PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 156.

February 26, 1919.

CHARIVARIA.

“GERMANY,” says Count RANTZAU, “cannot be treated as a
second-rate nation.” Not while it is represented by tenth-rate
noblemen.

People are now asking who the General is who has threatened
not to write a book about the War?

On Sunday week, at Tallaght, Co. Dublin, seven men attacked
a policeman. The campaign for a brighter Sunday is evidently
not wanted in Ireland.

The United States Government is sending a Commission to
investigate industrial conditions in the British Isles. Mr.
LLOYD GEORGE, we understand, has courteously offered to try to
keep one or two industries going until the Commission
arrives.

“Everything that happened more than a fortnight ago,” says
Mr. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW in The Daily News, “always is
forgotten in this land of political trifling.” We must draw
what comfort we can from the reflection that Mr. SHAW himself
happened more than a fortnight ago.

“Margarine,” says an official notice, “can be bought
anywhere after to-day.” This is not the experience of the man
who entered an ironmonger’s shop and asked for a couple of feet
of it.

A woman who threatened to murder a neighbour was fined one
shilling at Chertsey. We shudder to think what it would have
cost her if she had actually carried out her threat.

A contemporary refers to “those abominable face-masks” now
being worn in London. Can this be a revival of the late Mr.
RICHARDSON’S campaign against the wearing of whiskers?

“A Court of Justice is not a place of amusement,” said Mr.
Justice ROCHE at Manchester Assizes. Mr. Justice DARLING’S
rejoinder is eagerly awaited.

We are informed by “Hints for the Home,” that “Salsify may
be lifted during the next few days.” So may Susan, if you don’t
watch out.

So many safes have been stolen from business premises in
London that one enterprising man has hit upon the novel idea of
putting a notice on his safe, “Not to be Taken Away.”

A sapper of the Royal Engineers who climbed the steeple of a
parish church and reached the clock told the local magistrates
that he wanted to see the dial. That, of course, is no real
excuse in these days of cheap wrist-watches.

By order of the Local Government Board influenza has been
made a notifiable disease. We sincerely hope that this will be
a lesson to it.

An evening paper suggests that the Albert Hall should be
purchased by the nation. We understand, however, that our
contemporary has been forestalled by a gentleman who has
offered to take it on the condition that a bathroom (h. and c.)
is added.

A correspondent writes to a paper to ask if it is necessary
to have a licence to play the cornet in the streets. All that
is necessary, we understand, is a strong constitution and
indomitable pluck.

We are asked to deny the foolish allegation that several
M.P.s only went into Parliament because they couldn’t get
sleeping accommodation elsewhere.

In connection with the rush for trains on the Underground,
an official is reported to have said that things would be much
better if everybody undertook not to travel during the busiest
hours.

An American journal advertises a lighthouse for sale. It is
said to be just the thing for tall men in search of a seaside
residence.

The policeman who told the Islington bus-driver to take off
his influenza mask is going on as well as can be expected.

Pwllheli Town Council is reported to have refused the offer
of a German gun as a trophy. The Council is apparently piqued
because it was not asked in the first instance whether it
wanted a war at all.

All Metropolitan police swords have been called in. We
decline to credit the explanation that, in spite of constant
practice, members of the force, kept cutting their mouths.

French politicians are advocating the giving of an
additional vote for each child in the family. In France, it
will be remembered, the clergy are celibate.

“We are looking for the ideal omnibus,” says an official of
the L.G.O.C. We had no idea that they had lost it. Meanwhile
their other omnibus continues to cause a good deal of
excitement as it flashes by.

“Buildings occupied by the League of Nations,” says The
Daily Mail, “are to enjoy the benefits of
extraterritoriality.” It sounds a lot, but we were afraid it
was going to be something much more expensive than that.

“In a month,” says a news item, “fourteen abandoned babies
have been found in London.” Debauched, no doubt, by the
movies.

THE MORNING AFTER THE BURGLARY.

“AND HE’S LEFT THE
LIGHT ON!”

A Striking Advertisement.

“Negib Fahmy, Assistant Goods Manager Egyptian State
Railways, was attacked by a discharged railway poster a
short time ago.”—Egyptian Gazette.

“On Sunday morning the engine of the Paris-Marseilles
express on arriving at the Gare de Lyon mounted the
platform and only came to a standstill in front of the
buffet.”—Times.

Machinery nowadays exhibits almost human intelligence.

“BOURNEMOUTH.—Delicate or Chronic Lady received in
charming house.”—British Weekly.

In the new army a gentleman may be “temporary;” but once a
lady always a lady.

THE HUN AS IDEALIST.

GOOD-BYE TO THE AUXILIARY PATROL.

I.—THE SHIP.

When it was announced that we were to be paid off and that
the gulls and porpoises that help to make the Dogger Bank the
really jolly place it is would know us no more, there was, I
admit, a certain amount of subdued jubilation on board. It is
true that the Mate and the Second Engineer fox-trotted twice
round the deck and into the galley, where they upset a ship’s
tin of gravy; and the story that the Trimmer, his complexion
liberally enriched with oil and coaldust, embraced the
Lieutenant and excitedly hailed the Skipper by his privy
pseudonym of “Plum-face,” cannot be lightly discredited; but at
the same time I think each one of us felt a certain twinge of
regret. Life in the future apart from our trawler seemed
impossible, almost absurd. Pacificists must have known a
similar feeling on Armistice day.

Although to the outsider one trawler may look very like
another, to us who know them personally they differ in
character and have their little idiosyncrasies no less than
other people. Some are quite surly and obstinate, others
good-humoured and light-hearted; where one exhibits all the
stately dignity of a College head-porter another may be as
skittish and full of fun as a magistrate on the Bench. There
was one trawler at our base so vain that they could never get
her to enter the lockpits until her decks had been scrubbed and
a string of bunting hoisted at the foremast. It is
surprising.

Taking her all in all our trawler was a good sort, one of
the best. When steaming head to wind in a heavy sea she
certainly shipped an amazing quantity of water, and even in a
comparative calm she would occasionally fling an odd bucketful
or so of North Sea down the neck or into the sea-boots of the
unwary; but it was only her sense of fun. She took particular
delight in playing it on a new member of the crew; it made him
feel at home.

She was not what you would call a really clean ship—as
the Skipper said, if you washed your hands one day they were
just as bad again the next—but anyone who makes a fuss
over a trifle like that is no true-born sailorman. We all loved
her and were proud of her speed, for she could make nine knots
at a push. Even the Second Engineer, who had been a fireman in
the Wilson line, was moved to admit in a moment of admiration
that she didn’t do so badly for a floating pig-trough, which
was no meagre praise from a man with such a past.

She was a touchy ship, quick to resent and avenge a slight
on her good name. We had a strange Lieutenant one trip who came
from a depot ship at Southampton and wore a monocle. He was
rather sore at having to exchange a responsible harbour billet
for the command of a mere sea-going trawler, and expressed the
opinion that there might be more disgustingly dirty ships
afloat than ours, but if so they were not allowed out during
official daylight; We felt her quiver from stem to stern with
rage. She took her revenge that evening as the Lieutenant was
coming aft for tea. It was a floppy sea and he unwisely
ventured along the windward side of the casing, and she seized
her opportunity. The Mate picked him up out of the scuppers and
we dried his clothes over the boilers, but the monocle was
never seen again. The crew were not so sympathetic as they
might have been; they felt that he had asked for it.

But, though her personal beauty would not have been
unrivalled at a Cowes Regatta and her somewhat erratic motions
were not calculated to bring balm to the soul of an unseasoned
mariner, she was a faithful ship, and no one could ever
question her courage. At the sight of a hostile periscope she
used positively to see red, and she once steamed across a
mine-field without turning a hatch-cover. Throughout her naval
career she was a credit to the White Ensign and bravely upheld
the proud traditions of her ancestors.

