PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 159.

November 3rd, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

“After all,” asks a writer, “why
shouldn’t Ireland have a Parliament, like
England?” Quite frankly we do not
like this idea of retaliation while more
humane methods are still unexplored.

“The miners’ strike,” says a music-hall
journal, “has given one song-writer
the idea for a ragtime song.” It is only
fair to say that Mr. Smillie had no idea
that his innocent little manœuvre would
lead to this.

The Admiralty does not propose to
publish an official account of the Battle
of Jutland. Indeed the impression is
gaining ground that this battle will
have to be cancelled.

We are asked to deny
that, following upon the
publication of Mirrors of
Downing Street, by “A
Gentleman with a Duster,”
Lord Kenyon is about to
dedicate to Sir Claude
Champion de Crespigny
a book entitled A Peer with
a Knuckle-Duster.

“Mr. Lloyd George seems
to have had his hair ‘bobbed’
recently,” says a
gossip-writer in a Sunday
paper. Mr. Hodges still
sticks to the impression
that it was really two-bobbed.

“Cigars discovered in
the possession of Edward
Fischer, in New York,” says a news
item, “were found to contain only
tobacco.” Very rarely do we come
across a case like that in England.

“Water,” says a member of the
L.C.C., “is being sold at a loss.” But
not in our whisky, we regret to say.

What is claimed to be the largest
shell ever made has been turned out by
the Hecla Works, Sheffield. It may
shortly be measured for a war to fit it.

A taxi-driver who knocked a man
down in Gracechurch Street has summoned
him for using abusive language.
It seems a pity that pedestrians cannot
be knocked down without showing their
temper like this.

After months of experiment at Thames
Ditton the question of an artificial limb
of light metal has been solved. It is
said to be just the thing for Tube-travellers
to carry as a spare.

In connection with Mr. Pringle’s
recent visit to Ireland we are asked to
say that he was not sent there as a
reprisal.

Mr. George Lansbury recently told
a Poplar audience why he went to
Australia many years ago. No explanation
was offered of his return.

A coal-porter summoned for income-tax
at West Ham Police Court said
that his wages averaged eight hundred
pounds a year. We think it only fair
to say that there must be labouring
men here and there who earn even less
than that.

“The thief,” says a weekly paper
report, “entered the house by way of
the front-door.” We can only suppose
that the burglars’ entrance was locked
at the time.

A small boy, born in a Turkish harem,
is said to have forty-eight step-mothers
living. Our office-boy, however, is still
undefeated in the matter of recently
defunct grandmothers.

The number of accidental deaths in
France is attaining alarming proportions.
It is certainly time that a stop
was put to the quaint custom of duelling.

A rat that looks like a kangaroo and
barks like a prairie dog is reported in
Texas, says The Columbia Record. We
can only say that, when we last heard
that one, it was an elephant with white
trunk and pink eyes.

“Why do leaders of the Bar wear
such ill-fitting clothes?” asks a contemporary.
A sly dig, we presume, at
their brief bags.

A reduction in prices is what every
housewife in the land is looking for,
says The Daily Express. It is not
known how our contemporary got
hold of this idea.

There is no truth in the report that
The Daily Mail has offered a prize of
a hundred pounds to the first person
who can prove that it has been talking through
its prize hat.

“What should The Daily Mail hat
be worn with?” asks an enthusiast.
“Characteristic modesty” is the right
answer.

Emigrants to Canada, it is stated,
now include an increasingly large
proportion of skilled workers. Fortunately,
thanks to the high
wages they earn at home,
we are not losing the services
of our skilled loafers.

A burglar who was recently
sentenced in the
Glasgow Police Court was
captured while in the act
of lowering a chest of
drawers out of a window
with a rope. The old
method of taking the house
home and extracting the
furniture at leisure is still
considered the safest by
conservative house-breakers.

Found under a bed in a
strange house at Grimsby,
a man told the police who
arrested him that he was
looking for work. It was pointed out
to him that the usual place for men
looking for work is in bed, not under it.

In a recent case a Hull bargee gave
his name as Alfaina Swash. Nevertheless
the Court did not decide to hear
the rest of his evidence in camera.

A cyclist who stopped to watch a stag-hunt
near Tivington Cross, in Somerset,
was tossed into the hedge by the
stag. On behalf of the beast it is
claimed that the cyclist was off-side.

“She don’t ‘arf swank since ‘er farver was knocked over by
a Rolls-Royce.”

“The Czecho-Slovaks will shortly be able
to see the successful play, ‘The Right to
Stroke.'”—Evening Paper.

Good news for the local pussies.

“The first annual dinner of the —— Club
was held in the Club Rooms on Saturday
evening, a large number sitting down to an
excellent coal collation.”—Local Paper.

Surely a little extravagant in these
times.

THE POET LAUREATE AND HIS GERMAN FRIENDS.

“Prisoners to a foe inhuman, Oh, but our hearts rebel;

Defenceless victims ye are, in claws of spite a prey.

*           *           
*           *           
*           *           *

Nor trouble we just Heaven that quick revenge be done

On Satan’s chamberlains highseated in Berlin;

Their reek floats round the world on all lands neath the sun:

Tho’ in craven Germany was no man found, not one

With spirit enough to cry Shame!—Nay but on such sin

Follows Perdition eternal … and it has begun.”

The Poet Laureate, in “The Times,” November 4th, 1918.

“The letter [of reconciliation from Oxford Professors, etc., ‘to their
fellows in Germany’] is written … with the recognition that we
have both of us been provoked to ‘animosities’ which we desire to
put aside … The commonest objection was that the action was
‘premature’—my own feeling being that of shame for having vainly
waited so long in deference to political complications, and that shame
was intolerably increasing … It is undiscerning not to see that
at a critical moment of extreme tension they [the German Professors]
allowed their passion to get the better of them.”

The Poet Laureate, in “The Times,” October 27th, 1920.

[The author of the following lines fears that he has failed to do
full justice to the metrical purity of the Master’s craftsmanship.]

THE SUPERFECTION LAUNDRY.

I let myself into my flat to find a young woman sitting
on one of those comfortless chairs designed by upholsterers
for persons of second quality who are bidden to wait in
the hall.

“You want to see me?” I inquired. “Yes; what is it?”

“I have called, Madam, to ask if you are satisfied with
your laundry.”

“Far from it,” I said. “It is kind of you to ask, but why?”

“Because I wish to solicit your custom for the laundry
I represent.”

“What faults do you specialise in?” I inquired.

“I beg your pardon, Madam?”

“Will you send home my husband’s collars with an edge
like a dissipated saw?”

The young woman’s face brightened with comprehension.

“Oh, no, Madam,” she replied. “We exercise the greatest
care with gentlemen’s stand-up collars.”

“Will you shrink my combinations to the size of a doll’s?”

An expression of horror invaded her countenance. “The
utmost precaution,” she asserted, “is taken to prevent the
shrinkage of woollens.”

“Is it your custom to send back towels reduced to two
hems connected by a few stray rags in the middle?”

The young woman was aghast. “All towels are handled
as gently as possible to avoid tearing,” she replied.

