PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 156.

February 5, 1919.

CHARIVARIA.

The Germans refer to the Armistice negotiations as
Waffenstillstandeverhandlungen. We hope it will be worse
even than they think.

There is no truth in the rumour that among the many new
performances of Hamlet which are promised there will be
one in aid of the fund for brightening the lives of the clergy,
with the Gloomy Dean as the Gloomy Dane.

“We Americans do not consider ourselves the salt of the
earth,” says Senator HENRY. No, but their bacon certainly
is.

In view of the fact that there is a large quantity of
marmalade in the country, it has been decided to release it.
This is such a satisfactory solution of the problem that people
are wondering whether the Food Ministry thought of that one
themselves.

Our heart goes out to the soldier who, when offered, on
demobilisation, the option of fifty-two shillings and sixpence
or a standard suit, replied that he would rather pay the
fine.

The only surprising thing about Mr. C.B. COCHRAN’S proposal
for a Peace Fair in Hyde Park, to be arranged largely by
himself, is that there is no mention of a Serpentine dance for
DELYSIA.

The Australian Government proposes to send returned
Australian soldiers to prospect for minerals in the Northern
Territories. Whether they will be interested in them after
their experience in England in failing to locate quarts is
another matter.

Sir EDWARD ELGAR has dedicated his new orchestral work,
“Polonia,” to M. PADEREWSKI. The report that the distinguished
pianist-politician is thinking of retorting with a fugue,
“Stiltonia,” is not confirmed.

The Aircraft Salvage branch announces that not less than one
thousand five hundred yards of the aeroplane linen which is
being disposed of to the public will be sold to one purchaser.
In the event of the purchaser deciding to use it as a
pocket-handkerchief he can have it hemstitched for a trifling
sum.

Improvement is reported in the condition of the taxi-cab
driver who had a seizure in Piccadilly Circus while attempting
to say “Thank you” to a fare.

We are pleased to be able to announce that the Kensington
man who last week managed to board a tube train has consented
to write a book about it.

Writing to a contemporary a Leeds correspondent says that he
does not think much of an inactive corporation. As a matter of
fact, since the introduction of rationing we didn’t think
active ones were being worn.

As a result of munition work, says a health journal, quite a
number of men have given up smoking tobacco. We suppose the
theory is that they have now taken to smoking threepenny
cigars.

Mrs. MAGGIE HATHWAY of Montana is to be congratulated upon
running a six-hundred-acre farm without the help of men’s
labour. After all we men must admit that her sporting effort is
a distinct score for the second oldest sex in the world.

Anglesea Police Commission are offering one shilling and
sixpence a dozen for rats’ tails to residents of the county.
Some difficulty is expected in distinguishing local from
imported tails once they are separated from the rat.

In connection with the offers for Drury Lane Theatre it
appears that one of the would-be purchasers declares that he
was more syndicate than sinning.

In connection with the epidemic of burglaries in London,
The Daily Express has now published a leader note saying
there have been too many of late. It is hoped that this will
have the desired effect.

We are glad to report that the gentleman who, at the BURNS
festival, upon being asked if he would take a little haggis
replied that he wouldn’t mind trying a wing, managed to escape
with his life.

A West Hampstead architect has designed a cottage in which
there will be no bricks in the walls, no timber in the roof, no
slates or tiles and no register grates. Too late.
Jerry-builders accomplished that trick years ago.

While walking in Highams Park, Chingford, says a
contemporary, a postman picked up a package containing one
ounce of butter. To his eternal credit let it be said that he
at once took it to the nearest police station.

The best brains of the country are still exercised by the
alleged need of brightening cricket. One of our own suggestions
is that the bowler should be compelled to do three Jazz-steps
and two Fox-trots before delivering the ball.

A typist recently fell from a moving train on the Isle of
Wight railway, but was able to get up and walk towards her
destination. We hear she had a good deal to say to the guard
when she overtook the train.

DEPARTURE FROM DOWNING STREET 10 A.M.

ARRIVAL AT THE QUAI D’ORSAY 10.5 A.M.