She is to be handed back to her owners and will presumably
return to the more peaceful occupation of deep-sea fishing. It
will be strange to think of her still labouring away out there
on the Nor’-East Rough whilst we who have shared her trials so
long are following once more the less arduous ways of the land.
If she prove as eager in the pursuit of her undersea quarry as
she was on the trail of the U-Boat I would not change places
with the cod and haddocks of the North Sea for the prize-money
of an Admiral. Good luck to her!

“ fully qualified, wishes to
obtain appointment, with Flying School or Aircraft
Firm.”—Technical Paper.

Judging by his advertisement he is an expert in looping.

“Station Officer R.D. Coleman, who has been for ten
years in charge of the Lewisham station of the Metropolitan
Fire Brigade (in which he has served 282 years), retired on
Tuesday last. Sub-officer Seadden was recently the medium
of presenting to him a marble-cased timepiece and ornaments
from the officers and men of the brigade.”—Local
Paper.

But what use will the clock be to a man for whom time
obviously stands still?

THE DAWN OF INTELLIGENCE IN BERLIN.

FIRST TEUTON. “AFTER ALL IT SEEMS THAT OUR
EVER-VICTORIOUS ARMY WAS BEATEN IN THE FIELD. ARE WE
DOWN-HEARTED?”

SECOND TEUTON. “JA!”

THE MUD LARKS.

Only a few months ago our William and his trusty troop
swooped upon a couple of Bosch field batteries floundering in a
soft patch on the far side of Tournai. William afflicted their
gun teams with his little Hotchkiss gadget, then prepared to
gallop them. He had unshipped his knife and was offering his
sergeant long odds on scoring first “pink,” when our two
squadron trumpeters trotted out from a near-by coppice and
solemnly puffed “Cease Fire”—for all the world as if it
was the end of a field-day on the Plain and time to trot home
to tea. William was furious.

“There y’are,” he snorted. “Just because I happened to have
a full troop out for once, all my horses fit, no wire or
trenches in the way, the burst of the season ahead and the only
chance I’ve had in four and a-half years of doing a really
artistic bit of carving they must go and stop the ruddy War.
Poo! ain’t that the bally Army all over? Bah! I’ve done with
it.”

So he filled in the bare patches in every Demobilisation
Form Z 15 he could lay pen to.

Taking the proud motto of the MOND dynasty—”Make
yourself necessary”—for guide, he became something
different every day in his quest after an “Essential Trade.” He
was in turn a one-man-business, a railway-porter, a coal-miner,
a farmer, a NORTHCLIFFE leader-writer, a taxi-baron, a
jazz-professor and a non-union barber. At one moment he was
single, an orphan alone and unloved; at another he had a
drunken wife, ten consumptive young children and several
paralytic old parents to support. All to no avail; nobody would
believe him.

Then one day he heard from a friend who by the simple
expedient of posing as a schoolmaster for a few minutes was now
in “civvies” and getting three days’ hunting and four days’
golf a week.

William grabbed up yet another A.F. Z 15, and dedicated his
life to the intellectual uplift of the young.

This time he drew a reply and by return.

Corps H.Q. held the view that he, William, was the very
fellow they had been looking for, longing for, praying for.
They had him appointed Regimental Educational Officer (without
increase of rank, pay or allowances) on the spot, and would he
get on with it, please, and indent through them for any
materials required in the furtherance of the good work?

William was furious. Confound the Staff! What did the
blighted red-tape-worms take him for? A blithering pedagogue in
cap, gown and horn spectacles? He kicked the only sound chair
in the Mess to splinters, cursed for two hours and sulked for
twenty-four. After which childish display he pulled himself
together and indented on Corps Educational Branch for four
hundred treatises on elementary Arabic, Arabic being the sole
respectable subject in which he was even remotely competent to
instruct.

Corps H.Q. tore up his indent. It was absurd, they said, to
suppose that the entire regiment intended emigrating to Arabia
on demobilisation. William must get in touch with the men and
find out what practical everyday trades they were anxious to
take up.

William was furious. “Isn’t that the rotten Staff all over?”
he fumed. “Make an earnest and conscientious effort to give the
poor soldiers a leg-up with a vital, throbbing, commercial and
classical patois and the brass-bound perishers choke you
off! Poo-bah! Na poo!”

Then he pulled himself together again and indented on Corps
Educational Branch once more, this time for “Lions; menagerie;
one.” Corps came down on William like St. Paul’s Cathedral
falling down Ludgate Hill. What the thunder did he mean by it?
Trying to be funny with them, was he? He must explain himself
instantly—Grrrr!

William was very calm. Couldn’t understand what all this
unseemly, uproar was about, he wrote. Everything was in order.
Obeying their esteemed instructions to the letter he had made
inquiries among the men as to what practical everyday trades
they were wishful to learn, and, finding one stout fellow who
was very anxious to enter public life as a lion-tamer, he had
indented for a lion for the chap to practise on. What could be
more natural? Furthermore, while on the subject, when they
forwarded the lion, would they be so good as to include a
muzzle in the parcel, as he thought it would be as well to have
some check on the creature during the preliminary lessons.

Corps H.Q.’s reply to this was brief and witty. They
instructed the Adjutant to cast William under arrest.

William was furious. PATLANDER.

From a speech at a St. Andrew’s Day dinner:—

“The Navy have but recently had a partial reward in the
unparralleled spectacle of the surrender of the bulk of the
German fleet which run lies swigly in Scotish waters, which
now lies snugly, as is meet and fittinf, in Scottish for
ever. Loud cheers.”—South American Paper.

It is inferred that the printer was at the dinner.

PRINCESS CHARMING.

Once upon a time there was a Royal christening.

It was a very grand christening and the highest in the land
were among the assembled guests. There was more than one Royal
Personage present, and many lords and ladies and ambassadors
and plenipotentiaries and all manner of dignified and imposing
people.

For it was a real Princess that was being christened, which
is a thing that does not occur every day in the year.

Quite a number of fairies were there too. Fairies are very
fond of christenings, and there are always a good many of them
about on these occasions.

They were very lavish in their gifts.

One gave the baby beauty; another gave her a sweet and
gentle disposition; another, charm of manner; a fourth, a quick
and intelligent mind. She really was a very fortunate baby, so
many and so varied were the gifts bestowed upon her by the
fairy folk.

Last of all came the Fairy Queen.

She arrived late, having come on from a coster’s wedding in
the East End of London, a good many miles away.

She was rather breathless and her crown was a little on one
side, indeed her whole appearance was a trifle dishevelled.

“Oh, my dear,” she murmured to her chief lady-in-waiting as
she bustled lightly up the aisle, “I’ve had such a time. It was
a charming wedding. The tinned-salmon was delicious, and there
were winkles—and gin. I only just tasted the gin, of
course, for luck, you know, but really it was very good. I had
no idea—And there was a real barrel-organ, and we danced
in the street. The bride had the most lovely ostrich feathers.
The bridegroom was a perfect dear. I kissed him: I kissed
everyone, I think. We all did … Now what about this baby?”
For by this time they had reached that part of the church where
the ceremony was taking place. “I suppose you’ve already given
her most of the nice things?”

The lady-in-waiting rapidly enumerated the fairy-gifts which
the fairies had bestowed upon the child.

The Queen looked at the baby.

“What a darling!” she said; “I must give her something very
nice.” She hovered a moment over the child’s head, “She shall
marry the man of her choice,” she said, “and live happily ever
after.”

