PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

VOL. 146.

March 11, 1914.

Curate (forte). “… to have-and-to-hold.”

Bridegroom (deaf). “Eh?“

Curate (fortissimo). “TO—HAVE—AND—TO—HOLD.”

Bridegroom. “To ‘ave and to ‘old.”

Curate. “FROM—THIS—DAY—FORWARD.”

Bridegroom. “Till this day fortnight!”

CHARIVARIA.

A contemporary describes one of
the deported Nine as the Brain of the
party. This is a distinction which just
eluded Mr. Bain.

The Admiralty has decided that, in
the place of the grand manœuvres this
year, there shall be a surprise mobilisation.
Last year’s manœuvres were, we
believe, something of a fiasco, but to
ensure the success of the surprise mobilisation
five months’ previous notice is
given.

“Every man,” says the Bishop of
London, “must be his own Columbus
and find the continent of truth.” This
is the first time that we had heard
America called the continent of truth,
and one wonders where the present
fashion of flattery is going to end.

We read that a Russian writer
named Lunatcharsky has been expelled
from Germany. Is it possible that he
is a relative of Mr. Max Beerbohm’s
friend Kolniyatchi?

At the Grand Military Meeting at
Sandown Park, two young millionaires
figured as amateur jockeys. We understand
now the meaning of the expression
“putting money on a horse.”

“Futurist frocks,” we are told, were
a feature of the Chelsea Arts Club ball.
Just as in these days “Fancy Dress”
often seems to mean that the dress is
left to the fancy, Futurist frocks, we
presume, are frocks that may appear
in the future.

An American journalist has been
pointing out how London lags behind
other great cities in the matter of shop-window
dressing. There would seem
to be no limit to our decadence. Even
our shop-windows are inadequately
clothed.

A meeting has been held at Kingston
to consider the possibility of providing
“some counter attraction” for the
young people who frequent the streets
on Sunday evenings. Seeing that most
of them are at the counter during the
week—you catch the idea?

“Monkey nuts are dangerous,” said
Dr. Round at an inquest last week.
Judging by the mild-looking specimens
one sees walking about in the streets
appearances are certainly deceptive.

A contemporary, by the way, propounds
the question: Why does the
“nut” always wear his headgear on
the back of his head? This custom is
certainly queer, for, if he really cared
about his personal appearance, he
would wear the hat over his face.

We regret to learn that an attempt
to teach a modern Office Boy manners
has failed. A friend of ours met his
Office Boy in the street, and the lad
merely nodded to him. To shame him
the Master raised his hat with mock
solemnity, at which the lad said,
“That’s all right, but you needn’t do
it.”

The fashion, which originated on the
Continent, of having the face and neck
painted with miniature works of art is
reported to be spreading to London.
And the practical Americans are said
to be considering a further development
in the form of advertisements on the
face by means of neat inscriptions, such
as “Complexion by Rouge et Cie,”
“Teeth by Max Gumberg,” and
“Dimples excavated by the American
Face Mining Co.”

“England,” says General Carranza,
“is the world’s bully.” The General
must please have patience with us, for
there are signs that we are improving.
In the same issue of the evening paper
which reported this dictum of his
the following announcement appeared
under the heading “Latest News“:—”There
were no bullion operations reported
at the Bank of England to-day.”

BYLES FOR THE BILL.

[In a letter addressed to The Times, headed “Pass the Bill and
Take the Consequences,” Sir William Byles makes the statement:—”I
for one will take the risk without hesitation.”]

THE END OF IT ALL.

It was the opening of the new Parliament of 1919 a.d.

They had got IT.

If you can’t guess what they had got you must be obtuse.

The great procession of Women M.P.’s formed in Trafalgar
Square. Behind them were the ruins of the National
Gallery (the work of the immortal Miss Podgers, B.Sc.);
before them were the fragments of the Nelson Column
(Miss Tunk’s world-famous feat).

The free fight concerning the leadership of the procession
was settled by the intervention of mounted police. They
decided that all the would-be leaders should march abreast
with two armed policemen between each pair of them to
prevent casualties by the way. So the head of the procession
started off sixty abreast down Whitehall.

It was a magnificent spectacle. All the M.P.’s wore
green-and-white wigs because it was the fashion, and in
addition green-and-white whiskers to assert their equality
with men. Each processionist carried a model of her
greatest work. There was Mrs. Spankham with a superb
model of Westminster Abbey—its petrolling had been the
greatest stroke in convincing the voters of the pure motives
of the feminists. Miss Sylvia Spankham bore aloft the
City Temple, Miss Christabel Spankham the Albert Hall,
whilst Mrs. Lawrence Pothook waved triumphantly a lovely
representation of King’s Cross Station. Magnificent too
was Mrs. Drummit riding astride a fire-engine as an emblem
of peace and goodwill.

The crowd viewed the procession with awed silence, only
breaking into cheers when Miss Blithers, blushing modestly,
held up a cardboard representation of the Albert Memorial
she had nitro-glycerined. Miss Bliggs marched triumphantly
in a bishop’s mitre bearing a pastoral staff, in recognition
of her great feat in forcibly feeding a wicked bishop
who had written a letter to the Press against forcible,
feeding. Misunderstood by the crowd was Mrs. Trudge,
who wheeled a perambulator containing two babies. The
onlookers thought that Mrs. Trudge was about to take her
innocent offspring to the House of Commons, and those
out of hat-pin range murmured, “Shime,” “Give the kids
a chawnce.” They did not know that Mrs. Trudge was
no base slave of man, that she had no children of her own,
and that the wax babies she wheeled in the perambulator
merely indicated that she was the heroine who had doped a
nursemaid with drugged chocolate and abducted a Cabinet
Minister’s twins.

Unhappily Miss Bolland also passed unidentified, though
she held a cardboard tube aloft. Not even a taxi-driver
cheered as the intrepid lady passed who had blown up the
electrical-generation station of the Tubes and made London
walk for a month. There too was Mrs. Tibbs, brave in her
misfortunes. She had missed her election by one vote just
because, when she came to the booth to vote for herself,
lifelong habit had been too strong for her and she had
phosphorused the ballot box.

An unfortunate breeze from the river played havoc with
the processionists’ whiskers, and one or two of the weaker
spirits in the ranks argued that some of the Government
offices in Whitehall ought to have been left standing for
protection—at any rate till the procession was over.

On they went, each of the twenty leaders in front explaining
how she had led the movement to triumph. On the
top of the fire-engine Mrs. Drummit danced a futurist dance,
symbolic of the subjection of man. At last they reached
the portals of the House. The leaders broke into a run to
secure front places on the Government benches.

“Stop,” cried a police superintendent, rushing from the
building.

“The days of man’s tyranny are over!” shouted twenty
voices together.

“Maybe,” said the police superintendent, “but some of
’em are catching up to you. They’ve dynamited the Houses
of Parliament, and if you go inside you’ll pop like roasted
chestnuts.”

And as they watched the flame the leaders realised the
sad fact that they had not left a building standing in London
roomy enough for a Parliament.

Commercial Candour.

“—— Tooth Brushes are so constructed that the bristles get
right into the smallest crevices of the teeth. Moreover the bristles
positively won’t come out.”—Advt. in “London Opinion.”

That has sometimes been our bitter experience.

The Choir Inaudible.

“The chorus gave ample evidence of having made great strides
since their last appearance in public, all the items for which they
were responsible being well sustained and rendered in first-class style.
Special mention should be made, however, of their rendering of ‘A
Spring Song,’ which was given in quite a professional manner, the
chorus dispensing with both music and words, and the audience
evinced their appreciation of this really fine effort by long continued
applause, to which the chorus responded by repeating it.”

Avalon Independent.

There would probably be no words to the applause and very
little music; so the chorus could easily repeat it.

GIFT FOR GIFT.

General Botha. “WELL, I SUPPOSE ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER; WE MUST
GIVE HIM A WARM RECEPTION.”

THE BRUTE AGAIN.

Weary Hostess. “Yes, I’ve been having such trouble with baby. Every night I
have to get up about twenty times, getting his things——“

Visitor. “Why don’t you make your husband do something?“

Hostess. “Oh, I daren’t wake my husband; if I do he always drinks baby’s milk.“

STUDIES IN DISCIPLESHIP.