“How about handkerchiefs?” I asked. “I dislike to
find myself grasping my bare nose through a hole in the
centre.”

The suggestion made my visitor laugh.

“Are you in the habit of sewing nasty bits of red thread,
impossible to extricate, into conspicuous parts of one’s
clothing?”

“Oh, no, Madam,” she asseverated; “no linen is allowed
to leave our establishment with any disfiguring marks.”

“You never, I suppose, return clothing dirtier than when
it reached you?” I proceeded.

Suppressed scorn that I could believe in such a possibility
flashed momentarily from her eyes before she uttered an
emphatic denial.

“Nor do you ever perhaps send home garments belonging
to other people while one’s own are missing?”

“Never, I can assure you, Madam.”

“Does the man who delivers the washing habitually turn
the basket upside down so that the heavy things below
crush all the delicate frilly things that ought to be on top?”

She seemed incapable of conceiving that such perverted
creatures could exist.

“Do they never whistle in an objectionable manner
while waiting for the soiled clothes?”

“Whistling on duty is strictly forbidden, Madam.”

“Well, all these things I have mentioned my laundry does
to me, and even more, and when I write to complain they
disregard my letters.”

“We rarely have complaints, Madam, and all such receive
prompt attention. I can give references in this street—in
this block of flats even.”

“Well,” said I, “if you like to give me a card I am willing
to let you have a trial.”

The young woman opened her bag with alacrity and
handed me a card.

“The Superfection Laundry,” I read with amazement.
“Surely there must be some mistake?”

“Are you not Mrs. Fulton?” asked the young woman.

“No, you have come a floor too high. Mrs. Fulton lives
in the flat below me.”

“I must apologise for my call, then; I was sent to see
Mrs. Fulton. But all the same may we not add you to the
list of our customers?”

“Impossible,” I said.

“May I ask your reasons, Madam?”

“Because the laundry I employ at present is the Superfection.”

The Church Militant in the Near East.

“Resht was bombed by Red aeroplanes on September 28 and 30;
one of the machines was forced to descend on the latter date some
6 miles to the north of the town. The pilot and observer were taken
by the Cassocks.”

—Evening Paper.

OUR VILLAGE SIGN.

The Guest (exasperated with waiting). “I’ve a good mind to drive off, but I’m afraid of hitting that idiot in front.”

The Hostess. “Hit him where you like, dear—it’s my husband.”

PROOF POSITIVE.

This kind of thing had been going
on morning after morning until I was
quite tired.

They.   You ought to get hold of a
good dog.

It is extraordinary how many things
one ought to get hold of in the country.
Sometimes it is a wood-chopper and
sometimes a couple of hundred cabbages,
and sometimes a cartload of
manure, and sometimes a few good
hens. I find this very exhausting to
the grip.

I.   What for?

They.   To watch your house.

I.   I do not wish to inflict pain on a
good dog. What kind of a dog ought
it to be?

They.   Well, a mastiff.

I.   Isn’t that rather a smooth kind of
dog? If I have to get hold of a dog, I
should like one with rather a rougher
surface.

They.   Try an Irish terrier.

I.   I have. They fight.

They.   Not unless they’re provoked.

I.   Nobody fights unless he is provoked.
But more things provoke an
Irish terrier than one might imagine.
The postman provoked my old one so
much that it bit the letters out of his
hand and ate them.

They.   Well, you didn’t get any bills,
then.

I.   Yes, I did. Bills always came
when the dog was away for the week-end.
He was a great week-ender,
and he always came back from week-ends
with more and more pieces out of
his ears until at last they were all
gone, and he couldn’t hear us when we
called him.

They.   Well, there are plenty of other
sorts. You might have a Chow or an
Airedale or a boar-hound.

I.   Thank you, I do not hunt boars.
Besides, all the dogs you mention are
very expensive nowadays. In the War
it was quite different. You could collect
dogs for practically nothing then.
My company used to have more than
a dozen dogs parading with it every
day. They had never seen so many
men so willing to go for so many long
walks before. They thought the Millennium
had come. A proposal was
made that they should be taught to
form fours and march in the rear. But,
like all great strategical plans, it was
stifled by red tape. After that—

They.   You are getting away from
the point. If you really want a good
cheap dog—

I.   Ah, I thought you were coming to
that. You know of a good cheap dog?

They.   The gardener of my sister-in-law’s
aunt has an extremely good cheap
dog.

I.   And would it watch my house?

They.   Most intently.

That is how Trotsky came to us.
Nobody but a reckless propagandist
would say that he is either a mastiff or
a boar-hound, though he once stopped
when we came to a pig. I do not mind
that. What I do mind is their saying,
now that they have palmed him off on
me, “I saw you out with your what-ever-it-is
yesterday,” or “I did not
know you had taken to sheep-breeding,”
or “What is that thing you have
tied up to the kennel at the back?”
There seems to be something about the
animal’s tail that does not go with its
back, or about its legs that does not go
with its nose, or about its eyes that does
not go with its fur. If it is fur, that is
to say. And the eyes are a different
colour and seem to squint a little. They
say that one of them is a wall-eye. I
think that is the one he watches the
[pg 345]
house with. Personally I consider that
they are very handsome eyes in their
own different lines, and my opinion is
that he is a Mull-terrier; or possibly a
Rum. Anyhow he is a good dog to get
hold of, for he is very curly.

The village policeman came round to
the house the other day. I think he
really came to talk to the cook, but I
fell into conversation with him.

“You ought to be getting a licence
for that dog of yours,” he said.

“What dog?” I asked.

“Why, you’ve got a dog tied up at
the back there, haven’t you?” he said.

“Have I?” said I.

And we went out and looked at it
together. Trotsky looked at me with
one eye and at the policeman with the
other, and he wagged his tail. At least
I am not sure that he wagged it;
“shook” would be a better word.

“Where did you get it?” he inquired.

“Oh, I just got hold of it,” I said
airily. “It’s rather good, don’t you
think?”

He stood for some time in doubt.

“It’s a dog,” he said at last.

I shook him warmly by the hand.

“You have taken a great load off
my mind,” I told him. “I will get a
licence at once.”

This will score off them pretty badly.

After all you can’t go behind a Government
certificate, can you?

Evoe.

Caller. “Is Mrs. Jones at home?”

Cook-General. “She is, but she ain’t ‘ardly in a fit state to see anybody.
She’s just bin givin’ me notice.”

THE CRY OF THE ADULT AUTHOR.

[The “Diarist” of The Westminster Gazette,
in the issue of October 25th, utters a poignant
cri de cœur over what he regards as one of the
great tragedies of the time—the crowding-out
of the “genuine craftsmen” of journalism and
letters by Cabinet Ministers, notoriety-mongers
and, above all, by sloppy infant prodigies.]

From an account of Sir J. Forbes-Robertson’s
début:—

“It was interesting to remember that in
the audience on that occasion were Dante,
Gabriel, Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne.”

—Provincial
Paper.

The archangel was a great catch.

“When the Royal Cream horses were dispersed
from the royal stables, one or two golf
clubs made an endeavour to get one of these
fine animals, and Ranelagh and Sandy Lodge
were fortunate to secure them. The horses
look fine on the course behind the mower.”