There was a little stir among the fairies. The
lady-in-waiting laid her hand on the Queen’s arm.

“I’m afraid Your Majesty has
[pg 157] forgotten,” she said; “this
is a Royal Baby.”

“Well,” said the Queen, “what of that?”

“You know we rather make it a rule not to interfere in these
matters in the case of Royalty,” said the lady-in-waiting. “We
generally leave it to the family. You see they usually prefer
to make their own arrangements. There are reasons. We can give
a great deal, but we can’t do everything. Besides, it
would hardly be fair. They have so many advantages—”

The Fairy Queen looked round at all the people who were
assembled in the church; she had indeed forgotten for the
moment what a very important occasion this was. Then she looked
at the baby.

“I don’t care,” she said, “I don’t care. She’s a darling,
and she shall marry the man of her heart. I’m sure it
will be someone nice. You’ll see, it’ll be all right.”

She kissed the baby’s forehead, and the little Princess
opened wide her blue eyes and smiled. Several people; noticed
it.

“Did you see the baby smile at the Bishop?” they said to one
another afterwards. But then, you see, nobody but the baby
could see the Fairy Queen.

The other fairies were still a little perturbed. They shook
their heads doubtfully and whispered to one another as they
floated out of the church. It wasn’t done.

“If only she had made it a King’s son,” the chief
lady-in-waiting muttered to herself. “That would have made it
so much better. But ‘the man of her choice’—so very
vague.”

The Fairy Queen, however, was quite happy. She laughed at
the solemn faces of her retinue.

“You’ll see,” she repeated, “it will be quite all right.”
And she flew gaily off to Fairyland.

This isn’t a fairy story at all. That’s the nicest part
about it. It all really happened. And the real name of the
Princess—Oh, but I needn’t tell you that.
Everybody knows who Princess Charming is. R.F.

Lieut. X. (in Paris for the
Peace Conference). “VOUS FEREZ LE POLISSON AVEC UN
PEU DE LINGERIE.”

Letter received at a Demobilisation office:—

“I have Certified that I Pte. —— as got
Urgent on the LNWR Curzan St goods as also taken a Weeks
Notice from Feburary 2nd to 9th to Leave Colours on His
Magesties forces and allso beg to Resign. Signed Pte.
——.”

Private —— was evidently taking no chances.

THE 1930 FLYING SCANDAL.

To the Editor of “The Wireless News.” 1st June,
1930.

Dear Sir,—I wish to protest through your columns
against the outrageous behaviour of the drivers of public air
conveyances on the Brighton Front.

Yesterday I and other passengers boarded a ramshackle
aero-à-banc (the floor of which was covered with musty
straw) with the intention of having a “joy-trip” to
Rottingdean. The fare was two shillings and sixpence. We had
not mounted five hundred feet into the air before the driver
yelled to us, “Nah then, another ‘arf-a-chrahn all rahnd or
I’ll loop the loop.” We were forced to comply with the demand
of this highwayman of the atmospheric thoroughfares; but on
alighting I took the first opportunity of giving his number to
a policeman.

One sighs for the old-fashioned courtesy of the taxi-cab
driver of another decade.

Yours, etc., CONSTANT READER.

Commercial Altruism.

“Why not give your jaded palate a new pleasure?
‘Impossible!’ you say. This is so, if you smoke Our
Tobacco, otherwise not nearly so impossible as you
think.”—Port Elizabeth Paper.

Farmer (contemplating new
hand). “WELL, AT ALL EVENTS HE DON’T SEEM TO BE
INFECTED WITH THIS HERE LABOUR UNREST.”

THE ARK.

[The Dean of LINCOLN is reported to have informed the
Lower House of Convocation that he “simply did not believe”
in the Biblical episode of the Ark.]

MUSICAL GOSSIP FROM THE GERMAN FRONT.

“For the last twenty years,” writes M. JEAN-AUBRY, a
distinguished French musical critic, “the temple of German
music has been no longer at Bonn, or Weimar, or Munich, or
Bayreuth, but at Essen. The modern German orchestra, with
Strauss and Mahler, was concerned more with the preoccupations
of artillery and the siege-train than with those of real music.
It desired to become a rival of Krupp.”

These remarks are borne out in a remarkable way by the
latest news of STRAUSS. It has always been very difficult to
obtain precise intelligence about his works, owing to his
notorious aversion from publicity, and we accordingly give this
information with all reserve, simply for what it is worth. It
is to the effect that, while retaining the parts for three
Minenwerfen in his new Battle Symphony, he has been obliged to
re-score one movement in which four “Big Berthas” were
prominently engaged, owing to the impossibility of securing any
of these instruments since the Armistice. He has, however, with
admirable resource substituted parts for four influenza
microbes. There are no French horns in the score, but by way of
showing a conciliatory spirit to the British army of occupation
he has introduced in the Finale an adaptation of a
well-known patriotic song, which is marked on the margin,
“Die W.A.A.C. am Rhein.”

“High Life Below Stairs.”

“Tablemaid (upper), elderly Countess; Scotland, England;
good wage.”—Scotsman.

“ANGLING.

“LOCH TAY.—KILLIN.—Mr. C.B. ——,
London, had on Beans and pease quiet and unchanged. Feeding
offals 17th one salmon, 27 lb.”—Scotsman.

But are these lures quite sportsmanlike?

From a “table of contents”:—

Agreed; or, as they say in the House of Lords, “the Contents
have it.”

KISMET.

Those old comrades, Sergeant Kippy and Gunner Toady, stood
on the steps of the Convalescent Home and regarded the peaceful
country-side which, in South Devon, is a sedative even in
February.

Gunner Toady had come over for the day, and Kippy, as an
inhabitant of the Home, had been exercising his prerogative of
showing a guest over the estate. During the great advance which
proved to be the expiring effort of the Hun, the Gunner had
acquired a shortened leg, which still caused him to revolt
against sustained physical exertion.

He leant upon his stick and listened while Kippy the
indefatigable drew up a programme of a further tour to some
outlying buildings.

“And you ‘aven’t seen the melin-‘ouse,” concluded that
worthy, enthusiastically waving his remaining arm in the
direction of a far shrubbery.

“Melin-‘ouses in Febuary is lugoobrious,” said the Gunner;
“we’ll remain at the chatoo.”

Kippy sat down on the top step.

“Curious,” he said, “to think there ain’t no war on. Makes
you feel idle. Remember that day at Coolomeers (Coulommiers),
when we first got interdooced?” The Gunner nodded. “‘Bout a
thousand years ago that was, an’ not ‘alf a beano—’orse,
foot and guns; no stinks, no blinkin’ fireworks and old VON
KLUCK gettin’ ‘ome pronto.”

“Yes,” his companion said slowly, as he lowered himself to
sit beside Kippy, “that was September ’14. I took my first
knockout there, an’ then clicked with you again in Southmead
‘Ospital at Bristol.”

“An’,” Kippy took up the tale, “we come together agen at the
end o’ ’15 in the old salient at Wipers, an’ in ’16 we was
foregathered on the Somme. That’s where I got my first dose of
Fritz’s gas. Put me in Blighty three months, that did; an’ I
won the ten-stone clock-golf putting championship of
‘Ereford.”

“Yes,” said the Gunner ruminatively, “we’ve had to handle
all sorts in this show; wy, I’ve played a game called Badminton
with a real princess a-jumpin’ about t’other side of the net.
O’ course it ain’t discipline.”

“Well,” said Kippy, “I got two years’ service before the
War. That makes six an’ a bit; and next month I shall ‘ave my
Mark 1919 patent arm complete with all the latest developments
and get into civvies. Then what-o for a job o’
paper-‘anging.”