The Times’ Third Leader.

The statement made in these columns
by a well-informed correspondent that
the incomparable Nijinsky is so delicate
that by his doctor’s decree he is obliged
to abstain from all forms of exercise
save that involved in his beloved art,
gives us, in the vivid phrase of our
neighbours, “furiously to think.” At
the first blush incredulity prevails, but
recourse to the annals of history,
ancient and modern alike, furnishes us
with abundant confirmation of this
strange anomaly. Hannibal was a
martyr to indigestion, while his great
rival, Scipio Africanus, suffered from
sea-sickness even when crossing the
Tiber. Wherever we look we are confronted
with the spectacle of genius
fraying its way to the appointed goal
in spite of physical drawbacks which
would have paralysed meritorious
mediocrity. Wolfe was a poitrinaire,
and Nelson would never have passed
the medical examination to which the
naval cadets of to-day are subjected.
But the case of Nijinsky is more tragic
because abstinence from skating and
riding, of which he was passionately
fond, entails greater anguish on so sensitively
organised a temperament than
it would on a mere man of action, and
the suffering of a great artist may lead
to international complications which
it is terrible to complicate. Russian
dancing is as necessary to the well-being
of our social system as standard
bread, yet when we think of the
sacrifices which its hierophants undergo
in order to minister to our pleasure
the sturdiest Hedonist cannot escape
misgivings. Still, we may find consolation
in the thought that sacrifice is
necessary to perfection. Such sacrifices
take various forms. In the case of
Nijinsky we see a man of immense
brain power specialising in a most exhausting
form of physical culture to
remedy his extreme delicacy. At the
opposite extreme we find cases of men
so extraordinarily powerful that they
are obliged to abandon all exercise and
lead a purely sedentary life in order to
counteract their abnormal muscularity.
Thus Lord Haldane, who in his earlier
days thought nothing of walking to
Cambridge one day and back to London
on the next, has now become more than
reconciled to the immobility imposed
on the occupant of the Woolsack.

It needs no little exercise of the
imagination to form a mental picture
of Lord Haldane as a member of the
Russian ballet, or, to put it in a more
concrete form, making the famous
flying exit in Le Spectre da la Rose.
Could fancy be translated into fact, the
drawing power of such a spectacle
would be prodigious. On the other
hand, and in view of the notorious
adaptability of the Slavonic temperament,
we can well imagine Nijinsky
proving an admirable Lord Chancellor.
Exchanges of this sort would add to
the comity of nations besides enhancing
the amenities of public life, and it is
perhaps not too much to hope that
provision for carrying this out may be
in the Government’s scheme for the
Reform of the House of Lords.

“New Zealand mutton was yearly increasing
in public flavour.”—Times.

It mustn’t get too powerful.

From an advertisement of a land sale
in Ceylon Morning Leader:—

“An undivided ¹/₃ + ¹/₃₆ + ¹/₂ of ³/₈₀ + ¹/₂₄ + ¹/₂
of ¹/₁₈ parts of the land called Vitarmalage
Gamwasama at Yatawala in extent 500
amunams paddy sowing.”

A chance for a newly-created peer who
wants a family seat from which to take
his title and quarterings.

The meeting of Antony and Cleopatra
as described in Hutchinson’s
History of the Nations:—

“When they met first he was twenty-nine
and she was sixteen; now he was forty-two
and she was twenty-seven.”

Anyhow she would say so.

Kind Old Gentleman. “What a delightful little pet! I have
always a soft place for animals.“

A LOST LEADER.

“Enid,” I said, “we must offer something
to somebody.”

“You don’t mean Squawks?” she
pleaded piteously.

“I wish I did,” I sighed. Squawks
is a Pomorachshund—at least I think
so; though Enid inclines towards the
Chowkingese theory. Anyhow, he himself
has always realised that someone
had blundered, and has worked steadily
to make a dog of himself.

“Well, if it’s not Squawks, I don’t
care,” remarked Enid.

“I wish you’d take some interest.”

“What in?”

“In what I say.”

“What did you say?”

“We must,” I repeated, “offer something
to somebody.”

“That’s not very enthusey. Unless”—and
her whole face
brightened—”you mean
what you call your reading-chair.
It threw me on to
the floor and knelt on me
only yesterday; and I know
Aunt Anne——”

“Enid,” I said sternly,
“that’s not the point.”

“I was afraid not.”

“The thing is, one must
be in the swim. Everybody
is offering things right and
left now. Look at Sutherland,
Derby—even Lloyd
George.”

“I didn’t know they were
friends of yours.”

“Not exactly; but——”

“Then why so familiar?”

“My dear,” I explained, “that is the
point. Once get your name in the
papers at the end of a two-column
letter and you are the friend of all the
world—it gives one an entrée to the
castle of the Duke and the cottage of
the crofter.”

“Even before you’ve written it?”

“I have written it!”

“Oh, how splendid! Where?”

“In here,” I said, tapping the best
bit of my head.

“Oh, that!” And then, pensively:
“Next time Mary Jane has a brainstorm,
I’ll tell her to call you ‘Charley.’
Poor girl!”

“I don’t think you quite appreciate,”
I remarked.

“I don’t. What exactly do we stand
to gain?”

“There’s the rub. Not lucre.
Perish the thought! But one begins
to be a power, an influence. People
whisper in the Tube, ‘Who’s that?’
‘That! Don’t you know? Why
Him—He! The man who is making
the Government a laughing-stock.
The man who holds the Empire in
the palm of his hand. The man
who——'”

“Thanks,” said Enid. “We had
better buy a gramophone. I thought
you were getting fidgety at home.”

“Dearest,” I explained, “it is not
that. It is because I feel in me a
spirit that will not be denied. Give
me the opportunity and I will make
this land, this England——”

“Hush, Squawks. Was’ms frightened
then, poor darling!”

“That dog——”

“Hush!” said Enid to me. “How
are you going to begin?”

“It is quite simple. Somebody writes
something to the papers.”

“Yes; so far it sounds easy.”

“Now that something is hideously
disparaging to my class and calling.
I promptly answer him.”

“That is, if you can be funnier at
his expense than he at yours.”

“I shan’t be funny at all.”

“No?” said Enid thoughtfully.

“Mine will be a scathing indictment,
and of course I shall bring in the
political situation. He writes back,
evading the point at issue. I crush
him with figures and statistics, and
make him a practical offer—a few deer-forests,
a paltry township, or my unearned
increment, as the case may be.”

“The mowing-machine is out of
order,” Enid remarked.

“I quote passages in his letter as the
basis of negotiation. He pretends to
accept. I point out how, when and why
he has been guilty of paltry quibbling,
and show that the Party he supports
fosters such methods and manners.”

“Is that all?”

“No. And that is just where I shall
differ from everybody else. I shall go
on where they have stopped. Having
made one individual ridiculous, I shall
broaden the basis of operation. With
consummate skill I shall gradually draw
the public officials down into the
arena.”

“Don’t forget the gas-man; he was
very rude last month.”

“Not that kind,” I explained.
“Cabinet Ministers, Secretaries of
State, the whole machinery of government
shall writhe under the barbed
shafts of my mockery. Ridicule is the
power of the age. Ridicule in my
hands shall be as bayonets to Napoleon,
as poison to a Borgia.” I gasped.

“Help!” said Enid, taking up The
Daily Most. “Here’s the very thing,”
she went on. “Somebody called ‘A.
Lethos’——”

“Pah! A pseudonym.”

“Well, anyhow, he says that all
political writers are worthless sycophants.
You might begin on that.”

“I will,” I cried. “But craven
anonymity is not my part. My name
shall stand forth boldly.
Fate’s linger points the way.
How do you spell ‘sycophant’?
The type has gone
a bit dizzy over it.”

And I plunged into the fray.

“Sir,” I began; and there
followed 2,000 words of
closely-woven argument,
down to “I remain, Sir,
your obedient Servant.”

I read it through carefully,
looked up “sycophant” in
the dictionary, and wrote it
all out again.

Then I showed it to Enid.