Evening Paper.

Shoving, we suppose, for all they are
worth.

EUCLID IN REAL LIFE.

If it was not for the paper-shortage
I should at once re-write Euclid, or
those parts of him which I understand.
The trouble about old Euclid was that
he had no soul, and few of his books
have that emotional appeal for which
we look in these days. My aim would
be to bring home his discoveries to the
young by clothing them with human
interest; and I should at the same
time demonstrate to the adult how
often they might be made practically
useful in everyday life. When one
thinks of the times one draws a straight
line at right angles to another straight
line, and how seldom one does it Euclid’s
way … every time one writes
a T….

Well, let us take, for example—

Book III., Proposition 1.

Problem.—To find the centre of a
given circle.

Let ABC be that horrible round bed
where you had the geraniums last year.
This year, I gather, the idea is to have
it nothing but rose-trees, with a great
big fellow in the middle. The question
is, where is the middle? I mean, if
you plant it in a hurry on your own
judgment, everyone who comes near
the house will point out that the bed is
all cock-eye. Besides, you can see it
from the dining-room and it will annoy
you at breakfast.

Construction.—Well, this is how
we go about it. First, you draw any
chord AB in the given bed ABC. You
can do that with one of those long
strings the gardener keeps in his shed,
with pegs at the end.

Bisect AB at D.

Now don’t look so stupid. We’ve
done that already in Book I., Prop. 10,
you remember, when we bisected the
stick of nougat. That’s right.

Now from D draw DC at right angles
to AB, and meeting the lawn at C. You
can do that with a hoe.

Produce CD to meet the lawn again
at E.

Now we do some more of that bisecting;
this time we bisect EC at F.

Then F shall be the middle of the
bed; and that’s where your rose-tree
is going.

Proof???—Well, I mean, if F be not
the centre let some point G, outside
the line CE, be the centre and put the
confounded tree there. And, what’s
more, you can jolly well join GA, GD
and GB, and see what that looks like.

Just cast your eye over the two triangles
GDA and GDB.

Don’t you see that DA is equal to
DB (unless, of course, you’ve bisected
that chord all wrong), and DG is common,
and GA is equal to GB—at least
according to your absurd theory about
G it is, since they must be both radii.
Radii indeed! Look at them. Ha, ha!

Therefore, you fool, the angle GDA
is equal to the angle GDB.

Therefore they are both right angles.

Therefore the angle GDA is a right
angle. (I know you think I’m repeating
myself, but you’ll see what I’m
getting at in a minute.)

Therefore—and this is the cream of
the joke—therefore—really, I can’t
help laughing—therefore the angle
CDA is equal to the angle GDA! That
is, the part is equal to the whole—which
is ridiculous.

I mean, it’s too laughable.

So, you see, your rose-tree is not in
the middle at all.

In the same way you can go on
planting the old tree all over the bed—anywhere
you like. In every case
you’ll get those right angles in the
same ridiculous position—why, it
makes me laugh now to think of it—and
you’ll be brought back to dear old
CE.

And, of course, any point in CE except
F would divide CE unequally,
which I notice now is just what you’ve
done yourself; so F is wrong too.

But you see the idea?

What a mess you’ve made of the
bed!

Book I., Proposition 20.

Theorem.—Any two sides of a triangle
are together greater than the third side.

Let ABC be a triangle.

Construction.—You know the
eleventh hole? Well, let B be the tee,
and let C be the green, and let BC be
my drive. Yes, mine. Is it dead?
Yes.

Now let BA be your drive. I’m
afraid you’ve pulled it a bit and gone
into the road by the farm.

You can’t get on to the green by the
direct route AC because you’re under
the wall. You’ll have to play further
up the road till you get opposite that
gap at D. It’s a pity, because you’ll
have to play about the same distance,
only in the wrong direction.

Take your niblick, then, and play
your second, making AD equal to AC.
Now join CD.

I mean, put your third on the green.
You can do that, surely? Good.

Proof.—There, I’m down in two.
But we won’t rub it in. Do you notice
anything odd about these triangles?
No? Well, the fact is that AD is equal
to AC, and the result of that is that the
angle ACD is equal to the angle ADC.
That’s Prop. 5. Anyhow, it’s obvious,
isn’t it?

But steady on. The angle BCD is
greater than its part, the angle ACD—you
must admit that? (Look out,
there’s a fellow going to drive.)

And therefore the angle BCD—Oh,
well, I can’t go into it all now or it
will mean we shall have to let these
people through; but if you carry on on
those lines you’ll find that BD is greater
than BC.

I mean you’ve only got to go back to
where you played your third and you’ll
see that it must be so, won’t you?
Very well, then, don’t argue.

But BD is equal to BA and AC, for
AD is equal to AC; it had to be, you
remember.

Therefore—now follow this closely—the
two sides BA and AC are together
greater than the third side BC.

That means, you see, that by pulling
your drive out to the left there you
gave yourself a lot of extra distance to
cover.

You’d never have guessed that, would
you? But old Euclid did.

Come along, then; they’re putting.
You must be more careful at this hole.

I think it’s that right shoulder of
yours…

A. P. H.

Our Candid Candidates.

From an election address:—

“Should I get returned as your representative
you will have no cause for regret when
my term of office expires.”

—Provincial Paper.

“The strike of the mechanical staff of the
‘Karachi Daily Gazette’ has ended.”

Evening Paper.

We wondered why everybody looked so
pleased in London that day.

“Since her treatment with the monkey
gland Miss Ediss has received enough complimentary
nuts to stock a market garden. An
ornate basket of monkey nuts fills a prominent
place in her room, and two cocoanuts tied up
with coloured ribbon strike the eye of the
visitor.”

—Sunday Paper.

In that case we shall postpone our intended
visit until Miss Ediss is herself
again.

MANNERS AND MODES.

NOW THAT MEN’S ATTIRE IS SO COSTLY WHY NOT TAKE A LEAF FROM THE LADIES’ BOOK OF FASHION
AND LET THE TAILORS HAVE DRESS PARADES OF THE LATEST DESIGNS?

THE CULT OF FACE-READING.

‘Erb (a cinema habitué). “See wot ‘e’s saying, Em’ly?
‘E’s still at the office and won’t be able to get ‘ome to
dinner.”

THE CONSPIRATORS.

VI.

My dear Charles,—I was talking
to the Editor the other day about this
correspondence of ours which we are
conducting in the public Press, thus
saving the twopenny stamps and avoiding
the increased cost of living which
is hitting everyone else so hard.

“This ought to be put a stop to,”
said he.

“That is just what I have
been saying since 1918,” I replied;
“but the question is
what to do about it? When
you get down to it, the word
‘Bolshevist’ is but the Russian
for ‘advanced Socialist,’ and
there is nothing to prevent
Socialists, whether they be advanced
or retarded. How then
are you going to put a stop to
Bolshevism?”

“I was thinking of the correspondence,”
the Editor replied.

So I stopped talking to him
and sat down to write my last
letter to you on the subject.