Gunner Toady gave a slight start, but at once passed into a
state of deep reflection. After a protracted pause he delivered
his mature judgment. “‘Course,” he said slowly, “I believe in
wot them Mahomets call Kismet. No gettin’ away from
it—”

“Oo’s Kismet?” interrupted Kippy.

“It’s me and you gettin’ mixed up so intimate over ‘arf o’
France and the ‘ole o’ Flanders. Like two needles in a blinkin’
‘aystack clickin’ every time—an’ ‘taint as if the Gunners
dossed down reglar with the Line either. An’ now you talks
about paper-‘anging.”

Gunner Toady paused impressively and continued, “Now you’d
‘ardly believe it, but before I joined the reg’ment in ’09 I
was a master-plasterer workin’ in Fulham.”

“Lumme!” exclaimed Kippy, “wy, I was at Putney then, and I
only ‘eard the other day that there’s a nice little
apray-lar-gur connection to be worked up at Walham
Green. ‘Ow about callin’ ourselves ‘Messrs. Toady and Kippy,
Decorators’?'”

“That’s what it means,” said the senior partner. “It’s
Kismet right enough, and there ain’t no gettin’ away from
it.”

“And we might add,” said Kippy, with a touch of
inspiration—”we might add, ‘Late Contractors to His
Majesty’s Goverment.'”

“HOW WAS IT YOU NEVER LET YOUR MOTHER KNOW YOU’D WON THE
V.C.?”

“IT WASNA MA TURRN TAE WRITE.”

“Wanted, by middle-aged Lady, position of trust,
Housekeeper, Companion, widower, lady,
priest.”—Irish Paper.

We suppose it is all right, but a hasty reader might well
take it for another sex problem.

THE TWO VISITS, 1888, 1919.

(“Dispersal Areas, 10a, 10b, 10c—Crystal
Palace.“)

COAL-DUST.

“Had a good day?” said Frederic cheerily, stamping the snow
off his boots as I met him at the front-door.

“That depends,” I said, “on what you call a good day.”

“You haven’t been dull?” said Frederic.

“Oh, no,” I said, indicating the comforting blaze as I
pushed Frederic’s chair to the fire; “behold the result of my
day’s labours in your behalf. Your hot bath and hot breakfast,
dear, were just camouflage to keep from you, the centre of
gravity, our desperate straits. When I went to give Cook her
orders this morning I found her as black as a sweep and in a
mood to correspond. She pointed to a few lumps of coal in the
kitchen scuttle and said, ‘I’ve sifted all that dust in the
cellar, Ma’am, and these are the only lumps I could find.
There’s only enough to cook one more dinner.'”

“My dear girl,” said Frederic, “why wait till there is no
coal before ordering more?”

“Hear me,” I cried. “A fortnight ago I ordered some. The man
asked, ‘Have you any coal?’ I said I had a little. He
said, ‘You are lucky to have any. Dozens of people have
no coal at all. I can promise nothing.’

“A week ago I went again. ‘Have you any coal?’ he
asked. ‘Still a very little,’ I said faintly. ‘Hundreds of
people,’ he said, ‘have no coal at all, I can promise you
nothing.’

“‘Well, after I had spent an hour this morning distributing
whiffy oil-lamps all over the house, I went again to the coal
merchant. He froze me with a look. ‘When can you send in my
coal?’ I tried to say it jauntily, but my teeth chattered.
‘Have you no coal?’ he said, and his frigid eye pierced
me. ‘O-o-only a little dust, which, has been at the bottom of
the cellar for two years—drawing-room coal dust,’ I added
eagerly, ‘which cannot be used on the kitchen fire.’ ‘You are
lucky,’ he said, ‘to have that. There are thousands of people
in this town with no coal at all. We can promise you
nothing.’

“I came home, and after luncheon, donning my Red Cross
uniform, I told Mary that if people called she could show them
into the coal-cellar, where I should be; and, armed with a
garden-fork, I proceeded thither and dug diligently for a whole
hour. I know now exactly why a hen clucks when she has laid an
egg. Every time I found a lump—and I found as many as
six—I simply had to call Cook and Mary to come and
see.”

“What fun!” murmured Frederic comfortably.

“I venture to suggest, dear, that the thing is beyond a
joke. When I next go to the coal-monger’s I shall say in reply
to the inevitable question, ‘A little coal-dust in the cellar
and a good deal on the chairs and tables and on my hands and
face;’ and I know he will say: ‘You are lucky to have even
that. There are millions in this town who, etc., etc.’ And so
the thing will go on until one day he asks, ‘Have you no fuel
at all?’ when I can hear myself replying, ‘Only two chairs and
one wardrobe,’ and he will reply icily, ‘You are lucky to have
that. Everybody else is dead because they had not even
that.’

“And Frederic,” I added abruptly, “as a coal-miner I demand
the minimum wage for my day—your hot bath to-morrow
morning.”

A MORNING IN THE HOME LIFE OF AN EMOTIONAL
ACTRESS.

“MY DEAR, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO THE LINKS TO-DAY?”

“OH, YES, AUNTIE. I SHALL TRY AND PUT IN A ROUND.”

“BUT IT’S POURING! WHY, I WOULDN’T SEND A DOG OUT
TO GOLF IN SUCH WEATHER.”

DEMOBILISATION.

THE SITUATION MADE CLEAR.

“It is quite clear,” said the Adjutant, “that Second-Lieut.
X must stay.”

“Of course,” said the G.O.C. Demobs, or, as he is more often
called, “Mobbles.” “He stays because he doesn’t go.”

“Yes,” said the Adjutant’s child full, like the elephant’s
child, of insatiable curiosity, “X stays because he is retained
for selection until he is selected for retention, or, to put it
more clearly, he belongs to a class which could go if it had
any reason for going and if it wanted to go and wasn’t retained
as eligible or wasn’t eligible for retention. In other words he
is in one of the two classes—those who are available to
go and those who are eligible to stay.”

“Or, conversely,” said Mobbles, “those who are available to
stay and those who are eligible to go.”

“Exactly,” said the Adjutant; “but which?”

“The other,” said the Adjutant’s child. “Now, if he was only
in the same boat as Y, the position would be different. Y is
here because, though eligible for release, he is available for
retention.”

“The problem appeared quite simple at first,” said the
Adjutant, “but now you’ve made it all muddy.”

“It is simply this,” said Mobbles; “is he eligible for
retention or merely available for release? If the former, is he
available for demobilisation, and if the latter, is he eligible
for retention? No; what I mean is just this—Is he here or
is he—No; I’ll start again. Is he retained, and if not
why not?”

“Exactly,” said the Adjutant’s child. “Is he under’
thirty-seven, and if so why was he born in 1874, or, to put it
quite clearly—”

“Shut up,” said the Adjutant. “I want to get it clear before
you confuse me again. We’ll start afresh. X is eligible to go
because he joined the Army before 1916. On the other hand,
being under thirty-seven, he must stay.”

“That must, I think, be wrong,” said Mobbles.

“Quite,” said the Adjutant’s child.

“Well, then, put it in another way,” said the Adjutant. “X
can’t be demobilised because there is no reason for his going,
and he can’t stay because there is no authority for retaining
him. In other words, to put it quite clearly, as he is being
retained he can’t go, and as he is being demobilised he isn’t
to be retained. Do I make myself clear?”

“Quite,” said the Adjutant’s child.

Mobbles was beyond speech and busily engaged in working it
out on paper in decimals.

There was, a knock at the door; a signaller brought a wire,
“Report immediately position of Second-Lieut. X.”

There was a moment’s silence as the Adjutant grasped a
message-pad and thought deeply what to say. He wrote a few
lines and then looked up. “This is what I have said:
‘Second-Lieut. X staying if retained, but available to go if
eligible; also eligible for retention if available.’ Am I
clear?”