THE NEW AERO-GUN SERVICE BETWEEN LONDON AND
PARIS.

SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF HOW MR. LLOYD GEORGE
CAN BE IN BOTH PLACES MORE OR LESS AT ONCE.

From a feuilleton:—

“He had a cleft in his chain which Rosemarie thought
most attractive.”—Evening News.

There is no accounting for tastes. We should have
thought it suggested the Missing Link.

EVICTED.

(A common scandal, inviting the attention of the
Government.)

I was amazed the other day to hear that my landlord had
called to see me. Hitherto our intercourse had been by letter
and we had had heated differences on the subject of repairs.
His standpoint seemed to be that landlords were responsible for
repairs only to lightning conductors and weathercocks. My house
possesses neither of these desirable adjuncts.

I moved an armchair so that no one sitting in it could fail
to see the dampest wall and ordered him to be shown in.

He was a most benevolent-looking old gentleman, and I felt I
had done him an injustice in regarding him as a property
shark.

“Glad to see you,” he said, shaking me warmly by the
hand.

“Do sit down,” I said. “That chair is the most comfortable.
Don’t be afraid. At that distance from the wall the damp won’t
affect you.”

“So glad to see how comfortable you are here,” said the
benevolent one.

“If we could occasionally have a hot bath we should be more
comfortable, but the kitchen range is impossible.”

“What you need, my friend, is a house of your own so that
you can adapt it to your own ideas. How would you like this
house?”

My breath was taken away. Had the kindly one come to present
me with a house? Was I to be the object of an amiable
plutocrat’s benevolence?

“I should like it very much,” I said.

“You shall have it,” he said, slapping me amiably on the
knee.

I gasped for breath. In my time I had had boxes of cigars
given me, but never houses.

“For fifteen hundred pounds, as you are the tenant,”
continued the benevolent one.

I gasped for breath again.

“But you bought it for five hundred and fifty pounds just
before the War,” I said when I had recovered.

“Ah, before the War,” chuckled the philanthropist.

“I don’t think I can afford fifteen hundred pounds.”

The benevolent one looked disappointed in me. “Dear me,” he
said, “and I wanted so much to sell it to you. Well, I shall
have to give you notice to quit in June. This house must be
sold.”

“But I can’t get another house.”

“You can have this house. But surely you have some friend
who will advance you fifteen hundred pounds?”

“You don’t know my friends. It would be very awkward to be
turned into the street.”

“You should have a house of your own and be independent.
Every man should own his home. Now can’t you think of some
friend who could assist you?”

“Could you lend me fifteen hundred pounds for a rather
speculative investment?” I inquired.

“Since my kindly consideration for a tenant is treated with
mockery I give you written notice to leave. A ‘For Sale’ board
will be placed in your garden. A clause in the lease authorises
me to do that. I wish you good morning.”

Well, I am to be evicted, and, as I’m not an Irishman, no
one will care. I shall not lie in wait with a shot-gun for my
landlord. But there is no clause in the lease forbidding me
from putting up my sale announcement beside the landlord’s. It
will run:—

THE PUFF ERRATIC.

The New Statesman contains a letter from Mr. ARNOLD
BENNETT, disclaiming all responsibility for the publisher’s
official description of his new novel printed on the “jacket”
or paper cover thereof. It had not been submitted to him for
approval and he knew nothing of it. Mr. BENNETT is, of course,
entitled to his protest, but we greatly hope that publishers
will not be induced thereby to abstain from supplying these
interesting summaries. If only the method could be applied to
standard works the results would be even more illuminating. As
for example:

“HAMLET.”

This delicious comedy is the romance of the Prince of
Denmark, which, unlike other romances, begins after his
marriage: with Polonia, daughter of Horatio, who
had been previously engaged to both Rosenstern and
Guildencranz. Hamlet, by joining a troupe of
strolling players, offends his uncle, the reigning sovereign,
and is confined in a lunatic asylum.

Brilliant pictures of society in Copenhagen, Denmark Hill
and Heligoland alternate with sparkling studies of the inner
life of a touring company on the Continent.