To resume: In the summer
of 1918 the German War Lords
began to have their doubts of
a Pax Germanica and saw signs
rather of a Wash-out Germanicum.
Things looked ill
with them, so they consulted
their doctor, a certain person
who called himself “Dr. Help-us”
by way of a jest. He
proved more successful as a
business man, however, than
he was as a humourist. He
advised that the “War of
World Conquest” was not
likely to produce a dividend,
because its name was against
it. Cut out “Imperialism”;
substitute another word, with
just as many syllables and no
less an imposing sound, “Proletariat”;
call the thing “Class
Warfare”; advertise it thoroughly
and attract to it all the political
egoists of disappointed ambition in the
various countries of the enemy, and the
German War Lords would find it no
longer necessary to crush all existing
nations, since all existing nations would
then set about to crush themselves.

The idea was voted excellent, and the
trial run in Russia gave complete satisfaction.

But not all countries were so immediately
susceptible to the idea of a World
Revolution. Victory hath its charms
and does not predispose a people to complain;
so where the Masses (invested
with a capital “M” to flatter their
vanity and secure their goodwill) were
victorious and content they were to be
made to believe by advertisement that
with a little trouble they could become
even more victorious and more content.
The Kaiser and Imperialism had been
disposed of; it only remained to get rid
of Capitalism and Charles. The subterranean
campaign was developed, and
that is what our conspirators have since
been so brisk and busy about.

That was the programme; but it is
a programme which required money.
And so at last to the Chinese Bonds.

Oh, those Chinese Bonds! How
some people abroad have learned to
curse the very mention of them these
last many months! I don’t know where
that tiresome man, Litvinoff, first got
them from, but my poor friends, whose
business all this is, were running after
them at least ten months ago. Sometimes
they were in Russia, sometimes
they showed up in Denmark, sometimes
they got scent of them in Germany, and
I am told it is the merest fluke that the
Bonds did not come to Switzerland for
the winter sports. And wherever they
turned up they were always just on their
way to England; either they had a poor
sense of direction or, being bad sailors,
were afraid of the crossing. There was
never any knowing in what corner of
the earth they would next be appearing;
in fact the only country which
those Chinese Bonds seemed to have
successfully avoided was China.

The first time we heard of them, I
will admit that we were thrilled. They
gave a touch of reality to an otherwise
over-hairy and unconvincing
narrative of conspiracy. The
second time we were told of
them we were pleasurably
moved. So it was true, after
all, about those Chinese Bonds?

The third time we heard of
them we were satisfied; the
fourth time we heard of them
we were indifferent; the fifth
time bored, the sixth time irritated,
the seventh time infuriated,
and the eighth time we
said to our informant, “Now
look you here. We appreciate
the excitement of your mysterious
presence and the soothing
effects of your hushed voice,
and as long as you care to go
on revealing your secrets we
will listen. You may speak of
finance and you may even
touch upon British bank-notes
forged by the Soviets; you
may go so far as to divulge
some new forms of script involved,
getting as near as even,
say, Japanese Debentures; but
if you so much as mention
China or its Bonds to us again
we will wrap you up in a parcel
and post you to Moscow with
a personal note of warning to
Lenin as to your inner knowledge
and the dangerous publicity
you are giving it.”

For ourselves we wrote many
a learned treatise on the subject
and sent many a thousand
memos home to those authorities
near to whose hearts the
welfare of those Bonds should be. And
after many months of this correspondence
someone in the what-d’you-call-it
office suddenly sat up and took notice
and wrote to us as follows: “His
Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State
for Thingummy has the honour to
inform you that rumours have reached
his ears concerning the existence of
certain bonds, alleged to be Chinese,
in the hands of Bolshevist agitators
coming or intending to come to this
country. You are requested to ascertain
and report what, if anything, is
known of these Chinese Bonds.”

I could have made a story for you of
[pg 349]
the uses to which the Bonds were put
in other countries and newspapers as
well as your own. But that painfully
honest journal, The Daily Herald, has
anticipated me. And anything more
you want to know about the conspiracies
or the conspirators you may now,
as I judge from reading your Press,
experience for yourself. So upon that
these letters may end. I would like to
have concluded by a protestation that,
in making these frank statements as to
the working of, and against, the Conspirators,
I personally draw no pecuniary
benefit of any sort, not a sovereign, not
a bob, not a half-penny stamp. It is
perhaps better, however, to anticipate
discovery by owning up to the fact
that my frankness is being paid for at
so many pence per line.

Yours ever,           
Henry.

(Concluded.)

Nervous Party. “Are you sure that lobster’s all right?”

Fishmonger (on his dignity). “Quite right, Sir. If it isn’t we shall be here to-morrow.”

Nervous Party. “Yes—but shall I be here to-morrow?”

Epitaph for a Professor of Tango:

“Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit.”

THE CAGE.

He stood in the packed building, a
small lonely figure, pathetic in the
isolation that shut him off from the
warm humanity of the watching crowd.

He felt weak, ill, but he struggled
to bear himself bravely. He could not
move his eyes from the stern white
face that seemed to fill all the space in
front of him. About that cold minatory
figure, which was speaking to him
in such passionless even tones, clung
an atmosphere of awe; the traditional
robes of office lent it a majesty that
crushed his will.

He knew he was being addressed,
and he strove to listen. His brain was
a torrent of thoughts. And so his life
had come to this. It was indeed the
final catastrophe. That was surely what
the voice meant—that voice which went
on and on in an even stream of sound
without meaning. Why had he come
to this—in the flower of his life to lose
its chiefest gift, Liberty?

Up and down the spaces of his brain
thought sped like fire. The people
behind—did they care? A few perhaps
pitied him. The others were indifferent.
To them it was merely a spectacle.

Suddenly into his mind crept the
consciousness of a vast silence. The
voice had stopped. The abrupt cessation
of sound whipped his quivering
nerves. It was like the holding of a
great breath.

He gathered his forces. He knew
that the huge concourse waited. A question
had been put to him. It seemed
as if the world stood still to listen.

He moistened his lips. He knew
what he had meant to say, but his
tongue was a traitor to his desire.
What use now to plead? The soundlessness
grew intolerable. He thought
he should cry aloud.

And then—

“I will,” he said, and, looking sideways,
caught the swift shy glance of
his bride.

The Master Plumber. “I’ve never seed a bloke take so long over a job in all me life.
That lad’ll go far.”

NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.

The Sponge.

A. P. H.

HOW TO MISS THE MISSING LINK.

We understand that an expedition
will shortly leave the United States for
Central Asia in search of the Missing
Link. “Aeroplanes, motor cars, camels,
mules and all means of locomotion
found suitable will be used by the anthropologists,
archæologists and other
scientists” taking part.

We predict that an enterprise so
opposed to all the traditions of exploration
is doomed to failure. We cannot
doubt that the Missing Link possesses
a sense of smell keen enough to detect
a camel or a Ford car while yet afar
off. His regrettable elusiveness is more
likely to be established than overcome
when he beholds mules and anthropologists,
attended by aeroplanes and
motor-cars, and possibly whippet-tanks,
motor-scooters and phrenologists. Even
if there are only nine or ten of each
variety it will be enough to ensure that
the adventurers miss the Link after all.