“Quite,” said the Adjutant’s child.

ENGLAND EXPECTS.

[With Mr. Punch’s best hopes for the success of the
National Industrial Conference.]

BOTH LIONS
(together). “UNACCUSTOMED AS I AM TO LIE DOWN WITH
ANYTHING BUT A LAMB, STILL, FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD….”

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, February 17th.—On the motion for the
rejection of the Bill to relieve Ministers from the necessity
of re-election, Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING incidentally revealed the
horrifying fact that he has compiled another Black Book,
containing a full list of the PRIME MINISTER’S election
pledges. They do not quite come up to the notorious figure of
47,000; but they total 1,211, which seems enough to go on with,
and they are all “cross-referenced.”

More serious, from the Government’s point of view, was the
criticism of some of their regular supporters. Lord WINTERTON,
speaking as an old Member of the House—though he still
looks youthful enough to be its “baby,” as he was fifteen years
ago—affirmed the value of by-elections as a gauge for
public opinion; Major GRAEME, one of the new Coalitionists,
thought it would be a mistake to part with a means of testing
the record of a Ministry which the War has “swollen to the size
of a Sanhedrim.”

As the soft answers of the ATTORNEY-GENERAL—whom the
late Mr. ROOSEVELT would have probably termed
“pussy-footed”—failed to quell the rising storm, the
LEADER OF THE HOUSE bowed before it and offered to agree to the
insertion in the Bill of a time-limit.

Portrait of Winston by MR. MOSELY, a
promising young artist.

Something had evidently annoyed Mr. DEVLIN. Whether it was
the intimation that the new Housing Bill was not to apply to
Ireland (which has had similar legislation for years past), or
that in future the out-of-work donation in that country would
be confined to persons possessing more or less right to it, or
(most probably) that an interfering Saxon had announced his
intention of moving a “Call of the House” in order to get the
recalcitrant Sinn Feiners to take up their Parliamentary
duties, I do not know. At any rate the Nationalist seized the
opportunity of delivering a general attack upon the Government
of such overwhelming irrelevance that Mr. WHITLEY, the least
sarcastic of men, was driven to remark, “I think the honourable
Member is under the impression that this is last week.”

GOVERNMENT PROMISES.

MR. PEMBERTON BILLING
compiles another Black Book.

I trust that Mr. CHURCHILL, who is conducting the business
of the War Office in Paris, will not read the Official Report
of the debate on the Aerial Navigation Bill. For I am sure it
would be as great a shock to him as it was to me to learn that
Mr. MOSLEY (ætat twenty-two) considered him, in
aviation affairs, as lacking in imagination. The idea of anyone
regarding our WINSTON as a doddering old fossil!

Tuesday, February 18th.—As is usual at this
period of the Session the Lords find themselves with nothing to
do, and being ineligible for the out-of-work donation they
naturally grumble. Foreman CURZON endeavoured to pacify them
with the promise of one or two little jobs in the near future;
and Lord BUCKMASTER kindly furnished them with something to go
on with by raising the topic of industrial unrest in a speech
composed in about equal measure of admirable platitudes and
highly disputable propositions. Its principal merit was to
furnish the new LORD CHANCELLOR with an occasion for delivering
his maiden speech. This he did with proper solemnity, though
once he slipped into his after-dinner style and addressed his
august audience as “My Lords and Gentlemen.” His nearest
approach to an epigram was the remark that “the nation had been
living on its capital and liking it.” On the whole he took a
hopeful view of the situation—more so than Lord
LANSDOWNE, who expressed “the profoundest dismay” at our
increasing indebtedness. Fortunately His Lordship’s gloomy
prophecies have not invariably proved correct.

“JUMPING” A MEMBER’S CLAIM.

After Question-time in the Commons Mr. BOTTOMLEY made bitter
complaint to the SPEAKER that he had been evicted from his
favourite corner-seat by the Member for South-East St. Pancras.
Mr. LOWTHER administered chilly consolation. Those little
contretemps were apt to occur at the beginning of every
new Parliament; and he was not going to lay down a
hard-and-fast rule on the subject before it was necessary.

Old Parliamentarians will remember the long-continued
struggle between Mr. GIBSON BOWLES and a colleague who was
always endeavouring to insert “the thick end of the GEDGE” into
“Tommy’s” favourite seat. Mr. HOPKINS is the Member who has
jumped Mr. BOTTOMLEY’S claim on the present occasion—a
fact which will recall THEODORE HOOK’S remark that the game of
leap-frog always reminded him of those famous psalmodists,
STERNHOLD and HOPKINS.

Wednesday, February 19th.—According
[pg 166] to Lord STRATHSPEY there
are thousands of men in the Army longing to take Orders in
the Church Militant, but there are no funds available for
training them, and no prospect of a living wage for them if
ordained. The LORD CHANCELLOR’S sympathetic references to
the painful plight of men whose duty it was to preach
content here and hereafter will no doubt be reflected in the
administration of his not inconsiderable patronage.
Fortunately or unfortunately the clergy cannot or will not
“down surplices” to improve their condition.

The unrest in other sections of the working-classes was
further examined from various angles. Lord RIBBLESDALE would
like them to take a greater share in the profits, and also in
the “responsibilities and vicissitudes” of industry. But this
suggestion will hardly appeal to them if, as Lord LEVERHULME
declared, Labour would have made a poor bargain if it had
swapped its increased wages for all the excess profits made
during the War. Lord HALDANE’S view, as perhaps you would
expect, was that neither Capital nor Labour, but the “organised
mind,” was the principal agent in producing wealth. Altogether
it was an informing debate, which the Government might do worse
than reproduce in pamphlet form for the instruction of the
public.

On the news of the attack on M. CLEMENCEAU reaching the
Commons there was a general desire that the House should pass a
resolution of sympathy. But Mr. BONAR LAW deprecated the
proposal as being, in his opinion, “against all
precedent”—not a little to the surprise of some of the
new Members, who thought that in a case like this the
conseil du précédent might bow to the
President du Conseil.

In the procedure debate a strong demand was made that a full
official report of the speeches delivered in the six Grand
Committees should be issued. But the ATTORNEY-GENERAL pointed
out that everything was already reported “except the talk,” and
found a powerful supporter in Sir EDWARD CARSON, who believed
that no official reports would have any effect in keeping
Ministers to their pledges. Hansard is as Hansard
does, is his motto.

Thursday, Feb. 20th.—Every question put down
costs the tax-payer, it is calculated, a guinea. This afternoon
there were no fewer than two hundred and eighty-two of them on
the Order-Paper. It would be interesting to see what effect
upon this cascade of curiosity would be produced if every
Member putting down a question were obliged to contribute, say,
ten shillings to the cost of answering it; the amount to be
deducted from his official salary. If such a rule had been
enforced in the last Parliament Mr. JOSEPH KINO, for one, would
have had no salary to draw.

The shortage of whisky and brandy for medicinal purposes was
the subject of many indignant questions. Mr. MCCURDY, for the
FOOD-CONTROLLER, stated that it had been found impracticable to
allot supplies of spirits for this purpose, but, perhaps
wisely, did not give any reasons. Can it be that the
Government, contemplating the extension of the “all-dry”
principle to this country, are anxious to give no encouragement
to the “drug-store habit”?

THE LIMIT.

(The Jazz is reported to have about seventy different
steps.)

“THE LEXICOGRAPHER’S EASY CHAIR.

“In this column, to decide questions concerning the
current use of words, ——’s Dictionary is
consulted as arbiter.

“‘N.H.R.,’ Starkville, Miss.—’What is the meaning
of the word Eothen, and what is its derivation?’