“Why have you spelt
‘sycophant’ like that?” she
asked.

“I——”

“No, ‘y.'”

“It is a ‘y.'”

“Oh!” (Pause.) “What about the
offer? Mr. Lethos says that ninetenths
of what is written nowadays is
only worth the ink and paper.”

“The offer,” I reminded her, “will
come later.”

“Oh! I just thought—— You
might get rid of those articles on
‘Happiness in the Home’ at cost price.
They’re running up to quite a lot in
stamps.”

I posted the letter to the Editor.

Next morning I seized the paper
nervously. There was my name at the
end of a column and a half. I had begun.

I sat down to wait for the next step.
It came with the mid-day post in a
letter from Saxby, who is—or was—my
friend.

“Good old Tibbles,” it ran; “I knew
some juggins would rise, whatever I
wrote. But fancy landing you!—Yours
ever, Beefers.”

Now how can a man save his country
on a thing like that?

SMILES AND LAUGHTER.

REVERIE.

“No, darling, not in the study. Your father went round in bogey to-day and
wants to have a nice long think about it.“

HAVE YOU ANYTHING TO SELL?

(With acknowledgments to “The Daily
Mail.”)

Have you anything you think of
burning as useless, but would naturally
prefer to sell? Why not try one of our
small advertisements? Every day we
receive thousands of letters testifying
to their power. Here is one, picked
up at random:—

“Please discontinue my advertisement
of a half-pair of bellows and a
stuffed canary, as the first insertion
has had such remarkable results. On
looking out of my bedroom window
this morning I observed a queue of
some hundreds of people extending
from my doorstep down to the trams
in the main road. They included ladies
on campstools, messenger boys, a sad-looking
young man in an ulster who
was reading Swinburne’s poems, and
others. Only with difficulty could the
milkman fight his way through to
place the can on the doorstep, and the
contents were quickly required to
restore a lady who had turned faint for
want of a camp-stool. While I was
shaving, a motor mail-van dashed up
and left seven sacks of postal replies to
the advertisement. One by one, eighty-three
people were admitted to view the
goods, and a satisfactory bargain was
made with the last of these. I then
telephoned for the police to come and
remove the disappointed thousands,
who were disposed to be riotous. My
garden gate is off its hinges, the garden
itself has the lawn inextricably mixed
with the flower-beds, my marble step
is cracked in three places, and my stair-carpet
is caked with mud. I do not
know any other paper in this country
in which a two-shilling advertisement
could produce such encouraging results.”

ORANGES AND LEMONS.

I.—The Invitation.

“Dear Myra,” wrote Simpson at the
beginning of the year,—”I have an important
suggestion to make to you both,
and I am coming round to-morrow
night after dinner about nine o’clock.
As time is so short I have asked Dahlia
and Archie to meet me there, and if by
any chance you have gone out we shall
wait till you come back.

Yours ever,
Samuel.

P.S.—I have asked Thomas too.”

“Well?” said Myra eagerly, as I
gave her back the letter.

In deep thought I buttered a piece of
toast.

“We could stop Thomas,” I said.
“We might ring up the Admiralty and
ask them to give him something to
do this evening. I don’t know about
Archie. Is he——”

“Oh, what do you think it is?
Aren’t you excited?” She sighed and
added, “Of course I know what Samuel
is.”

“Yes. Probably he wants us all to
go to the Wonder Zoo together … or
he’s discovered a new way of putting,
or—— I say, I didn’t know Archie
and Dahlia were in town.”

“They aren’t. But I expect Samuel
telegraphed to them to meet him under
the clock at Charing Cross, disguised,
when they would hear of something
to their advantage. Oh, I wonder
what it is. It must be something real
this time.”

Since the day when Simpson woke
me up at six o’clock in the morning to
show me his stance-for-a-full-wooden-club
shot I have distrusted his enthusiasms;
but Myra loves him as a
mother; and I—I couldn’t do without
him; and when a man like that invites
a whole crowd of people to come to
your flat just about the time when you
are wondering what has happened to the
sardines on toast, and why doesn’t she
bring them in—well, it isn’t polite
to put the chain on the door and
explain through the letter-box that you
have gone away for a week.

“We’d better have dinner a bit
earlier to be on the safe side,” I said,
as Myra gave me a parting brush down
in the hall. “If any further developments
occur in the course of the day
ring me up at the office. By the way,
Simpson doesn’t seem to have invited
Peter. I wonder why not. He’s
nearly two, and he ought to be in it.
Myra, I’m sure I’m tidy now.”

“Pipe, tobacco, matches, keys,
money?”

“Everything,” I said. “Bless you.
Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Myra lingeringly.
“What do you think he meant by ‘as
time is so short’?”

“I don’t know. At least,” I added,
looking at my watch, “I do know. I
shall be horribly late. Good-bye.”

I fled down the stairs into the street,
waved to Myra at the window … and
then came cautiously up again for my
pipe. Life is very difficult on the
mornings when you are in a hurry.

At dinner that night Myra could
hardly eat for excitement.

“You’ll be sorry afterwards,” I
warned her, “when it turns out to be
nothing more than that he has had his
hair cut.”

“But even if it is I don’t see why I
shouldn’t be excited at seeing my only
brother again—not to mention sister-in-law.”

“You only want to see them so that
you can talk about Peter.”

“Oh, Fatty, darling”—(I am really
quite thin)—”oh, Fatty,” cried Myra—(“lean
and slender” would perhaps
describe it better)—cried Myra, clasping
her hands together—(in fact the
very last person you could call stout)—”I
haven’t seen the darling for ages!
But I shall see Samuel,” she added
hopefully, “and he’s almost as young.”
(“Svelte”—that’s the word for me.)

“Then let’s move,” I said. “They’ll
be here directly.”

Archie and Dahlia came first. We
besieged them with questions as soon
as they appeared.

“Haven’t an idea,” said Archie. “I
wanted to bring a revolver in case it
was anything really desperate, but
Dahlia wouldn’t let me.”

“It would have been useful too,” I
said, “if it turned out to be something
merely futile.”

“You’re not going to hurt my
Samuel, however futile it is,” said Myra.
“Dahlia, how’s Peter, and will you
have some coffee?”

“Peter’s lovely. You’ve had coffee,
haven’t you, Archie?”

“Better have some more,” I suggested,
“in case Simpson is merely
soporific. We anticipate a slumbering
audience, and Samuel explaining a new
kind of googlie he’s invented.”

Entered Thomas lazily.

“Hallo,” he said in his slow voice,
“What’s it all about?”

“It’s a raid on the Begum’s palace,”
explained Archie rapidly. “Dahlia
decoys the Chief Mucilage; you,
Thomas, drive the submarine; Myra has
charge of the clockwork mouse, and we
others hang about and sing. To say
more at this stage would be to bring
about a European conflict.”

“Coffee, Thomas?” said Myra.

“I bet he’s having us on,” said
Thomas gloomily, as he stirred his
coffee.

There was a hurricane in the hall.
Chairs were swept over; coats and hats
fell to the ground; a high voice offered
continuous apologies—and Simpson
came in.

“Hallo, Myra!” he said eagerly.
“Hallo, old chap! Hallo, Dahlia!
Hallo, Archie! Hallo, Thomas, old
boy!” He fixed his spectacles firmly
on his nose and beamed round the
room.

“You haven’t said ‘Hallo!’ to the
cook,” Archie pointed out.

“We’re all here—thanking you very
much for inviting us,” I said. “Have
a cigar—if you’ve brought any with
you.”

Fortunately he had brought several
with him.

“Now then, I’ll give any of you
three guesses what it’s all about.”

“No, you don’t. We’re all waiting,
and you can begin your apology right
away.”

Simpson took a deep breath and
began.

“I’ve been lent a villa,” he said.

There was a moment’s silence …
and then Archie got up.

“Good-bye,” he said to Myra, holding
out his hand. “Thanks for a very
jolly evening. Come along, Dahlia.”

“But I say, old chap,” protested
Simpson.

“I’m sorry, Simpson, but the fact
that you’re moving from the Temple
to Cricklewood, or wherever it is, and
that somebody else is paying the thirty
pounds a year, is jolly interesting, but
it wasn’t good enough to drag us up
from the country to tell us about it.
You could have written. However,
thank you for the cigar.”