Another aspect of the expedition
should be borne in mind. The progress
through the jungle of such vehicles
and personnel would cause something
like consternation among the larger
fauna, whose limited intelligence might
reasonably fail to distinguish the procession
from a travelling menagerie. In
these days of unrest is it right, is it expedient,
thus to stir up species hatred?
It would be indeed deplorable if the
present quest were to be followed by a
search party got up to trace the missing
Missing Link expedition.

Surely the old methods of the explorer
are still the best. Simply equipped
with an elephant-rifle and a pith helmet,
let him plunge into the bush and be
lost to sight for a few years. Whereas
the Missing Link may be relied on to
remain resolutely beneath his rock at
the sight of a sort of a Lord Mayor’s
Show wandering among the vegetation,
the spectacle of a simple-looking traveller
in the midst of the lonely forest
would rather encourage the creature to
emerge from its place of retreat.

Then nothing would remain but for the
explorer to advance with out-stretched
hand (preferably the left), and exclaim,
“The Missing Link, I presume?”

A CLOSE CORPORATION.

Ex-Service Man (unemployed). “IF YOU’RE SO SHORT OF LABOUR, WHY DON’T YOU
TAKE ME ON?”

Trade Union Official. “MY GOOD FELLOW, BRICKLAYING REQUIRES YEARS AND YEARS
OF APPRENTICESHIP.”

Ex-Service Man. “SO DOES SOLDIERING; BUT THEY WEREN’T SO PARTICULAR WHEN
THERE WAS WORK TO BE DONE AT THE FRONT.”

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

A GOVERNMENT RECRUIT.

Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.

Monday, October 25th.—Sir Philip
Lloyd-Greame, the newest recruit on
the Treasury Bench, already answers
Questions with all the assurance of the
other Lloyd G. His readiness in referring
the inquisitive to other Departments
and in declining to go beyond
his brief—witness his modest refusal to
discuss in reply to a Supplementary
Question the possibility of imposing a
tariff in this country—suggests that
somewhere behind the Speaker’s chair
there must be a school for Under-Secretaries
where the callow back-bencher
is instructed in the arts and crafts required
in the seats of the mighty.

For this purpose I can imagine no
better instructor than the Attorney-General,
who combines scrupulous
politeness with an icy precision of language.
Take, for example, his treatment
of Mr. Pemberton Billing’s defiant
inquiry if it would now be “compatible
with the dignity of the Government”
to say that there had never been any
intention to bring the War-criminals
to trial. “No,” replied Sir Gordon
Hewart in his most pedagogic manner,
“it cannot be compatible with anyone’s
dignity to make a statement which is
manifestly untrue.”

SOMETHING “SUBSTANTIAL.”

Mr. Will Thorne.

This week was to have been devoted,
de die in diem, to getting on with the
Government of Ireland Bill. But the
malignant sprite that has hitherto foiled
every effort to pacify Ireland again intervened,
and the House found itself
called upon to discuss the Emergency
Powers Bill. The measure is a peace-time
successor to D.O.R.A. (who in the
opinion of the Government is getting
a little passée) and, perhaps naturally,
met with little approval. Mr. Asquith,
while admitting that something of the
kind might be required, took exception
to the vagueness of its drafting. “What
is ‘substantial’?” he inquired. “Ask
them another!” Mr. Will Thorne
joyfully interjected. “What is ‘substantial’?”
repeated the ex-Premier;
whereupon the Coalition with one voice
replied, “Will Thorne.”

With consummate skill the Prime
Minister managed to get the House
out of its hostile mood and to satisfy
the majority, at any rate, that the
measure was neither provocative nor
inopportune, but a necessary precaution
against the possibility that “direct
action” on the part of extra-Parliamentary
bodies might confront the
country with the alternatives of starvation
or surrender.

Tuesday, October 26th.—In these
troublous times the House gladly seizes
the smallest occasion for merriment.
There was great laughter when Colonel
Yate, the politest of men, inadvertently
referred to Sir Archibald Williamson
as “the right honourable gent,” and it
broke forth again when, in his anxiety to
make no further slip, he addressed him
tout court as “the right honourable.”

There are some fifty thousand British
soldiers in Ireland, costing over a
million pounds a month. But Mr.
Churchill took the cheery view that
after all they had to be somewhere,
and would cost nearly as much even in
Great Britain.

THE BOLD BAD BARON.

Sir Gordon Hewart. “Merely a framework—quite  useless without a rope.”

They would cost a good deal more
in Mesopotamia, where we have a
hundred thousand troops (British and
Indian), and the cost is two and a half
millions a month. Sir William Joynson-Hicks
could not understand why
we should spend all this money “merely
to hand the country back to the rebels.”
Mr. Churchill said he had heard nothing
about handing the country back
to the rebels; from which it may be
inferred either that he is not admitted
into all the secrets of the Cabinet or
that he draws a distinction between
“rebels” and “persons who object to
British rule.”

The Press campaign in favour of a
nickel three-halfpenny coin has not succeeded.
In Mr. Chamberlain’s opinion
it would not be a coin of vantage.
Among his objections to it may be the
extreme probability that the present
Administration would promptly be nicknamed
(I will not say nickel-named)
“the Three-half-penny Government.”

Owing to a number of concessions
announced by the Home Secretary
the Emergency Powers Bill had a fairly
smooth passage through Committee.
Objections were still raised to making
an Emergency Act permanent—it does
sound rather like a contradiction in
terms—but the Attorney-General
skilfully countered them by pointing
out that it was only the framework of
the machinery, not the regulations, that
would be permanent. One can imagine
the bold bad baron who set up a gallows
to overawe his villeins comforting objectors
with the remark that after all it
was merely a framework—quite useless
without a rope.

A PILLAR OF THE CHURCH.

Wednesday, October 27th.—Much
pother in the Lords because the First
Commissioner of Works had set up
a Committee to advise him with regard
to the preservation of ancient[pg 354]
monuments, including cathedrals and
churches, without first consulting the
ecclesiastical authorities. Lord Parmoor
moved a condemnatory resolution,
and His Grace of Canterbury,
after renouncing Sir Alfred Mond and
all his works, declared that, so far as
religious edifices were concerned, the
proposed Committee was a superfluity
of naughtiness with which he personally
would have nothing to do. Lord
Lytton, with that delightful free-and-easiness
which characterises the attitude
of our present Ministers towards
their colleagues, observed that he could
have sympathised with the objectors if
it were really intended to place
cathedrals under Sir Alfred’s
care; but it wasn’t;—so why all
this fuss? Lord Crawford, while
sharing the Opposition’s dislike
of restorers, from Viollet-le-Duc
to the late Lord Grimthorpe,
could not admit that in this matter
the Office of Works had been
guilty of anything worse than a
want of tact. Lord Parmoor insisted
on going to a division, and
carried his motion by 27 to 17.
Despite this shattering blow the
Government is said to be going
on as well as can be expected.

