Fine an’ proud ‘e be.”

“An’ yet it be some’at unfort’nate too. For all of us as is left
in this ‘ere parish ‘as growed as many ‘taters as they’ll be like
to need, same as ‘e. So I don’t see nought but disappointment for
Parson an’ a lot o’ good ‘taters lyin’ to rot in their pies.”

“Some there be too fond o’ Parson to let that ‘appen. Me an’ my
wife be sendin’ few of ours to London ev’ry week or so. So in due
season we shall be free to go to Parson an’ ‘elp ‘im through wi’
‘is, same as ‘e wants us to. I ‘ears as others is doin’ some’at the
same as us—fear is as too many’ll tumble to the idea, which
is why I’d ‘ave you keep it fro’ goin’ further, George.”

“Silent as th’ grave I’ll be. So you’re givin’ your ‘taters ‘way
to please Parson? Yet I do allus say as ‘taters what a man grows
wi’ sweat of ‘is own brow do beat all others in t’ eatin’.”

“That may be; but us can’t afford to be so mighty pernickerty in
time o’ war. Nor we ain’t givin’ nothin ‘way in manner o’ speakin’.
Fair market price they gives for ’em in London. So it be somethin’
in ‘and in these ‘ard times as well as savin’ Parson from a bitter
disappointment what ‘e ain’t done nothin’ to deserve, so far as I
can see.”

“Two organ grinders, aged 23 and 16, were taken to Charing Cross
Hospital to-day with bad injuries and severe shock, the result of a
barrel organ getting out of control in
Rosebery-avenue.”—Evening Paper.

They should try a less dangerous instrument next time.

“‘Seed potatoes’ means potatoes grown in Scotland or Ireland in
the year 1917, or grown in England or Wales in the year 1917 from
seed grown in Scotland or Ireland in the year 1916, which will pass
through a riddle having a 1-5/8-in. mesh, and will not pass through
a riddle having a 1-5/8-in. mesh.”—Journal of the Board of
Agriculture.

We ourselves cannot get through any riddle of this kind.

Sergeant (instructing squad of volunteers in physical
drill). “THIS ‘ERE HEXERCISE IS INTENDED TO ‘ARDEN THE MUSCLES
OF THE STUMMICK AND MAKE IT HIMPERVIOUS TO GERMAN BULLETS HIN CASE
OF HINVASION.”

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr, Punch’s Staff of Learned
Clerks.)

It is difficult within the ordinary limits of a review in these
columns to say all that one feels or even to express adequately
one’s gratitude after reading the two volumes of Lord MORLEY’S
generous and delightful Recollections (MACMILLAN). I seem to
have been sitting with him in a large and comfortable library while
the great Viscount rolled me out his mind, now breaking out into a
glowing eulogy of GEORGE MEREDITH, JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN or LESLIE
STEPHEN, or again dashing off with a few firm and skilful strokes a
portrait of JOHN MILL or HERBERT SPENCER, or some other
intellectual giant of that nineteenth century which Lord MORLEY
nobly defends and of which he himself was grande decus
columenque. The book is crammed with passages that arouse and
maintain pleasure in the reader and clamour for quotation on the
part of the reviewer. “Meredith,” we are told, “who did not know
Mill in person, once spoke to me of him, with the confident
intuition proper to imaginative genius, as partaking of the
Spinster. Disraeli, when Mill made an early speech in Parliament,
raised his eye-glass and murmured to a neighbour on the bench, ‘Ah,
the Finishing Governess.'” Or we are introduced to SPENCER at
MILL’S table: “The host said to him at dessert that Grote, who was
present, would like to hear him explain one or more of his views
about the equilibration of molecules in some relation or other.
Spencer, after an instant of good-natured hesitation, complied with
unbroken fluency for a quarter-of-an-hour or more. Grote followed
every word intently, and in the end expressed himself as well
satisfied. Mill, as we moved off into the drawing-room, declared to
me his admiration of a wonderful piece of lucid exposition.
Fawcett, in a whisper, asked me if I understood a word of it, for
he did not. Luckily I had no time to answer.” Or again: “Another
contributor [to The Saturday Review] was the important man
who became Lord SALISBURY. He and I were alone together in the
editorial anteroom every Tuesday morning, awaiting our commissions,
but he too had a talent for silence, and we exchanged no words,
either now or on any future occasion.” How charming a picture is
this of two shy British publicists maintaining towards one another,
against every possible discouragement, an inviolable silence. Not
even the weather could tempt them to break it. Yet the great
characteristic of this book is the large-hearted tolerance of
comment and judgment which makes it emphatically a friendly book.
As such I commend it with all the warmth in my power.

For her new story, Missing (COLLINS), Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD
has used her knowledge, already proved elsewhere, of two settings,
the English Lakes and a Base Hospital somewhere in France. Also
perhaps her knowledge of human nature, though I like to think that
there are not many elder sisters so calculatingly callous as
Bridget. The bother about her was that she sadly wanted her
attractive younger sister to marry a sufficient establishment, not,
I fear, from wholly altruistic motives. So she was not altogether
sorry when the impecunious soldier-husband, whom Nelly had
personally preferred, was reported missing, thus leaving that to
chance once again open. Then, just as her plans seemed to be
prospering, word came secretly to her that there was a man
shattered and with memory lost in a base hospital who might
possibly be the brother-in-law whom she so emphatically didn’t
want. What happens [pg 374] upon this you shall find out for
yourself. Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD, as you will notice, has no fear of a
dramatic, even melodramatic, situation; handles it, indeed, with a
skill that the most popular might envy. Thence onwards the story,
perhaps a trifle slow in starting, gathers force. The two visits to
the camp at X—— (a very thin disguise for a place that
no Englishman of our time will ever forget) are admirably vivid;
the last chapters especially being as moving as anything that Mrs.
WARD has given us, whether in her popular, profound or propagandist
manner.