“My dear fellow, it isn’t Cricklewood.
It’s the Riviera!”

Archie sat down again.

“Samuel!” cried Myra. “How she
must love you!”

“I should never lend Simpson a villa
of mine,” I said. “He’d only lose it.”

“They’re some very old friends who
live there, and they’re going away for a
month, and the servants are staying on,
and they suggested that if I was going
abroad again this year——”

“How did the servants know you’d
been abroad last year?” asked Archie.

“Don’t interrupt, dear,” said Dahlia.
“I see what he means. How very jolly
for you, Samuel.”

“For all of us, Dahlia!”
“You aren’t suggesting we shall all
crowd in?” growled Thomas.

“Of course, my dear old chap! I
told them, and they’re delighted. We
can share housekeeping expenses, and
it will be as cheap as anything.”

“But to go into a stranger’s house,”
said Dahlia anxiously.

“It’s my house, Dahlia, for the time.
I invite you!” He threw out his
hands in a large gesture of welcome
and knocked his coffee-cup on to the
carpet; begged Myra’s pardon several
times; and then sat down again and
wiped his spectacles vigorously.

Archie looked doubtfully at Thomas.

“Duty, Thomas, duty,” he said,
thumping his chest. “You can’t desert
the Navy at this moment of crisis.”

“Might,” said Thomas, puffing at
his pipe.

Archie looked at me. I looked hopefully
at Myra.

“Oh-h-h!” said Myra, entranced.

Archie looked at Dahlia. Dahlia
frowned.

“It isn’t till February,” said Simpson
eagerly.

“It’s very kind of you, Samuel,”
said Dahlia, “but I don’t think——”

Archie nodded to Simpson.

“You leave this to me,” he said
confidentially. “We’re going.”

A. A. M.

“Porter, what on earth are we waiting here for?”

“You’re waitin’ to go on, Sir.”

THE CHAMELEONS.

(From “The Gladiator,” Nov. 1914.)

ASSOCIATION.

Whitebrook Rovers v. Bromville.

The meeting of these teams on Saturday
last produced a struggle of titanic
dimensions worthy of the best traditions
of the famous combinations
engaged. On the one hand we saw
the machine-like precision, the subtle
finesse so characteristic of the Whitebrook
men, while at the same time we
revelled in the dash and speed, the
consummate daring displayed by their
doughty opponents. We have witnessed
many games, but for keenness
and enthusiasm this one must rank…. In
a game where every man
acquitted himself well it is difficult to
particularise; but Brown, Jones, Green
and McSleery for the Rovers, and Gray,
Smith, Black and McSkinner for the
Broms, may be mentioned as being
shining lights in their respective
positions.

(From “The Gladiator,” Nov. 1915.)

ASSOCIATION.

Whitebrook Rovers v. Bromville.

Before a huge crowd exceeding 60,000
these historic combinations met on
Saturday, and provided a rich treat
for those who had the privilege to be
there. The officials of both clubs have
been busy team-building, and the sides
differed in many instances from those
antagonizing on the same ground a
year ago. That the changes have been
judicious and beneficial Saturday’s game
abundantly proved. The men played
with great earnestness, evincing much
local patriotism, and in their contrasted
styles—the polished artistry, the
scientific precision of the Rovers, and
the dash and forceful intrepidity of the
Broms—were at their very best. We
have seen many games, but this must
rank…. While every man did
himself justice, it may not be invidious
to mention, for the Rovers, Gray, Smith,
Black and McSkinner, and for the
Broms, Brown, Jones, Green and
McSleery, as being bright particular
stars in their respective departments.

From a literary weekly:—

“It is a terribly accurate saying about the
loud laugh and the vacant mind—Pope never
got down surer to the bare bones of the truth.”

Nor did Goldsmith when he pointed
out the danger of “a little learning.”

From two consecutive items of “News
in a Nutshell” in the North-Eastern
Daily Gazette:—

“Lieut. ——, of an infantry regiment at
Lemburg, Austria, fell fast asleep on February
14, and all efforts to wake him have proved
futile ever since.

A sleeper weighing 8 cwt. was found on the
Great Western Railway near Banbury just
before the arrival of a train from the north.”

However, it was not the lieutenant.

THINGS THAT ONE MIGHT HAVE PUT DIFFERENTLY.

“How de do, Lady Smythe? I’ve just driven the motor over to fetch my wife away.“

“How nice of you, Admiral; but I do wish you’d come sooner.“

FORGIVENESS.

(A Dream after losing a Dog.)

The Daily Telegraph on the next Drury Lane melodrama:—

“We are able to say on the very best authority that the idea at the
root of the story is of a quite unusual nature; indeed, if secrecy were
not for the moment imposed, one might even go a step further and
declare it to be of startling originality.”

As it is, one doesn’t; for if once the secret got about that the
play was to be original there would be riots in Fleet Street.

“Song, ‘March of the Men of Garlick’ (Tune, Welsh melody).”

Ripon Observer.

A pardonable mistake. The national emblem is of course
the leek.

THE WOOING.

Miss Ulster. “AN’ WHAT’S THE GOOD OF HIM SENDIN’ ME FLOWERS WHEN I’VE
TOLD HIM ‘NO’ ALREADY?”

Mr. Punch. “WELL NOW, COME, MY DEAR—WON’T YOU JUST TAKE A GOOD LOOK
AT THEM BEFORE YOU START TURNING UP YOUR PRETTY NOSE?”

“A HOLLOW DEMONSTRATION.”

(With acknowledgments to Gillray’s caricature of Napoleon as
Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians.)

[Mr. D. M. Mason’s motion for the reduction of the Supplementary
Navy Estimates was defeated by 237 votes to 34.]

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

(Extracted from the Diary Of
Toby, M.P.)

House of Commons, Monday,
March 2.—In speech
of flawless lucidity displaying
perfect command of
columnar figures upon which
strength of British Navy is
based, the Winsome Winston
moved Supplementary
Estimates amounting to two
and a-half millions. These
raise total expenditure of
year on the Navy to forty-eight
millions. “A serious
event,” he admitted amid
sympathetic cheers from
below Gangway to his right.
Necessity arises from increased
expenditure on oil
reserves; from demand for
a quarter of a million for
the new aircraft programme,
an item unknown to Old
Morality or Childers
when successively at the
Admiralty; from increment
of wages and acceleration
of ship-building.

He might have mentioned that of
grand total close upon two millions is
legacy left by former Ministry on account
of liabilities incurred before 1905.
Whilst present Government, austerely-minded,
pay their way as they go,
meeting increased expenditure out of
revenue, Prince Arthur, with characteristically
light heart, built ships
and strengthened fortifications, raising
the money by loan, which he gaily left
to posterity to pay off. Posterity has
this pleasant task in hand now, and
will continue to be engaged upon it for
next twenty years.

Winston judiciously refrained from
pressing the point. Had enough on
his hands with discontented supporters
below Gangway, who resent ever-increasing
burden of Naval expenditure.
Ramsay Macdonald lodged protest on
behalf of Labour Members; stopped
short of moving reduction of vote.
This done by David Mason of Coventry.

“A hollow demonstration,” was
Gilbert Parker’s terse description of
the revolt. On a division Estimates
were carried by a majority of 203.
Only 34 voted for reduction.

Prolongation of debate plainly boring.
By exception, one listener sat it out
with unwearied attention. Nothing precisely
cherubic in face or figure of Lord
Fisher of Kilverstone, better known
on sea and land by the affectionate
diminutive Jacky Fisher. Nevertheless,
as he sat perched in Peers’ Gallery
immediately over the clock, a place ever
associated with the genial presence of
Edward Prince of Wales, there
flashed across the mind a familiar
couplet sung by Dibdin:—

JACK’S JACK.

(Lord Fisher).