What happened at Jutland?
After four years’ cogitation the
Admiralty does not appear to
have emerged from the state of
uncertainty into which it was
plunged by the first news of the
battle. In February last Mr. Long
announced that the official report
would be published “shortly,” but
then the German sailors began
to publish their stories, and these
not very unnaturally differed from
the British accounts. So now
My Lords have decided to leave
Sir Julian Corbett’s Naval History
of the War to unravel the
tangle and inform Lords Jellicoe and
Beatty (who, according to Sir James
Craig, are quite agreeable to the proposal)
exactly what they and their gallant
seamen really did on that famous
occasion.

Thursday, October 28th.—There being
no Labour Party in the House of Lords
the Emergency Powers Bill passed
through all its stages in a single sitting.
Even Lord Crewe did not challenge its
necessity in these troublous times, but
Lord Askwith was a little alarmed
at the possibility that “an unreasoning
Home Secretary”—as if there could
ever be such a monster!—might be over-hasty
to issue Orders in Council, and so
exacerbate an industrial dispute.

A long list of “reprisal” Questions—mercifully
curtailed by the time-limit—was
chiefly remarkable for Sir Hamar
Greenwood’s emphatic declaration that
he was not going to accept the statements
even of English newspaper
correspondents against the reports of
officials “for whom I am responsible
and in whom I have confidence.”

Assuming that the House of Commons
is, as it ought to be, a microcosm
of the population, it will be some time
before this country goes “dry.” Members
of all parties pressed upon the
Prime Minister the necessity of relaxing
the regulations of the Liquor
Control Board. His suggestion that
an informal Committee should be set
up to make recommendations to the
Government was received with cheers,
and there was much amusement when
Mr. Bottomley and Lady Astor, who
do not, I gather, quite see eye to eye on
this subject, promptly nominated themselves
for membership.

As the Prime Minister is popularly
supposed to be not averse from appearing
in the limelight, especially when
there is good news to impart, it is
pleasant to record that he left to Sir
Robert Horne the congenial task of
announcing that an agreement had
been reached with the Miners’ Federation,
and that the coal-strike was on
the high road to settlement. The
terms, as stated, seemed to be satisfactory
to all parties, and the only mystery
is why the negotiators should have
required the stimulus of a strike before
they could arrive at them.

THE DOWNING OF THE PEN.

A little difference of opinion on the
moral aspect of strikes which has been
ventilated in The Daily News has caused
one correspondent to write: “Let us
suppose that Mr. Silas Hocking regards
the serial rights of one of his novels as
worth £250. Suppose I offer him £100.
What does he do? He withholds his
labour; and quite right too!”

But does this analogy go far enough?
It would be a simple matter, for which
we might easily console ourselves, if
the author in question merely withheld
his own labour. But if he followed
modern strike tactics he would
do more.

Calling in aid the services of
his brother Joseph, he would endeavour
by peaceful persuasion to
induce Mrs. Asquith, Mr. Arnold
Bennett, Mrs. Elinor Glyn, Mr.
Compton Mackenzie and others
to withhold their labour also.
Picketing would follow, and London
would be stirred to its depths
by the news that Sir Hall Caine
was on duty outside the establishment
of The Sunday Pictorial,
and that Miss Ethel M. Dell
was in charge of the squad on the
doorstep of the Amalgamated
Press.

Sympathetic strikes would develope.
The newspaper-vendors
would rise and demand that The
Daily Mirror feuilleton be suppressed,
thus plunging the country
into an agony of suspense,
and railwaymen would cease work
at the sight of any passenger immersed
in the most recent instalment
of the Home Bits serial story.

Mr. W. W. Jacobs would address
mass meetings at the Docks,
and Mr. Hilaire Belloc would
embark on a resolute thirst-strike.
At the same time daily newspapers
would compete in offering solutions of
the problem. One would say, “For
goodness’ sake give him the extra paltry
one hundred and fifty pounds and
let the country get on with its work;”
and another would suggest a compromise
at one hundred-and-fifty guineas,
conditional upon the author’s output.

Far from the simple withholding of
his labour by a single novelist, such a
turmoil would ensue as would not only
shake our intellectual life to its foundations,
but would keep the Prime
Minister engaged in the exploration
of interminable vistas of avenue.

Mixed Education.

“Formerly a student at Lady Margaret Hall,
Oxford, her husband is a Fellow of Balliol
College.”

—Local Paper.

Prospective Sitter (with unconventional past). “I always think you get such wonderful character into your portraits.”

Artist. “Glad to hear that. I always try to make my subjects’ portraits a mirror of their past lives.”

THE SUBSTITUTE.

[Sweets are replacing alcohol.—Vide Papers passim.]

From a P.S.A. notice:—

“Subject: ‘A Renewed World—No Sorrow. No Pain.
No Death.’ No Collection.”

—Local Paper.

The last item sounds almost too good to be true.

“The proposed changes were discussed with the captain of the
England side and one or two prominent crickets who had visited
Australia.”

—Expensive Daily Paper.

Hitherto it had been supposed that these cheerful little
creatures only sought the kind of “ashes” that you get on
the domestic hearth.

“We ain’t a bit afraid, Alfy ‘Iggins. Yer own fice is a lump uglier.”

A STRIKE IN FAIRYLAND.

The fairies were holding a meeting.

“They grumble when we send the rain,” said a Rain-fairy,
“and they grumble when we don’t.”

“And we get no thanks,” sighed a Flower-fairy. “The
time we spend getting the flowers ready and washing their
faces and folding them up every night!”

“As for the stars,” said a Star-fairy, “we might just as
well leave them unlit for all the gratitude we get, and it’s
such a rush sometimes to get all over the sky in time. They
don’t even believe in us. We wouldn’t mind anything if they
believed in us.”

“No,” agreed a Rainbow-fairy, “that’s true. I take such
a lot of trouble to get just the right colours, and it has to be
done so quickly. But I wouldn’t mind if they believed in us.”

“I wonder what they‘d do,” said the Queen, “if no one
believed in them?”

“They’d go on strike,” said the Brown Owl (he was
head of the Ministry of Wisdom). “They always go on
strike if they don’t like anything.”

“Then we’ll go on strike,” said the Queen with great
determination.

They all cheered, except the Flower-fairies.

“But the flowers,” they said, “they’ll get so dusty with
no one to wash them, and so tired with no one to fold them
up at nights.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said the Queen. “When
they go on strike,” she said to the Brown Owl, “how do
things get done?”

The Brown Owl considered for a moment and everyone
waited in silence.

“Of course there are sometimes blacklegs,” he began.

“I don’t know what blacklegs are,” said the Queen
cheerfully, “but we’ll appoint some.” And she did.

“Is that all?” said the Queen.

“Someone ought to have a sympathetic strike with us,”
said the Brown Owl. “They always do that.”

So a fairy was sent off to the Court of the Birds to
request a sympathetic strike.

“Is that all?” said the Queen.

“You ought to talk more,” said the Brown Owl. “They
talk ever so much.”

“Yes, but they can’t help it, can they?” said the Queen
kindly.

And so the strike began that evening.

None of the birds sang except one little blackleg Robin,
who sang so hard in his efforts to make up for the rest
that he was as hoarse as a crow the next morning. The
blackleg fairies had a hard time too. They hadn’t a minute
to gossip with the flowers, as they usually did when they
flew round with their acorn-cups of dew and thistledown
sponges and washed their faces and folded up their petals
and kissed them good-night.