Lately, Mr. E.F. BENSON seems to have been devoting himself
almost wholly to chronicling the short and simple annals of the
middle-aged. With one exception, all his recent protagonists have
been, if not exactly in the sere and yellow, at least ripely
mature. So that such a title as that of his latest novel, An
Autumn Solving (COLLINS), produced in me rather a feeling of
familiar expectancy than of surprise. Also when the wrapper artist
clothes a volume with a picture of an elderly gentleman obviously
giving up an attractive young woman of perhaps one-third his years
it is idle to pretend that the contents retain all the thrill of
the unforeseen. Having said so much, I can let myself go in praise
(as how often before) of those qualities of insight and gently
sub-acid humour that make a BENSON novel an interlude of pure
enjoyment to the “jaded reviewer.” In case the indiscreet cover may
happily have been removed before the volume reaches your hands, I
do not propose to give away the plot in any detail. The autumn
sowing of course produces a crop not exactly of wild oats, but of
romantic tares that springs in the hitherto barren heart of one
Keeling, prosperous tradesman, husband, father, mayor,
public benefactor and baronet, by reason of the too sympathetic
damsel who types his letters and catalogues his library. That
library shows Mr. BENSON’S genius; without it I should hardly have
been able to believe in the subsequent happenings, but, given this
“secret garden,” all the tragedy is explained. I have left myself
no space in which to do justice to some admirable characterization.
Keeling’s wife is worthy of a place in the author’s long
gallery of woolly-witted matrons; while in Silverdale he has
given a study of clerical futility and egotism almost savage in its
detestability, a portrait at which one laughs and shudders
together. Of course the book will have, and deserve, a huge
welcome.

The union of scholarship and sympathy, enthusiasm and eloquence,
is rare; yet these qualities are to be found in perfect harmony in
the stately volume on the poets’ poet which has just been published
under the style, on the cover, Life of John Keats, and on
the title-page, John Keats, His Life and Poetry, His Friends,
Critics and After-Fame (MACMILLAN)—a volume upon which
Sir SIDNEY COLVIN has been engaged ever since his retirement from
the Print Room of the British Museum, and may be said to have been
preparing to write all his days, ever since, as a boy, he first
opened the “magic casement.” A book representing so long and ardent
a devotion, and written by one whose loyalties have always been so
cordially sustained and acknowledged, could not but glow; and it is
its warmth of feeling which, to my mind, peculiarly marks this very
distinguished work. It is more than a life; it is a “companion” to
KEATS so complete and understanding that one can with confidence
apply to it the abused word, “definitive.” Critical essays on the
poet no doubt will continue to appear, but this is the last
biographical monument likely to be raised to him.

Your enjoyment of The Head of the Family (METHUEN) may in
a measure depend upon your capacity to appreciate William
Linkhorn and the glory of his “great flaming beard.” To me,
unhappily, William was an uncouth rustic, just that and very
little else; but he possessed some mysterious attraction for women;
so, at any rate, Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY tells me, though she does not
explain to my satisfaction what it was. Phoebe-Louisa
married him partly because she wanted a man to help in her
greengrocery; but what charm he had for her soon waned, and she
smote hard when she caught him philandering with Beausire
Fillery. It was all the lady’s fault; William had, so to
speak, only to wave his beard and she was at his feet. But if the
hirsute feature of this story leaves me cold it is easy enough to
enjoy and admire the rest. The Firebraces, spoken of here as
“The Family,” are most admirably drawn. Never has the condescension
of county people to those less exalted in birth been described with
more delightful irony. True that some of the Firebraces
kicked over the traces and married whom they listed, but the family
as a whole was rooted deep enough to stand shocks which would have
devastated people of less assured position. The scenes of the story
are laid in and around Lewes, a part of England dear to Mrs.
DUDENEY’S heart, and of which she writes with real comprehension
and devotion.

By a self-denying ordinance Mr. Punch declines, as a general
rule, to review in these columns the work of his Staff. But he may
permit himself to announce to all lovers of the gay humour of
“A.A.M.” that Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON have just brought out a
new novel, Once on a Time, by Mr. ALAN A. MILNE, with
illustrations by Mr. H. M. BROCK.

A CONSOLING THOUGHT.

Belated Traveller (surprised by a bull when taking a short
cut to the station). “BY JOVE! I BELIEVE I SHALL CATCH THAT
TRAIN AFTER ALL.”

“Alexander had his ‘Plutarch’ always under his
pillow.”—British Weekly.

This must have been a very early edition.

“Colombo is suffering from an attack of rabies and there have
been 38 cases reported so far. In the first six months of the year
1,300 days were destroyed.”—Singapore Free Press.

Let us hope that every day had its dog.