“Eöthen is Greek for ‘it is used’ or
‘accustomed,’ and is the title of a celebrated work by
Alexander Kinglake.”—American Magazine.

We fear that the lexicographer found his easy chair so easy
that he did not take the trouble to get out of it to consult
the dictionary.

THE MIDGET.

As a result of the competition in cheap miniature two-seater
cars we anticipate several interesting developments and take
the liberty of extracting the following items from the
newspapers of the future:—

FOR SALE.—Small two-seater car, fit gentleman five
feet eleven inches in height. Forty-two inches round the chest.
Only been worn a few times.

Why pay a thousand pounds for a large car when you can get
the same result with one of our hundred-pound Midget Cars? Our
Midgets are trained to make a noise like a six-seater touring
car. We undertake that you shall get the Park Lane feeling at
suburban rates. Write for a free sample, enclosing six penny
stamps for postage.

One great attraction in the Midget Car is that you need not
use a rug to throw over its bonnet in cold weather. A tea-cosy
will do.

WHAT OFFERS?—Advertiser, breaking up his collection,
will sell his stud of tame mice, two goldfish and several
obsolete silkworms, or would exchange for two-seater Midget
with spanner.

DEAR SIR.—I have a small two-seater car. It is quite a
young one. At what age can I start feeding it on greenstuff?
SMITH, MINOR.

PERSONAL.—Will the individual who was driving a Midget
Car which ran over old gentleman in the Strand be good enough
to come forward and pay for the watch-glass which he
cracked?

BE ECONOMICAL.—Our Midgets only smell the petrol. It
costs no more to run a Midget than it does to run an automatic
pipe-lighter.

To the Midget Motor Car Company.

GENTLEMEN,—With reference to the Midget Car you
measured me for recently, I ought to have mentioned that I
wanted patch pockets on the outside, in which to carry the
tools. Yours, etc.

FOR SALE.—Owner whose two-seater car is a trifle tight
under the arms wishes to dispose of his pair of white
spats.

“Prince Eitel Fritz has been telling the Germans that
his father, the ex-Kaiser, is now ‘legally’ dead. We must
get rid of that adjective without delay.”—John
Bull.

“If you see it in John Bull …” Grammarians please
note.

“CHRIST CHURCH, ——.—Wanted at once,
for definitely Protestant Evangelical Church, light-minded
colleague to share ministry.”—Record.

A chance for our demobilised humorists.

THE TRAFFIC PROBLEM.

TEACHING THE YOUNG IDEA HOW TO
TUBE.

THE MILKY MOLAR.

[“Last week one of my back teeth dropped out in the
middle Greek.”—Schoolboy’s letter.]

Punch’s Roll of Honour.

CAPTAIN A.W. LLOYD, 25th Royal Fusiliers, has been awarded
the Military Cross for Distinguished Service in the East
African Campaign. Before the War, for which he volunteered at
once, joining the Public Schools Battalion, Captain LLOYD
illustrated the Essence of Parliament in these pages. Mr. Punch
offers him his most sincere congratulations upon the high
distinction he has won, and is delighted to know that he is
completely recovered from the severe head-wound which he
received last year.

Mother (to little girl who had been sent to
the hen-house for eggs). “WELL, DEAR, WERE THERE NO
EGGS?”

Little Girl. “NO, MUMMIE, ONLY THE ONE THE HENS
USE FOR A PATTERN.”

THE BEAUTIFUL WORDS.

I have to tell an unvarnished tale of real and recent life
in London. When the absence of impulsive benevolence and public
virtue is so often insisted upon it is my duty to put the
following facts on record.

It was, as it now always is, a wet day. The humidity not
only descended from a pitiless sky, but ascended from the cruel
pavements which cover the stony heart of that inexorable
stepmother, London. Need I say that under these conditions no
cabs were obtainable? In other words it was one of those days,
so common of late, when other people engage the cabs first.
They were plentiful enough, full. One could have been run over
and killed by them twenty times between Trafalgar Square and
Piccadilly Circus, but all teemed with selfish life. Men of
ferocious concentration and women detestable in their
purposefulness were to be seen through the passing windows. It
was a day on which no one ever got out of a cab at all, except
to tell it to wait. No flag was ever up. Since the blessing of
peace began to be ours these days have been the rule.

Not only were the cabs all taken and reserved till
to-morrow, but the ‘buses were overcrowded too. A line of
swaying men, steaming from the deluge, intervened in every ‘bus
between two rows of seated women, also steaming. It was a day
on which the conductors and conductresses were always ringing
the bell three times.

There was also (for we are very thorough in England) a
strike on the Tube and the Underground.

Having to get to Harley Street, I walked up Regent Street,
doing my best to shelter beneath an umbrella, and (being a
believer in miracles) turning my head back at every other step
in the hope that a cab with its flag up might suddenly
materialise; but hoping against hope. It was miserable, it was
depressing, and it was really rather shameful: by the year 1919
A.D. (I thought) more should have been achieved by boastful
mankind in the direction of weather control.

And then the strange thing happened which it is my purpose
and pride to relate. A taxi drew up beside me and I was hailed
by its occupant. In a novel the hailing voice would be that of
a lady or a Caliph incog., and it would lure me to
adventure or romance. But this was desperately real damp
beastly normal life, and the speaker was merely a man like
myself.

“Hullo!” he said, calling me by name, and following the
salutation by the most grateful and comforting words that the
human tongue could at that moment utter.

Every one has seen the Confession Albums, where complacent
or polite visitors are asked to state what in their opinion is
the most beautiful this and that and the other, always
including “the most beautiful form of words.” Serious people
quote from DANTE or [pg 169] KEATS or SHAKSPEARE;
flippant persons write “Not guilty” or “Will you have it in
notes or cash?” or “This way to the exit.” Henceforth I
shall be in no doubt as to my own reply. I shall set down
the words used by this amazing god in the machine, this
prince among all princely bolts from the blue. “Hullo,” he
said, “let me give you a lift.”

I could have sobbed with joy as I entered the
cab—perhaps I did sob with joy—and heard him
telling the driver the number in Harley Street for which I was
bound.

That is the story—true and rare. How could I refrain
from telling it when impulsive benevolence and public virtue
are so rare? It was my duty.

MODERN INVENTION APPLIED TO THE
CLASSICS.

Damacles (under the hanging sword, to his
host). “DELIGHTFUL WEATHER WE’RE HAVING FOR THE TIME OF
YEAR—WHAT?”

BOOK-BOOMING.

(With grateful acknowledgments to the leading Masters of
this delectable art.)

Messrs. Puffington and Co. beg to announce the immediate
issue of Charity Blueblood, by Faith Redfern. Speaking
ex cathedra, with a full consciousness of their
responsibilities, they have no hesitation in pronouncing their
assured conviction that this novel will take its place above
all the classics of fiction.

Here is not only a Thing of Beauty, but a Joy for Ever,
wrought by elfin fingers, fashioned of gossamer threads at once
fine and prehensile. Yet so Gargantuan and Goliardic that the
reader holds his breath, lest the whole beatific caboodle
should vanish into thin air and leave him lamenting like a
Peri shut out from Paradise.

But this is more than a Paradise. It is a Pandemonium, a
Pantosocratic Pantechnicon and a Pantheon as well. For here,
within the narrow compass of 750 pages (price 7s.
11¾d.), we find all the glory that was Greece and
the grandeur that was Rome; the Olympian serenity of HOMER, the
pity and terror of ÆSCHYLUS, the poignancy of CATULLUS,
the saucy mirth of ARISTOPHANES, the sanity of SHAKSPEARE, the
macabre gruesomeness of BAUDELAIRE, the sardonic
rictus of HEINE and the geniality of TROLLOPE. All this
and much more.