“But what’s the matter?” said the flowers sleepily.

“We’re on strike,” said one of the other fairies importantly
“not for ourselves, but for posterity.”

The Brown Owl had heard them say that.

Meanwhile the rest of the fairies sat silent and rather
mournful, awaiting developments.

Then a Thought-fairy flew in. Thought-fairies can see
into your heart and know just what you think. They get
terrible shocks sometimes.

“I’ve been all over the world,” she said breathlessly,
“and it’s much better than you think. All little girls
believe in us and—” She paused dramatically.

“Yes?” they said eagerly.

“All fathers of little girls believe in us.”

The Queen shook her head.

“They only pretend,” she said.

“No, that’s just it,” said the Thought-fairy. “They
pretend to pretend. They never tell anyone, but they really
believe.”

“Then we’ll end the strike,” said the Queen.

Here the Brown Owl bustled in, carrying a little note-book.

“I’ve found out lots more,” he said excitedly. “We
must have an executive and delegates and a ballot and a
union and a Sankey Commission report and a scale of the
cost of living and a datum line and—”

“But the strike’s over,” said the Queen. “It was a
misunderstanding.”

“Of course,” he said huffily. “All strikes are that, but
it’s correct to carry them on as long as possible.”

“And the blacklegs are to have a special reward.”

“That’s illogical,” muttered the Brown Owl.

He was right, of course, but things are illogical in
Fairyland. That’s the nicest part of it.

Salesman. “It is possible that it may interest you to know that our car was driven up all the flights of steps at
the Crystal Palace.”

Inquiring Visitor. “Well—er—not much. You see, I live in a bungalow.”

“Fears are entertained that the chalice, which is of silver-gilt, may
have been broken up and investments profaned.”

—Daily Herald.

We should have thought that our Communistic contemporary
was the last paper that would have considered
investments sacred.

“K. T. B—— and T. W. H——, both of Liverpool, who were in
company with Mr. L—— in the car, agreed that the speed was
about fifty-one miles an hour. On the gradient and at the turn it was
not safe to travel faster.”

—Provincial Paper.

One of those examples of “Safety First” which we are
always pleased to chronicle.

THE OPENING RUN.

IN PRAISE OF THE PELICANS.

RING IN THE OLD.

There is a shabby-looking man who
(I read it in The Times) rings the bell
of London hospitals, asks to see the secretary,
presumes (as is always a safe
thing to do) that the establishment is
grievously in need of funds, and without
any further parley hands to the startled
but gratified official bank-notes to the
tune of five hundred pounds. He then
vanishes without giving name or address.
This unknown benefactor is
dressed in top-boots, riding breeches of
honourable antiquity, a black coat green
with age and a “Cup Final” cap. At
the same time (this too on The Times‘
authority) there is an oddly and obsolescently
attired lady going about who
also makes London hospitals her hobby.
She begins by asking the secretary if
she may take off her boots, and, receiving
permission, takes them off, places
her feet on an adjacent chair and hands
him two thousand pounds.

The result of the activities of these
angelic visitants is that all the other
hospital porters have had instructions
from their eager and hopeful secretaries
to be careful to be polite to any and
every person, even though he or she
should be in rags, who expresses the
faintest desire to enter on business;
more than polite—solicitous, welcoming,
cordial; while all the secretaries
are at this moment polishing up their
smiles and practising an easy manner
with ladies in last century costumes who
put sudden and unexpected requests.

The Times, in limiting the effect of
these curious occurrences entirely to
hospital servants, seems to me to lose
a great opportunity. Surely the consequences
will be more wide-reaching
than that? To my mind we may even
go so far as to hail the dawn of the
golden age for old clothes; for in the
fear that shabbiness may be merely
a whimsical disguise or the mark of
a millionaire’s eccentricity the whole
world (which is very imitative and very
hard up) will begin to fawn upon it,
and then at last many of us will enter
the earthly paradise.

But the gentleman who puts ease
before elegance and the lady who prefers
comfort to convention have got to
work a little harder yet. They must
not fold their hands at the moment
under the impression that their labours
are done. The support of hospitals is
humane and only too necessary, and
all honour to them for their generosity;
but other spheres of action await exploration.

I had hoped that the War was going
to reform ideas on dress and make
things more simple for those whose
trouser-knees go baggy so soon and remain
thus for so long; but, like too
many of the expectations which we used
to foster, this also has failed. It is
therefore the benign couple who must
carry on the good work. Let them, if
they really love their fellow-creatures,
go to a wedding or two (having previously
given a present of sufficient
value to ensure respect) and display
their careless garb among the guests,
and then in a little while old garments
would at these exacting functions become
as fashionable as new and we
should all be happier.

I was asked to a wedding last week,
and should have accepted but for the
great Smart Clothes tradition. If The
Times‘ hero and heroine were to become
imaginatively busy as I suggest,
I could go to all the weddings in the
world. (Heaven forbid!) Receptions,
formal lunches, the laying of stones,
the unveiling of monuments, private
views—these ceremonies, now so full
of terrors for any but the dressy, could
be made endurable if only the gentleman
in the black coat green with age
and the lady with the elastic sides
would show themselves prominently
and receive conspicuous attentions.

And then, if any more statues were
needed for the police to keep their
waterproofs on, one of them should be
that of an unknown philanthropical
gentleman who wears venerable top-boots,
and another that of a philanthropical
lady who would rather be
without any boots at all, and the inscription
on the pedestals would state that
their glorious achievement was this:
They made old clothes the thing.

E. V. L.

THE OLD BEER FLAGON.

(Many old English flagons are adorned
inside with grotesque figures of animals.)

Commercial Candour.

“Cleaning and pressing suites, $3. Dyeing
and pressing suits, $6. Clothes returned
looking like now.”

Advt. in “Standard” (Buenos Aires).

From an election address:—

“As a woman and a ratepayer, I realise the
importance of eliminating all unavoidable
expenditure in Municipal undertakings.”

Local Paper.

We trust she will be elected and show
how it’s done.

“After an interval of seven years, the
‘Beasts’ Ball, a pre-war popular annual event
in aid of the Royal Society for Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, is to be held at the Guildhall,
on Wednesday, November 10. Tickets
can be obtained from Mrs. Bushe-Fox and
from Mrs. Wolf.”

—Cambridge Review.

It sounds just like Uncle Remus.

ECHOES OF THE COAL STRIKE.