“Can a woman love three men?” is the theme of this
engrossing extravaganza.

“IDYLLS OF THE KING.”

In a series of exciting episodes, written in fluent heroic
couplets, the author gives us a thrilling picture of the
manners and customs of the Court of King Arthur, an
early British sovereign, whose stately home was situated on the
Cornish Riviera.

Owing to the compromising attentions which he pays to
Elaine, the Lady of Shalott, the King alienates
the affections of Queen Guinevere and is slain by one of
his knights, Lancelot by name.

Winsome women, gallant paladins and mysterious magicians
throng these fascinating pages, which incidentally throw much
light on the theological problems discussed by the Knights of
the Round Table, among whom Merlin, Vivien and
Enid are especially, prominent.

“VANITY FAIR.”

Major Dobbin, a beau sabreur of irresistible
charm, is on the point of eloping with Amelia Osborne,
the wife of a brother-officer, when the Battle of Waterloo
breaks out and Dobbin is slain. Captain Osborne,
in the mistaken impression that Amelia has shared her
betrayer’s fate, marries the beautiful Becky Sharp and
is tried for bigamy, but is acquitted, as Becky Sharp is
proved to have been already married to an Indian Nabob of the
name of Crawley. On the death of Crawley,
Becky marries the Marquis of Steyne, becomes
deeply religious and dies in the odour of sanctity.

“Is marriage a failure?” is the problem of this
kaleidoscopic drama, which is handled with all the author’s
well-known soulful verve.

“Smith Minor” again.

“Apelles fuit carus Alexandro propter comitate.”
“Apples were dear in the days of Alexander on account of
the Committee.” (? Food Controller.)

“A resolution was passed requesting the responsible
local authority to provide thirty new houses in accordance
with the Local Government Board’s scheme. The houses
required were—first, those which were unfit for human
habitation.”—Sussex Paper.

And, to judge by some of the fantastic designs for rural
cottages published in the newspapers, those are what they will
probably get.

THE ORDER OF RELEASE.

PIVOTAL PIG
(demobilised). “SO LONG, LEAGUE OF RATIONS, SEE YOU
LATER.”

THE REAL DALRYMPLE.

You would feel quite uncomfortable if you heard Dalrymple
talk. He conveys the impression that everything is badly in the
way and ought to be removed at once. That’s his view. Dalrymple
has no patience with the social system. This includes
everything, from the washing bill to the House of Commons.

Dalrymple said the General Election made him impatient. By
the way, Dalrymple is a fine upstanding personage, with just
the coloured hair the lady novelists dote on, and eyes in
harmony; but despite his handsome placid bearing Dalrymple is a
fire-eater of the hungriest.

“What you want to do is to make a clean sweep of
everything,” he said. “Money is an anachronism, and in a
perfectly ordered State would not be required.”

Of course it is no more use arguing with Dalrymple than it
would be to attempt a controversy on naval affairs with Lord
Nelson on his pedestal.

And then there is this about Dalrymple—you remember
what some Court poet said concerning Louis THE FOURTEENTH; it
was to the effect that quand le Roi parle—well,
apparently everything and everybody else had to put up the
shutters. I forget exactly how the thing ran. It is just so
with Dalrymple. He comes into my room in the City and warms
himself, though no fire is needed to fan his enthusiasm for
destruction. The Bolsheviks are peaceable Sunday folk compared
with him. A Nihilist on a war footing would be considered
Quaker-like in his symptoms.

Dalrymple is neck or nothing. He is a whole-hogger even to
the most indigestible bit of crackling.

“What we want is a fresh start,” he said. “Then you could
begin anew and everybody would have a chance. Burn things, blow
them up, leave nothing; then we should see something. Your
whole scheme is faulty. Your Underground—” Dalrymple has
an irritating habit of fathering things on me, which is unfair,
for, as regards the Tubes, for instance, I am sorry to say I
have not even a share, and often not as much as a strap.

“But the Underground is only a bit overcrowded,” I ventured
to say. “It can’t help that, you know.”