Whilst jealous for maintenance of
Naval power, no Admiral or Sea Lord
did more to improve conditions of life
on the lower deck than did Jacky
Fisher. Retired from active service,
his multiform commissions under
hatches, to-night his body
has gone aloft to a seat
in Peers’ Gallery. There
he heard expounded biggest
Navy vote submitted since
days of the “Great Harry.”
Exceptionally swollen by
provision for reserves of oil
fuel, a new departure, for
which he in his capacity
as Chairman of a Royal
Commission has, as Winston
testified, been chiefly
responsible.

Business done.—Naval
Estimates discussed.

Tuesday.—Another scene
testifying to electricity of
atmosphere. As usual, explosion
from unexpected
quarter. House in committee
on Naval Estimates.
Lord Robert Cecil, ever
alert in interests of working-man
with a vote, moved
reduction in order to call
attention to housing accommodation
provided for men
employed at Rosyth. Chairman
ruled debate out of
order on Supplementary
Estimates. Lord Bob nevertheless
managed to sum up purport of
intended speech by denouncing state of
things as “a scandal and disgrace to the
Government.” At this stage Opposition
Whips, counting heads, discovered that,
if not at the moment in actual minority,
Government would, if division were
rushed, find themselves in parlous
state. The word—it was “Mum”—went
round Opposition benches.

Unfortunately for success of plot
Ministerial Whips also alive to situation.

“After your ruling, Sir,” said Lord
Bob with ominous politeness, “I cannot
develop my argument, but I propose
to persist in my motion, and will divide
the Committee.”

Not if Leif Jones knew it. For
him, as for all good Ministerialists,
subject suddenly developed interest,
urgently demanded consideration. This
he proposed to bestow upon it. A
Bengal tiger about to lunch off a toothsome
native, discovering the anticipated
meal withdrawn from his reach, could
not be more sublimely wrathful than
were gentlemen on Opposition benches.
And Leif Jones, too! The mildest-mannered
man that ever turned on a
water-tap.

After a moment of petrified pause,
natural to Bengal tiger on discovering
reality of his discomfiture, there burst
forth roar of “‘Vide! ‘Vide! ‘Vide!”
From appearance of Leif Jones’s lips,
he was continuing his remarks. Not a
[pg 194]syllable rose above the storm. After it
had raged for some moments Chairman
pointed out that, whilst divigation in
direction of Rosyth was out of order, it
was competent to any Member to
discuss the vote as a whole.

This too much for A. S. Wilson, who
has been surprisingly reticent since
Session opened.

“I understand you have only one Welsh saint. Well,
there’ll soon be another; it will be Saint Lloyd George.
I would canonise him right away.”—The Rev. Dr. Clifford
at Westbourne Park Chapel.

“Is it right for the Chairman,” he
asked, “to protect the Government
from what may be an inconvenient
position?”

“A grossly disorderly observation,”
the Chairman retorted.

A. S. withdrew the remark, the
more willingly since designed effect
gained.

Cousin Hugh, for some time
moving uneasily in corner seat
below Gangway, bounded to his
feet. Member near him simultaneously
rose. With sweep of
left arm, after manner of Richard
III. directing the cutting off of
the head of Buckingham, he
waved the appalled Member down.
Was getting on nicely with what
he had to say when, like Grand
Cross on historical occasion, he
“heard a smile.”

It came from Winston.

“I notice,” said Cousin Hugh
glaring on the Treasury bench,
“that the First Lord of the
Admiralty, who is very ignorant
on many matters, is amused at
this observation.”

Winston explained that what
he had laughed at was “the lordly
gesture with which the noble
Lord swept away another honourable
gentleman.”

Leif Jones, proposing to continue
his remarks, presented himself
again. Greeted with fresh
yell of execration. Battled for
some moments with the storm. Too
much for him. Reached forth hand;
seized imperceptible tankard of invisible
stout; gratefully wetted his
parched lips withal. Refreshed, he
tried again; no articulate word dominated
the din.

After further ten minutes of uproar,
through which from time to time A. S.
Wilson tried to get in more or less
relevant remark and was instantly extinguished
by the Chairman, who
masterfully managed difficult situation,
Winston interposed. A bird of the air
had brought news from Whips’ Room
that all was well. Accordingly the
First Lord graciously conceded division
clamoured for.

Its result profound surprise. So far
from Government lacking support, the
amendment was negatived by more than
two to one. Majority rushed up to 140.

Evidently been a mistake somewhere.

Business done.—Supplementary votes
agreed to.

Thursday.—Dramatic turn in position
of Home Rule Bill. Premier
hitherto steadfast in deferring Second
Reading till close of financial year. As
result of confabulation between two
Front Benches arranged that Supplementary
Estimates shall be hurried up
so as to make opening for immediate
debate on Second Reading.

Accordingly St. Augustine Birrell
to-day brought in Bill for First Reading.
No need of persuasion of silver tongue
to carry this stage. Proceeding purely
formal. Fight opens on Monday, when
Premier, moving Second Reading, will
explain his “suggestions” of amendment.

Business done.—Home Rule brought
in, being third time of asking. Welsh
Church Disestablishment Bill and
Plural Voting Bill also read amid
vociferous cheering by Ministerialists.

“His brilliant flashes of wit and humour
evoked hearty applause, and sometimes even
laughter.”—Teesdale Mercury.

Almost the last thing you would have
expected.

“One of the strongest traits in Mrs. Barclay’s
character is a love of all creatures, great and
small—thrushes, wagtails and robins come to
her when she calls, and she keeps a little box
of worms to feed them.”—Woman at Home.

Sometimes the worms must wish she
wasn’t quite so loving.

THE DOWNWARD TREND.

“At the close of the match, Mr.
Burnett, Kenmay, announced the result
and called for cheers for the winners.
Mr. J. Fulton, President English Province
R.C.C.C., responded.”—Field.

We are sorry that Mr. Fulton
was the only one. After his
opening “Hip—hip—hip” even
the most timid or indifferent
should have joined in.

“Tickets purchased before the date will
admit holders at 2 p.m. to view the machine
used when ‘looping the loop,’ and the passenger
carrying machine.”

Advt. in “The Varsity.”

At the risk of embarrassing this anonymous
Samson we shall go early and
view him.

“Councillor Johnson said the Bye Laws wore
not in a satisfactory state, and suggested that
Councillor Bayman be added to the number.”

Mossel Bay Advertiser.

Henceforward the penalty for breaking
Councillor Bayman is forty shillings.

Report received by a South African
mine-manager:—

“The mule being experimented with by
feeding on bad mealies is still being carried
out, but up to date the animal seems to keep
in normal condition.”

They must carry him out again.

LANGUAGE À LA MODE.

“What do you think? Isn’t it rather nice?”

“My dear, how utterly succulent!“

AT THE PLAY.

“The Two Virtues.“

The news, which ran like wildfire
through the town on Wednesday
morning, that Sir George Alexander
had signed the Covenant, must have
stirred many hearts; but those of us
who saw him on the next night as the
hero of Mr. Alfred Sutro’s comedy
are hoping that, at any rate, there
will be no fighting on Wednesday and
Saturday afternoons, and that sentry
duty in the evenings may be performed
by less valuable signatories. For in
Jeffery Panton he has really found a
part to suit him, and a part which
should keep him busy for some months.
Comedy is certainly his medium.

It is not, alas, Miss Martha Hedman’s,
nor is English her language.
Her pretty foreign accent and tearful
manner became her as a French girl in
The Attack, but it won’t do for every
part she plays. It didn’t do in the least
for Mrs. Guildford. The difficulty of
understanding what she said was made
greater by a surprising catarrh amongst
the first-night audience, so that her
scenes had a way of going like this:—

Jeffery Panton (clearly). But I must
just talk to you a moment.

Stall on left. Honk—honk! Honk!
H’r’r’m!

Dress circle. Honk! Honk!!

Mrs. Guildford. No, no, I must get on
with my work.

Stall just behind. What did she
say?

Her neighbour. Something about her
work.

Her other neighbour. Honk—honk!
H’r’m! Honk—honk!

Gallery boy. HONK—HONK—HONK!

Several voices. Sh’sh!

Mrs. Guildford. No … I … you …

Second gallery boy. Stop that coughing
there!

Injured voice. I can’t ‘elp coughing!

Several voices. Sh’sh!