Here, as we turn every page, we expect to meet
Rosalind and Jeanie Deans, Tom Jones and
Aramis, Mr. Micawber and Madame Bovary,
Eugenie Grandet and Colonel Newcome,
Casanova and Casablanca, Consuelo and
“CAGLIOSTRO,” and, if we do not meet them, we encounter new and
more radiant figures, compared with whom the others are as
water to wine.

Here, with its bliss and agony, its cacophony and
cachinnation, is Life, such as you and I know it, not life in
absolute déshabillé, but enveloped in the
iridescent upholstery of genius, sublimated by the wizardry of
a transcendental polyphony.

Here, soaring high above the cenotaph in which the roses and
rapture of our youth lie entombed in one red burial blent, we
see the shimmering strands of St. Martin’s Summer drawn athwart
the happenless days of Autumn, with the dewdrops of cosmic
unction sparkling in the rays of a sunshine never yet seen on
land or sea, but reflecting as in a magic mirror that far off
El Dorado, that land where Summer always is “i-cumen in,” for
which each and all of us feel a perpetual nostalgia.

Here, in fine, gentle reader, is a work of such colossal
force that to render justice to its abysmal greatness we have
ransacked the vocabulary of superlative laudation in vain.
SWINBURNE, compared to the needs of the situation, is as a
shape of quivering jelly alongside of the Rock of Gibraltar.
And here, O captious critic, is a Wonderwork which not only
disarms but staggers, paralyses and annihilates all
possibilities of animadversion, unless you wish to share the
fate of Marsyas, by pitting your puny strength against the
overwhelming panoply of divine and immortal genius.

“A bricklayer’s labourer was remanded yesterday on a
charge of stealing, as bailee, two matches, value £3,
the property of the Vicar of
——.”—Provincial Paper.

We fear there has been bad profiteering somewhere; even in
London they have not touched that price.

“Howells’ new violin conato (E flat), which followed, is
sincere music … whatever there is it is possible to
bear.”—Times.

The fololwing of a conata, like the bombination of a
chimæra, apparently puts some strain upon the attention
of an audience.

LE FRANÇAIS TEL QUE L’ON LE PARLE.

It was on my journey to Paris that I ran across little Prior
in the train. He too was going, he said, on Peace Conference
work. His is a communicative disposition and before we had
fairly started on our journey he had unfolded his plans. He
said the Conference was bound to last a long time, and as a
resident in a foreign country he had a splendid opportunity to
learn the language. He meant, he said, to get to know it
thoroughly later on. He then produced his French Pronouncing
Handbook.

I thought I knew French pretty well until I saw that book.
It gave Prior expressions to use in the most casual
conversation that I have never heard of in my life. It had a
wonderful choice of words. Only an experienced philologist
could have told you their exact origin.

The handbook had foreseen every situation likely to arise
abroad; and I think it overrated one’s ordinary experiences. I
have known people who have resided in France for years and
never once had occasion to ask a billiard-marker if he would
“Envoyer-nous des crachoirs.” Most people can rub along
on a holiday quite cheerfully without a spittoon; but then the
handbook never meant you to be deprived of home comforts for
the want of asking.

Nor did it intend, with all its oily phraseology, that you
should be imposed on. There is a scene in a “print-shop” over
the authenticity of an engraving which gets to an exceedingly
painful climax.

A good deal of reliance is placed on the innate courtesy of
the French. For it appears that, after an entire morning spent
at the stationer’s, when the shop-keeper has discussed every
article he has for sale, you wind up by saying, “Je prendrai
une petite bouteille d’encre noire,” and all that
long-suffering man retorts is, “J’voo zangvairay ler
pah-kay,” which is not nearly so bolshevistic as it
looks.

Prior said he was going to start to speak French directly he
got on board the steamer—he had learnt that part off by
heart already. The first remark he must make was, “Send the
Captain to me at once.” There is no indication of riot or
uproar at this. Evidently the Captain is brought without the
slightest difficulty, for in the very next line we find Prior
saying, “Êtes-vous le Capitaine?” and he goes on
to inquire about his berth.

The Captain tells him everything there is to know about
berths and then apparently offers to take down his luggage, for
Prior is commanding, “Take care of my carpet-bag, if you
please.”

They then begin to discuss the weather. “In what quarter is
the wind?” asks the indefatigable Prior.

“The wind,” says the Captain, “is in the north, in the
south, in the east, in the south-west. It will be a rough
passage. It will be very calm.”

Prior does not seem to observe that the Captain appears to
be hedging. This wealth of information even pleases him, and
then quite abruptly he demands, “Donnez-moi une
couverture,” because, as he goes on to explain, he “feels
very sick.” This gives the “Capitaine” an opportunity to
escape. He says, “I will send the munitionnaire.”

Undoubtedly that Captain has a sense of the ridiculous. I
like the man. Anyone who could, on the spur of the moment,
describe the steward as the munitionnaire deserves to rank as
one of the world’s humourists. But Prior is apparently in no
condition to see a joke. He says he will have the munitionnaire
instantly bringing in his hand “un verre d’eau de
vie.“

I was really sorry that in the bustle of embarking I lost
sight of Prior and therefore could not witness the meeting
between him and the Captain. It would have made me happy for
the whole day.

The crossing was prolonged, for we took a zig-zag course to
avoid any little remembrances Fritz might have left us in the
form of mines. When we were nearing land I saw Prior again. He
was stretched out on a deck-chair and looked up with a ghastly
smile as he caught sight of me.

“Hullo, you’re alone!” I said rather cruelly. “Is this the
stage where the Captain goes to find the munitionnaire?”

Then he spoke, but it was not in the words of the
phrase-book. It was in clear, concise, unmistakable
English.

“Can you tell me,” he asked, and behind his words lay a
suggestion of quiet force of despair, “about what hour of the
day or night this cursed boat is likely to get to Boolong?”

“Evens are moving rapidly in connection with the plan by
the Government, announced only yesterday, to call a
national industrial conference.”—Daily
Paper.

We are glad the odds are not against it.

Notice in a German shop-window (British zone):—

“Jon con have jour SAFETY RAZOR BLADES reset, throug
hare experient workman any System.”

The Germans seem to be getting over their dislike to British
steel.

COMMERCIAL COMFORT.

[“Mines are spottily good. Oils maintain a healthy
undertone.”—Stock Exchange Report.]

Extract from a recent story:—

“Noiselessly we crept from the tent. The sands, the sea,
the cliffs, were bathed in silver white by a glorious
tropical moon. Noiselessly we levelled it to the ground,
rolled it up, and carried it to the boat.”

And that night the Gothas were foiled.

“The subject of a war memorial was considered at a St.
Sidwell’s, Exeter, parish meeting. Many suggestions were
offered, among them one that the present seating in the
parish church should be replaced by plush-covered tip-up
seats, such as are in use at kinemas and other places of
entertainment.”—Western Morning News.

If the suggestion is adopted it is presumed that the name of
the church will be altered to St. Sitwell.

Father Murphy. “MIKE, COME HERE AND HOLD THE MULE
FOR A FEW MINUTES.”

Mike (not stirring). “IT’S SORRY I AM,
FATHER, BUT I DO BE DRAWIN’ THE OUT-OF-WORK MONEY, AND I
DARE NOT HOULD HER. BUT I’LL SAY ‘STAND’ TO HER FOR YOU,
FATHER, IF I SEE HER ANYWAYS UNAISY.”

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerics.)