“What’s the kid shouting about? There ain’t no racing.“

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

“Two households, both alike in dignity….” I ask
you, could the novel, of which this quotation is the text,
have been written by anyone but Mr. John Galsworthy?
Actually indeed the disputants belong to two branches of
the same family, that grim tribe of Forsytes, whom you
remember in The Man of Property, and of whose collective
history the present book is a further instalment (not, I
fancy, the last). I should certainly advise anyone not already
familiar with the former work to get up his Forsytes therein
before attacking this; otherwise he may risk some discouragement
from the plunge into so numerous a clan,
known for the most part only by Christian names, with
their complex relationships and the mass of bygone happenings
that unites or separates them. This stage of the
tribal history is called In Chancery (Heinemann), chiefly
from the state of suspended animation experienced by the
now middle-aged Soames (“Man of Property”) with regard
to his never-divorced runaway wife Irene. Following the
ruling Forsyte instinct, Soames wants a son who will keep
together and even increase his great possessions, while
continuing his personality. The expiring generation, represented
by James, is urgent upon this duty to the family.
You may imagine what Mr. Galsworthy makes of it all.
These possessive persons, with their wealth, their hatred
and affections and their various strongholds in the more
eminently desirable parts of residential London, affect one
like portions of some monstrous stone-fronted edifice, impressive
but repellent. I have some curiosity to see, with
Mr. Galsworthy’s help, how the Forsyte castle stands
the disintegration of 1914-18.

What with the scientists who explain things on the
assumption that we know nearly as much as they do and
those who explain things on the assumption that we know
nothing, it is very difficult for you and me to persevere in
our original determination to learn something. But I have
always felt that Sir Ray Lankester is one of the very few
who do understand us, and I feel it still more strongly now
that I have read his Secrets of Earth and Sea (Methuen).
He is instructive but human; he does not take it for granted
that we know what miscegenation means, but he does
credit us with a little intelligence. And he realises how
many arguments we have had about questions like “Why
does the sea look blue?” Personally I rushed at that
chapter, though I must say that I was a little disappointed
to find that the gist of his answer was “Because water is
blue.” You see, if you had a tooth-glass fifteen feet high
and filled it with water—But you must find out for
yourself. Then I went on to the chapter on Coal, and
discovered that “it is fairly certain that the blacker coal
which we find in strata of great geological age was so produced
by the action of special kinds of bacteria upon peat-like
masses of vegetable refuse.” I wonder if Mr. Smillie
[pg 360]
knows that. It might help him to a sense of proportion.
The author is constantly setting up a surprising but stimulating
relation between the naturalist’s researches and the
problems of human life, as when he observes that “the
‘colour bar’ is not merely the invention of human prejudice,
but already exists in wild plants and animals,” and in his
remarks on mongrels and the regrettable subjection of the
males of many species. There are chapters on Wheel
Animalcules, Vesuvius, Prehistoric Art—everything—and all
are admirably illustrated. A fascinating book.

The Diary of a Journalist (Murray) is a volume of which
the title is its own sufficient description, save that it leaves
unsuggested the interest that such briskly written and
comprehensive comments as these of our old friend, Sir
Henry Lucy, must command. His book differs from most
of those in the flood of recollections that has lately broken
upon us in being a selection from “impressions of the
moment written without knowledge of the ultimate result.”
In these stray moments
between the years 1885
and 1917 I find at least
two examples in which
this ignorance of the
final event adds much
to the interest of the
immediate record—the
startling forecast of the
ex-Kaiser’s destiny,
entered in the Diary
under November ’98;
and the mention, long
before the actual illness
of King Edward declared
itself, of the
growing belief in certain
circles that his
coronation would never
take place. It is at
once obvious that not
even “Toby’s” three
previous volumes have
by any means exhausted
his fund of good
stories, the scenes of
which range from Westminster
to Bouverie Street, and round half the stately (or, at
least, interesting) homes of England. Of them all—not
forgetting Disraeli and the peacocks and a new W. S.
Gilbert—my personal choice would be for the mystery
of the Unknown Guest, who not only took a place,
but was persuaded to speak, at a private dinner given by
Sir John Hare at the Garrick Club, without anyone ever
knowing who he was or how he came there. A genial
lucky-bag book, which (despite unusually full chapter headings)
would be improved by an index to its many prizes.

Mr. James Hilton is very young and very clever. If, as
he grows older, he learns to be clever about more interesting
things he ought to write some very good novels. Catherine
Herself (Unwin) has red hair, but then she has a rather
more red-haired disposition than most red-haired heroines
have to justify it, so this is not my real objection to the
book. My quarrel is that, though I cannot call it an ugly
story without giving a false impression, it is certainly a
quite unbeautiful one, and at the end of its three hundred
and more pages it has achieved nothing but a full-length
portrait of an utterly selfish woman. Mr. Hilton has
dissected her most brilliantly; but I don’t think she is
worth it. Catherines, whether they marry or are given in
marriage, or do anything else, are really stationary; and,
since the persons of a story, if it is to be worth telling,
must move in some direction, Mr. Hilton will be well
advised in future to choose a different type of heroine. I
want to say too that I don’t believe that it is either so
easy or so profitable to become a well-known pianist “not
in the front rank” as he seems to imagine it is. I wish I
could think that no one else would believe him.

Knight (to his henchman). “Everything all right, Perkins? You haven’t
forgotten anything? What’s that?“

Henchman. “It’s the portrait of your lady, Sir, that you promised
to take into battle with you, Sir.“

Knight. “Did I? Well, I must e’en keep my word. Fasten it on my
back. One never knows—it may be useful in case of a reverse.“

It seems rather a bright idea of C. Nina Boyle to
dedicate “to Thea and Irene, whose lives have lain in
sheltered ways,” a seven-shilling shocker about ways that
are anything but sheltered. Perhaps the sheltered in general,
and Thea and Irene in particular, will take it from me that
the villainies of Out of the Frying Pan are much larger than
life or, at any rate, much more concentrated, and that
pseudo-orphans like Maisie usually have a better chance
of getting out of frying-pans into something cool than
the author allows her
heroine. I also submit
that there was nothing
in Maisie’s equipment
to suggest that she
would have been quite
so slow in separating
goats from sheep. But
let me say that Thea
and Irene have had
dedicated to them an
exciting and amusing
fritto misto of crooks,
demi-mondaines, blackmailers,
gamblers,
roués, murderers, receivers
and decent congenital
idiots of all sorts.
The characterisation is
adroitly done and the
workmanship avoids
that slovenliness which
makes nineteen out of
twenty books of this
kind a weariness of
spirit to the perceptive.
I wonder if Maisie with
such a father and mother would have been such a darling.
Perhaps Professor Karl Pearson will explain.

The Hon. William Toppys (pronounced “Tops”), brother
of Lord Topsham, left Devonshire and retired to an island in
the Torres Straits. There he married a Melanesian woman
and became the father of a frizzy-haired and coffee-coloured
son. It is a little strange to me, who think of
Mr. Bennet Copplestone as Devonian to the tip of his
pen-finger, that the Hon. William is not rebuked for so
shamelessly deserting his native county. Instead he is
almost applauded for his wisdom, and this despite the fact
that he quite spoilt the look of the family tree with his exotic
graft. For in the course of time his son, insularly known as
Willatopy, inherited the title and became twenty-eighth
(no less) Baron of Topsham. Mr. Copplestone does not
realise the vast difference between light comedy and broad
farce, but apart from this substantial reservation I can
vouch that his yarn of Madame Gilbert’s Cannibal (Murray)
is deftly spun. Should you decide to follow the famous
Madame Gilbert when she visits the island where the
twenty-eighth baron lived you will witness a lively and
unusual entertainment.