But I’m afraid the coughing was not
always the fault of the microbes but
sometimes of Mr. Sutro, who seemed
to be exploiting a wonderful talent for
starting his Acts dully. The opening
scene of the Second Act, between Mrs.
Guildford and Alice Exern, was particularly
tiresome. It went on a long
time, and seemed when audible to be
only a recapitulation of Act I. We
simply had to cough.

I have said nothing of the story, for
the reason that a summary of it would
hardly do it justice. It is slight, and yet
just strong enough to carry two or three
pleasant creations and much happy
dialogue. The important thing is that
Sir George is on the stage most of the
time, has many delightful things to
say, and says them delightfully. There
are also Miss Henrietta Watson, Miss
Athene Seyler, and Mr. Herbert
Waring, all excellent.

It remains to be said that the Two
Virtues are Chastity and Charity; that
Mrs. Guildford lacked (I think—but
they were coughing a good deal just
then) the first virtue, and the other
ladies the second; and that the reclining
chair in Act I. was kindly lent
by—but the name of the generous
fellow will be revealed to you in your
programme when you go.

M.

“‘Paphnutius’ was given its first public
performance in London recently. Miss Ellen
Terry appeared in it as an abbcess.”

Hong Kong Telegraph.

Our impersonation of a nasty sore
throat “off” is still the talk of China.

ONE WAY WITH THEM.

Leeson is the best of living creatures
(as so many of us are), but he has one
detestable foible—he always wants to
read something aloud. Now, reading
aloud is a very special gift. Few men
have it, and even of those few there are
some who do not force it upon their
friends; the rest have it not, and
Leeson is of the rest.

In fact, it is really painful to listen
to him, because he not only reads, but
acts. If it is a woman speaking, he
pipes a falsetto such as no woman outside
a reciter’s brain ever possessed. If
it is a rustic, he affects a dialect from
no known district. In emotional passages
one does not dare to look at him
at all, but we all cower with our heads
in our hands, as though we were convicted
but penitent criminals. So much
for dramatic or dialogue pieces. When
it comes to lyric poetry—his favourite
form of literature—Leeson sings, or
rather cantillates, swaying his body to
the rhythm of the lines. If any of the
poets could hear him they would become
‘bus-conductors at once; it is as
bad as that.

Otherwise Leeson is excellent company
and one likes dining with him.
But there’s always hanging over one
the dread that he may have alighted on
something new and wonderful, and at
any moment….

Directly I entered the house last
week I was conscious that this had
happened—Leeson had made another
discovery. I had not been in the
drawing-room for more than a minute,
and had barely shaken hands with Mrs.
Leeson, when he pulled from his pocket
a thin book. I knew the worst at once:
it had about it all the stigmata of new
poetry. It was of the right deadly
hue, the right deadly size, the right
deadly roughness about the edges.

“I’ve got something here, my boy,”
he said. “The real stuff. Let me——”

Just at this moment the door opened
and some guests entered.

“Never mind,” he remarked to me,
as he approached to welcome them;
“later. It’s wonderful—wonderful!”

Other guests arriving occupied him,
and then a servant came in to say that
he was wanted on the telephone.

He returned with the message that
Captain Cathcart was sorry to say he
could not possibly be there until a
quarter-past eight. But please don’t
wait.

It was now five minutes past eight.

“What I suggest,” said Leeson, “is
that we do wait, and that we fill up the
time by reading one or two poems by
a new man that I’ve just discovered?
They’re simply wonderful!”

He drew out the book and we all
composed ourselves to the ordeal; Mrs.
Gaston, who is the insincerest creature
on earth and has no thoughts beyond
Auction Bridge, even going so far as to
say, ecstatically, “A new poet! How
heavenly!”

But Mrs. Leeson stopped it. “Oh,
no,” she said, “don’t let us wait. Very
likely Captain Cathcart will be later
still.” And with a sigh of relief that
was almost audible we marched down
to dinner.

I thought that Leeson cut the time
over our cigars rather short, and we
had no sooner returned to the drawing-room
than he began again. “I won’t
keep you more than a few moments,”
he said, “but I very much want your
opinion of a new poet I have discovered.
I have his work here,” and out came
the deadly book, “and I want to read
one or two brief things.”

“Oh, George, dear,” said Mrs. Leeson,
“do you mind postponing that for a
little? Miss Langton is very kindly
going to sing for us, and she has to
leave early.”

Leeson accepted the situation with
as much philosophy as he could muster.

As a rule I am bored by amateur, or
indeed any, singing after dinner, but I
looked at Miss Langton with an expression
which a Society paper reporter
might easily have misconstrued.

Long before she had finished we were
all calling out, “Thank you! Thank
you! Encore! Encore!”

Leeson alone was faint in his praises
and his face fell to a lower depth when
she began again.

No sooner had she finished and gone
than he was planning another effort, but
during the opportunity afforded by her
departure we had, with great address,
divided ourselves into such animated
groups that Mrs. Leeson, like a tactful
hostess, laid her hand on his arm and
caused him again to postpone it.

He wandered forlornly from chair to
chair, seeking an opening, and at last
ventured to clear his throat and again
ask if we would like to hear his new
poet. “I assure you he’s wonderful!”

But at this moment old Lady Thistlewood
uttered a little cry and at once
bells were rung for sal-volatile. Her
ladyship, it seems, is subject to attacks
of faintness.

When next Leeson made his proposal
the Buntons rose and, expressing
every variety of sorrow and regret, stated
that they had no idea it was so late
and they must really tear themselves
away; Mrs. Bunton tactfully taking
down the title of this dear new poet’s
book and its publisher.

This being the signal for the others
to leave, I soon found myself alone.

“Now!” said Leeson with a triumphant
expression. “Thank goodness
they’re out of the way and we’re quiet
and snug. Now you shall hear my
poet.” He felt for the book. “I tell
you——” He stopped in dismay.

“I could have sworn it was in my
pocket,” he said, and began to hunt
about the room.

“Where on earth can it be?” he
said.

I helped him to look for it, but in
vain.

“Perhaps Mrs. Bunton took it?” I
suggested.

“I’m sure she didn’t,” he replied.

“Perhaps Mrs. Leeson has it?” I
said.

But she had not. The last time she
had seen it it was on the table after
Mrs. Bunton copied the title.

Leeson was so utterly dejected that
I felt almost sorry for him.

“Well,” he said at last, “that’s the
strangest thing I ever heard of. What
a disappointment! I did want you to
hear it.”

But it was precisely because I didn’t
that in my own pocket was the
volume’s present hiding-place. When
the front door had closed behind me
half-an-hour later, I slipped it into the
letter-box.

THE FOX.

MR. PUNCH’S GALLERY OF BRAVE DEEDS. No. 1.

The hero who took out a party of ladies ferreting.

THE RING.

KEEKS v. COCKLES.

I.—Old Style.

By Tony Shovell.

The much-boomed fight between
Nobby Keeks and Bill Cockles ended
in something of a fiasco, the last named
being knocked out with a terrific uppercut
in the first round.

The men stripped well, and appeared
in excellent fettle. The fight commenced
precisely at 11.22, only fifty-two
minutes after the advertised time.

1st Round.—Both men opened
warily, sparring for an opening. Presently
Cockles stepped in and drove
his left hard to the nose, drawing blood.
Keeks drew back, and Cockles, following
up his advantage, got in a nicely-judged
left hook on the eye, which began to
swell ominously. Though his supporters
were obviously chagrined, Keeks
kept his head admirably, and cleverly
ducked under a right swing and clinched.
At the breakaway Cockles got his left
home on the ribs, but in doing so left
himself open, and Keeks shook him up
badly with a jab to the jaw. Cockles’
hands dropped momentarily, and Keeks,
whipping in a smashing right uppercut,
had his man down and out.

A poor struggle, lost solely through
carelessness.

II.—New Style.

By Philip Keppermann.

At twenty-two and a-half minutes
past eleven last night a man stood
looking wistfully over a sea of faces
looming whitely through a thin blue
haze of tobacco smoke. At his feet lay
stretched the limp body of his antagonist.
The disappearance of one eye;
under a large red swelling, combined
with a patulous and rubescent nose,
detracted to some extent from the
dignity of his appearance. An ugly
patch of crimson over his left ribs held
the attention fantastically, morbidly.
It was blood, human blood, his own
blood. The thought fascinated me….