In Forty Days in 1914 (CONSTABLE), Major-General Sir
F. MAURICE does more than revive our fading recollections of
the retreat from Mons and the marvellous recovery on the Marne.
A careful study of the German documents relating to VON KLUCK’S
dash for Paris has led the author to form a new theory to
account for the German defeat. Hitherto we have been asked to
believe that VON KLUCK’S fatal change of direction, just when
he seemed to have Paris at his mercy, was due to an urgent call
for assistance from the CROWN PRINCE. General MAURICE holds, on
the contrary, that it was deliberately adopted, at a moment
when the CROWN PRINCE’S army was undefeated, in the belief that
the French Fifth Army could be enveloped and destroyed, in
which event “the whole French line would be rolled up and Paris
entered after a victory such as history had never yet
recorded.” Thus, not for the first time, a too rigid adherence
to MOLTKE’S theory of envelopment proved disastrous to the
Germans’ chances of success. It had first caused them to invade
Belgium, and so brought Britain into the War at the very
outset; it had next caused VON KLUCK to continue his westward
sweep after Mons at a juncture when a vigorous pursuit by his
cavalry might have turned the British retreat into a rout; and
finally it caused him to execute the notoriously dangerous
manoeuvre of changing front before an unbeaten foe, and to give
JOFFRE the opportunity for which he had been patiently waiting.
The fact was that VON KLUCK did not think the British were
unbeaten. He could not conceive that men who had just endured
such a harassing experience as the seven days’ continuous
retreat could possibly be in a condition to turn and fight. Not
for the first or last time in the War German psychology was
woefully at fault. Whether General MAURICE’S theory is correct
or not, it is most attractively set forth, and, thanks to the
excellent; maps with which the volume is provided, can be
easily followed even by the non-military reader.

There was at first a little danger of my being put off
Fruit of Earth (METHUEN) by the uneasy manner of its
opening chapters and a style that it is permissible to call
distinctly “fruity.” Thus on page 5 J. MILLS WHITHAM is found
writing about “an astonishment that nearly smudged the last
spark of vitality from a hunger-bitten author,” and a good deal
more in the same style. But I am glad to say that the tale
subsequently pulls itself together, and, despite some
occasional high-falutin, becomes an interesting and human
affair. It is a story of country life, the main theme of which
is a twofold jealousy, that of the chronic invalid, Mrs.
Linsell, towards the girl Mary, whom she rightly
suspects of displacing her in the thoughts of Inglebury;
and that of Amos, who marries Mary, towards
Inglebury, whom [pg 172] he rightly suspects of
occupying too much room in the reflections of his wife. In
other words, the simple life at its most suspicious, with
the rude forefathers of the hamlet supplying a scandalous
chorus. The strongest part of the story is the tragedy,
suggested with a poignancy almost too vivid, of the wretched
elder woman, tortured in mind and body, morbidly aware of
the contrast between her own decay and the vitality of her
rival. As to Inglebury and Mary, the causes of
all the pother, they struck me as conspicuously unworth so
much fussing over; and, when their final flight together
landed them—well, where it did, I could only feel that
the neighbourhood was to be congratulated. But, as you see,
I had by this time become unwillingly interested. So there
you have it; an unequal book, about people unattractive but
alive.

When the literary Roll of Honour of all the belligerents
comes to be considered quietly, in the steady light of Peace,
not many names will stand higher in any country than that of
our English writer, HECTOR HUGH MUNRO, whose subtle and witty
satires, stories and fantasies were put forth under the
pseudonym “SAKI.” I have but to name The Chronicles of
Clovis for discriminating readers to know what their loss
was when MUNRO (who, although over age, had enlisted as a
private and refused a commission) fell fighting in the
Beaumont-Hamel action in November 1916. Mr. JOHN LANE has
brought out, under the title The Toys of Peace, a last
collection of “SAKI’S” fugitive works, with a sympathetic but
all too brief memoir by Mr. ROTHAY REYNOLDS. Although “SAKI” is
only occasionally at his very best in this volume—on the
grim side, in “The Interlopers,” and in his more familiar
irresponsible and high-spirited way in “A Bread-and-Butter
Miss” and “The Seven Cream Jugs;” although there may be no
masterpiece of fun or raillery to put beside, say,
“Esmé;” there is in every story a phrase or fancy marked
by his own inimitable felicity, audacity or humour. It is good
news that a complete uniform edition of his books is in
preparation.

I can’t help feeling that ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY’S chief
aim in Up the Hill and Over (HURST AND BLAOKETT) was to
write a convincing tract for the times on a subject which is
achieving unhappy prominence in America as in our own
police-courts. A worthy aim, I doubt not. One of the chief
characters is a drug-taker; and as if that were not enough
another is “out of her head,” while a third, Dr.
Callandar, the Montreal specialist, is in the throes of a
nervous breakdown. This seems to me to be distinctly overdoing
it. It is the doctor’s love-story (a story so complicated that
I cannot attempt a précis) which is the
designedly central but actually subordinate theme. I have the
absurd idea that this might really have begun life as a
pathological thesis and suffered conversion into a novel. The
author has no conscience in the matter of the employment of the
much-abused device of coincidence. And I don’t think the story
would cure anyone of drug-taking. On the contrary.

The Three Black Pennys (HEINEMANN) is a story that
began by perplexing and ended by making a complete conquest of
me. Its author, Mr. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER, is, I think, new to
this side of the Atlantic; the publishers tell me (and, to
prevent any natural misapprehension, I pass on the information
at once) that he belongs to “a Pennsylvania Dutch family,
settled for many generations in Philadelphia.” Which being so,
one can enjoy his work with a free conscience. It certainly
seems to me very unusual in quality. The theme of the tale is
the history of the Penny family, or rather of the
periodical outcrop in it of a certain strain that produces
Pennys dark of countenance and incalculable of conduct.
This recurrence is shown in three examples: the first,
Howart Penny, in the days when men wore powder and the
Penny forge had just been started in what was then a
British colony; the next, Jasper, involved in a murder
trial in the sixties; and; last of the black Pennys,
another Howart, in whom the family energy has thinned to
a dilettante appreciation of the arts, dying alone amongst his
collections. You can see from this outline that the book is
incidentally liable to confound the skipper, who may find
himself confronted with (apparently) the same character tying a
periwig on one page and hiring a taxi on another. I am mistaken
though if you will feel inclined to skip a single page of a
novel at once so original and well-told. As a detail of
criticism I had the feeling that the “blackness” of the
Penny exceptions would have shown up better had we seen
more of the family in its ordinary rule; but of the power
behind Mr. HERGESHEIMER’S work there can be no question. He is,
I am sure, an artist upon a quite unusual scale, from whom
great things may be anticipated.

If neither book of short stories before me is what Americans
call “the goods,” I can, at any rate, say that Ancient
Mariners (MILLS AND BOON) does infinite credit to Mr.
MORLEY ROBERTS’S imagination. These yarns of seafaring men are
salt with the savour of the sea and with the language thereof.
Of the seven my favourite is “Potter’s Plan,” which not only
contains the qualities to be found in the other half-dozen, but
also has an ingenuity all its own. But perhaps you will prefer
“A Bay Dog-Watch,” as coming home to the general bosom, for it
deals with a ferocious hunt after matches which recalls the
deadly days of the shortage. Of the five stories in Mr. WARWICK
DEEPING’S Countess Glika (CASSELL) the best is “Bitter
Silence.” Here the author deals with essentials, and gives us a
tale entirely free from artificiality. The remaining stories
are marred by their lack of naturalness; but Mr. DEEPING is
never at a loss for incident, and he can write dialogue which
is often gay and sometimes witty.

THE PASSING OF THE COUPON.

Our Grocer
(gone dotty with joy). “SHE LOVES ME—SHE LOVES
ME NOT—SHE LOVES ME!”