Somewhere a voice was counting
slowly, steadily, unhesitatingly—one—two—three…. The
voice had in it
the inexorable quality of Fate; it
brought tears to the eyes like the wail
of the Chorus in some Greek drama.

I looked at the man by my side. His
regard was fixed intently on the prostrate
figure in the ring. His fingers
played uneasily with his watch-chain.
He wore evening dress, and I noticed
that his tie was a little crooked.

Away outside we caught the distant
hoot of a motorcar. A dog barked.
Then a woman in the audience sneezed;
it seemed unwarrantable, impertinent,
almost a desecration….

The voice that was counting ceased.
The limp figure did not move. The
one wistful eye of the victor closed for
a moment in relief. There was a sudden
incursion of hurrying figures into
the ring….

The great fight was over. Nobby
Keeks had beaten Bill Cockles.

By Theresa Chingles.

I was one of forty-four women who
witnessed the great battle last night.
There were, it was said, over three
thousand men.

On my left sat a young girl in a rose-pink
evening dress, with a dove-colour
opera cloak covering her bare shoulders.
Her eyes followed intently the struggling
figures on the stage, and I
observed that she wore an engagement
ring with three diamonds.

A few seats away, surrounded by a
swarm of men in evening dress, sat a
[pg 198]grey-haired woman, watching the fight
with interest through a gold-rimmed
lorgnette. Her eyes twinkled as heavy
blows were delivered, and when one of
the men began to bleed copiously from
the nose, she uttered an exclamation of
delight. She wore black.

So far as I could observe, no woman
present showed any sign of repulsion.
It seemed to me significant of the times.
I whispered to my neighbour, “O tempora!
O mores!” but she replied
coldly, “Not at all!” I checked my
impulse to add “Autres temps, autres
mœurs!“

Of the actual fight I am not competent
to speak. I was most interested
in the referee, whose strong mobile
face reminded me occasionally of Lord
Byron, at other times of Mr. Winston
Churchill.

By the Rev. Robert Shackleberry.

I had never seen a boxing contest
before I was invited by the enterprising
editor of The Daily Gong to witness the
encounter last night between “Nobby”
Keeks and William Cockles.

I found an excellent seat reserved for
me. It was nearing midnight when
the two men mounted the platform.
Cockles came first, wearing a scarlet
dressing-gown with yellow collar and
cuffs. He seemed to me a bluff, hearty,
good-tempered-looking man, though
perhaps unduly prominent in the lower
jaw. Keeks, who followed, wore a
bright green dressing-gown with a
pink sash, and shook hands with six
or seven members of the audience. He
was taller and heavier than his opponent,
and his features, to my mind,
more intelligent but less amiable.

There was a long delay, during
which I was given to understand that
the men’s hands were being bandaged
for some reason. At length the swarm
of seconds and advisers disappeared to
the sound of a gong, and the combatants
stood up and advanced upon
one another. I was embarrassed to
observe that they were nearly nude,
but my embarrassment did not seem
to be shared by any of the ladies
present, so perhaps I have no right to
complain.

The actual boxing did not last nearly
so long as the preliminaries. This
was perhaps just as well, since Keeks,
afterwards announced the victor, unfortunately
sustained considerable damage
to his right eye and was also losing
blood from his nose—nasty injuries
which, in my opinion, should have led
to the competition being stopped while
he received medical attention. No doubt
the injuries were undesigned.

Cockles soon afterwards fell down,
and refused to rise while some individual
slowly counted ten. This, I was
told, indicated that he was desirous of
withdrawing from the contest before
his antagonist sustained any further
damage. In my judgment this generosity
merited the award of victory;
but no doubt the authorities know their
business.

I was glad to have an opportunity
of gaining a new experience, but on
the whole I must say I prefer a quiet
rubber of whist.

THE OPPORTUNIST.

The personal distinctions, experiences,
successes, opinions, anecdotes and statistics
of Dr. Peterson, F.R.C.S., M.R.C.P.,
are too many for me to mention here,
but are never too many for him to
mention anywhere. That was the difficulty
with which the Governors of the
St. Barnabas Throat and Ear Hospital
were confronted from the beginning to
the end of their business of administration.
As member of their honorary
staff he performed his fair share of successful
operations, but when it came to
speech-making he had no consideration
either for his own throat or for anybody
else’s ears.

“It’s my belief,” said the Chairman,
at the special meeting of the Board
called to arrange the programme for
the opening of the new wing, “that
the whole of this project originated in
Peterson’s desire to make himself
heard.”

“I certainly remember his introducing
the matter to the Board,” said
Thompson, “with a brief sketch of his
own career.”

“And if the foundation stone could
only speak,” said Vernon-White, “it
probably wouldn’t be able to recall the
name of the man who laid it, but would
repeat from memory the whole of
Peterson’s private history.”

“Proposed, seconded and carried
unanimously,” reported the Secretary,
“that at the opening of the new wing
no speech be made by Dr. Peterson.”

“So much for our resolution,” said
Bainbridge. “Nevertheless the company
will have barely got seated before
it hears Peterson wondering whether
he may occupy a moment of their valuable
time with a little experience which
happened to him the other day.”

“Even he will give way to Sir Thingummy,”
said Thompson, referring to
the great man who had been invited to
make the great speech.

Bainbridge was always a pessimist.
“Whether,” he said, “the context be
the opening of the new wing or the duty
of gratitude to the man that opened it,
the one subject the meeting will hear
all about will be the son of Peter.”

“Proposed, seconded and carried
unanimously,” reported the Secretary,
“that the vote of thanks to Sir
Frederick Gorton be moved by the
Chairman.”

“I see myself,” said the Chairman,
“resuming my seat after a few moments
of inaudible confusion, and I hear a
ringing voice crying forth: ‘In rising
on behalf of the Medical and Surgical
Staff to propose a vote of thanks to our
dear Chairman, I may perhaps be permitted
to remind you that I joined that
staff in 1887, and that since I——?'”

“Who’s the senior member of the
staff?” asked the Chairman.

“Peterson,” said Bainbridge.

“Who’s the oldest in mere age?”

“Peterson.”

The Chairman thought hard. “The
event is fixed for April 29th,” said he.
“Whose week on duty is that?”

The Secretary looked up the books.
His face fell. “Peterson’s,” he said.

“Proposed, seconded and carried
unanimously,” said the Chairman hurriedly,
without troubling to take the vote,
“that Dr. Wilkes be appointed to move
the vote of thanks to the Chairman,
and that the Secretary be instructed to
explain the matter, with due tact and
circumspection, to Dr. Peterson.”

“Dear Peterson,” wrote the Secretary,—”At
the ceremony of the opening
of the new wing, my Board is particularly
anxious that everything should go
with a swing, and that there shall be
no possibility of any hitch. I am instructed
to ask you if you will be so
good as to hold yourself in readiness to
make the big technical speech of the day
in the unhappy event of Sir Frederick
Gorton failing to turn up. One is
never safe with these London men, and
it is for that reason that the Board
hopes you will not mind putting yourself
to trouble which may prove wasted.
Some of the less eloquent members of
the Staff can be got to make the short
formal speeches.”

Sir Frederick turned up all right, as
the Secretary had taken care that he
should, and declared the wing open,
and thanked the Board for asking him.
Thereupon the Board, by its Chairman,
thanked him, and he rose again and
very briefly thanked the Board for
thanking him. Then Dr. Wilkes got
up and thanked the Chairman even
more briefly still, and the Chairman
got up again and thanked Dr. Wilkes
for thanking him. In fact, only one
man didn’t get his share of formal
gratitude, for no one thanked Dr. Peterson
for rising (if he might) to express a
few words of thanks to Dr. Wilkes.

Anticipating this possibility, Dr.
Peterson devoted the larger part of
his speech to thanking himself.

Grannie. “And wit’s the matter wi’ me right leg, Doctor?“

Doctor. “Oh, just old age, Mrs. MacDougall.“

Grannie. “Hoots, man; ye’re haverin’. The left leg’s hale and soond, and they’re baith the same age.“

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

To read An Englishman Looks at the World (Cassell),
a collection of “unrestrained remarks on contemporary
matters”—aeroplanes, Chesterton and Belloc, libraries,
labour unrest, the Great State, and the like—by Mr. H. G.
Wells, is to be delighted or infuriated according to your
natural habit of mind. If established in tolerable comfort
in a world which you judge, for all its blemishes, to be on
the whole rather well run, you will resent exceedingly this
pert young man (for Mr. Wells is still astonishingly
young) with his preposterous eagerness, his insane passion
for questioning and tinkering and most unfairly putting
you and your kind in the wrong. You will no doubt find
excellent grounds for doubting his ability to reconstruct;
for suspecting what you will feel to be his pretentious
breadth of view, his assumed omniscience. But if, on the
other hand, thinking life in your sombre moments a nightmare
of imbecility and in your more expansive moments
a high adventure of immeasurable possibilities, you are
straitened between cold despairs and immense hopes, you
will readily forgive this irreverent, self-confident critic-journalist
any crude things he may have said in his haste
for sake of his flashes of perception, his happily descriptive
phrases, his inspiring anticipations, his uncalculating candour,
and above all his generous preoccupation with things
that matter enormously. “What we prosperous people
who have nearly all the good things of life and most of the
opportunities have to do now is to justify ourselves.” That
is a sentiment and a challenge repeated or implied throughout
the book. This Englishman looking at his world looks
with quick eyes. He is himself so intensely interested that
he can only fail to interest such as find his whole attitude
an outrage upon their finally adopted convictions and
conventions.

Have you noticed the way in which certain stories bear
the mark of a particular place or period? If ever there was
a novel that vociferated “Cambridge” in every line, The
Making of a Bigot (Hodder and Stoughton) is that one.
Well indeed may its paper wrapper display a drawing of
King’s Chapel, though as a matter of fact only the action
of the first chapter passes in the University town. Miss
Rose Macaulay has based her story upon a quaintly
attractive theme. Her hero, Eddy Oliver, is a type new to
fiction. Eddy saw good in everything to such an extent
that he allowed himself to be persuaded into active sympathy
with the aims of practically everyone who was aiming at
anything, however mutually irreconcilable the aims might
be. “He went along with all points of view so long as they
were positive; as soon as condemnation or rejection came
in, he broke off.” Consequently, as you may imagine, his
career was pleasantly involved. It embraced the Church,
various forms of Socialism, and at one time and another some
devotion to the ideals of Nationalism, Disarmament, Imperial
Service and the Primrose League. But please don’t
imagine that all this is told in a spirit of comedy. Miss
[pg 200]Macaulay is, if anything, almost too dry and serious; this,
and her disproportionate affection for the word “rather,”
a little impaired my own enjoyment of the book. It contains
some happily sketched types of modernity—all of
them Cambridge to the back-bone; and Eddy’s final discovery
(which makes the bigot), that one can’t achieve anything
in life without some wholesale hatreds, is genuine
enough—more so than the system of card-cutting by which
he settles his convictions. Miss Macaulay has already, I
am told, won a thousand pounds with a previous book;
this one proves her the possessor of a gift of originality
that is both rare and refreshing.

I could imagine a novel with which I could sympathise
deeply, based upon the theme of England’s regeneration by
means of the right type of Tory squire, but it would be a
novel with a more credible hero and conceived in a less
petty spirit of party bias than Mr. H. N. Dickinson has
given us in The Business of a Gentleman (Heinemann).
For, in the first place, Sir Robert Wilton, who figured of
course in Keddy and Sir Guy
and Lady Rannard—he has,
in fact, by this time married
Marion, late Sir Guy’s widow—is
far too jumpy and nervy
a person to fit my ideal of a
paternal landlord, and what
is, after all, more important, I
feel convinced that his tenants
and stable-lads would have
thought the same. Secondly,
I refuse to believe that a
spinster, however soured,
however much devoted to the
cause of Labour and misguided
crusades for social
purity, would have behaved
as Miss Baker does in this
book; and deliberately attempted
to father a false
scandal on Sir Robert merely
because she hated his type.
And if the author replies that
he knows of such an instance I maintain that it was just
one of those things which the art of selection should have
prompted him to leave out. I have, of course, no fault to
find with Mr. Dickinson’s style, which as usual is curiously
simple yet at the same time attractive, nor with his powers
of character-sketching. His schoolboy of seventeen, Eddie
Durwold, is in this book particularly good. It is the things
that these people do that bothers me. And if I might
venture to rename The Business of a Gentleman the title I
should choose is “The Escapade of an Egoist.”

Mr. Sidney Low has paid some visits to Egypt and the
Sudan, has kept his eyes very wide open and has written
Egypt in Transition (Smith, Elder) in consequence. The
Earl of Cromer, who has also been there or thereabouts,
introduces the book to the notice of the public with an
appreciative preface. Am I then in a position to pass
judgment? Yes, I am; for I can claim to be literally more
informed on the subject than most people, having above
my share of friends and relations who have been there. I
have the clearest possible picture of the country—a stretch
of sand, some pyramids in the background, and, in the
centre foreground, smiling enigmatically—not the Sphinx,
but my friend or relation. I at once gave Mr. Low
five marks out of ten upon discovering that none of his
illustrations reproduced himself on either on or off a camel.
On less personal grounds, I have no scruple in giving him
the remaining five for the vastly interesting facts, political,
international, social and racial, with which he entertained
me. It requires no small skill in a dispenser of such facts
to make them entertaining. Twice only was I minded to
quarrel with him; once when he expressed a general contempt,
based upon one egregious example, for the foreign
exports of Oxford and Cambridge, and again when he got
on to the subject of tourists, who include my nearest and
dearest, and abused them from the standpoint of a “visitor.”
In the first case he was absurd, in the second, common-place;
but he made ample compensation for both by his
memorable chapter of “Conclusions,” in which he gave me
clearly to understand why East, being East, will never be
joined to West, always West, but yet how the twain have
got within measurable distance of one another.

There must have been moments when Napoleon found
St. Helena a little quiet for a man of his temperament; when
the monotony of his life there pressed somewhat hardly
upon him. On these occasions
I like to think of him
saying philosophically to
himself, as he remembered
what Mr. Rudolf Pickthall
calls “the last phase but
two,” “Well, after all, this
isn’t Elba. I’ve got that
much to be thankful for.”
In The Comic Kingdom
(Lane) Mr. Pickthall shows
how everybody on the island
struggles to make a bit out of
their visitors. Little children
rallied round with posies of
wild flowers, demanding
large sums in payment.
Bogus monks waved crosses
at him, and, if he pretended
not to notice them, rolled in
the dust under his carriage
wheels. There was never a
moment when somebody was
not calling with a bust of the Emperor or Empress,
price three hundred francs. And itinerant bands played
under his windows into the small hours of the morning.
I can imagine him saying, in the words of Orestes,
“Dis is a dam country.” Orestes was the guide who
conducted Mr. Pickthall through the island. It revolted
him, but he did it. “I tink we better leave to-morrow,”
was a sort of refrain with Orestes. He had a
poor opinion of Elba, which I for one do not share.
After reading The Comic Kingdom I feel that one of my
coming holidays must be spent climbing its hills and
supplying its thirsty inhabitants with wine. The scenery
is apparently worth while, and the natives appear a friendly
lot. I like their enthusiasm for literature. They turned
out in their hundreds and insisted on Mr. Pickthall’s
standing treat, just because they mistook him for a great
historian. When I tell them I write for Punch they will
be all over me.

A WORLD’S WORKER.

Lady of title taking lessons in building-construction prior
to performing the ceremony of laying a foundation-stone.

From a notice of “The New Standard Dictionary” in
The London Teacher:—

“The Dictionary is arranged in alphabetical order, thus being a great
time saver, and one can find what is required with the greatest ease.”

Otherwise it is so awkward, when you want to know how
to spell “parallel” in a hurry, to have to go through one
volume after another until you come to it.

Transcriber’s Note:

Changed “there” to “three” in the second to last paragraph
of “At the play” on page 195.