“It is all wrong,” said Dalrymple. “The entire gadget is
defective. Look at France, look at America, look at Germany and
Russia and the Jugo-Slavs.”

It was rather breathless work looking at all these nations
and peoples, but I did my best. Dalrymple is particularly
strong when it is a question of the Jugo-Slavs, and he always
gave me the idea that he spent his Saturday afternoons
enunciating chatty pleasantries in Trafalgar Square and on
Tower Hill.

But—you might just see the finish—Dalrymple was
not doing anything of the sort the afternoon that I was out
house-hunting. Yes, it is true. You will scarcely credit the
fact that I found any difficulty in tracking down an eligible
villa, but that is the case.

The quest took me to a pleasant semi-rural neighbourhood
where there was room for gardens with the borders edged with
the nice soft yellow-tinted box, and rose walks, and dainty
little arbours, and fandangled appurtenances which amateur
gardeners love with perfect justification.

And there was Dalrymple. I won’t deceive you. I recognised
him on the other side of a low oak fence. He was wearing an old
hat of the texture of the bit of headgear which the man who
impersonates Napoleon at the music-hall doubles up and plays
tricks with, only Dalrymple’s hat had obviously been white and
was now going green and other colours with wear and tear.

And wherever Dalrymple went a small cherub in a holland
frock went too. The cherub would be about five. Dalrymple was
fashioning a hen-coop out of two or three soap-boxes. Both he
and the cherub ceased activities when I hailed and approached;
and I stopped to dinner. Dalrymple told me he rather fancied he
could wangle me a bungalow.

“I know the agent chap,” he said, as we sampled a very
pleasant glass of port. “Of course they want to keep it fairly
dark or we should be swamped. I have taken a lot of trouble
myself, you know, and am just starting gardening lectures at
our club.”

So he went on—the house, his new roses, the hens, the
jam his wife made, the idea he had for a winter garden in the
interests of his wife’s mother, who could then take the air in
her Bath-chair.

“But,” I said, “you want to sweep everything away. You aim
at sending villages like this to pot—your own word, you
remember. And then there are the Jugo-Slavs—”

Dalrymple winked and handed me the cigars.

I fancy he is a fraud.

“AEROPLANE FLIGHT TO INDIA.

“PREPARATIONS FOR DECEPTION IN
DELHI.”—Englishman (Calcutta).

But the aviators, in order that there might be no doubt
about their bona fides, wisely landed at Karachi.

MY SERGEANT-MAJOR-DOMO.

“DATE FIXED FOR HANGING RETAILERS.”—Provincial
Paper.

And some of them richly deserve it.

“The League will reconsider traety obligations from time
to time.

“The League will reconsider traeyt obligations from time
to time.”—Evening Paper.

And then the printer gave it up.

“A Handley Page, with two Rolls-Royce engines, was the
first and only machine to fly to India, and was the first
and only machine to fly to India, and is the second to fly
to India.”—Daily Paper.

Not the third and only, as for the moment we were tempted to
believe.

“Young Educated Girl Pupil Wanted, help animals; live
clergyman’s family; pocket-money.”—Newcastle
Journal.

We are glad to hear of a really live clergyman. So many
parsons nowadays are accused of being dead-alive.

THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION.

Maid. “NO, MUM, I’M
NOT GOING TO STAY IN THIS HOUSE TO BE INSULTED BY HAVING
‘SLAVEY’ WRITTEN ON THE MAT.”

DAILY AND MAILY.

Mr. Daily burst into the room, slamming the door behind him,
to find Mr. Maily seated before the fire.

“Maily, you’re not getting things done,” he shouted as he
walked swiftly up and down the Turkey carpet.

“Only buttoning my spat, Daily,” said Mr. Maily. Then he
too, springing from his chair, walked rapidly to and fro. But
whereas Mr. Daily chose the route between the window and the
motto, “Do something else NOW!” Mr. Maily took the line between
the fireplace and “Keep on keeping on!” for they seldom felt
compelled to stick to one direction.

“Maily, I’m worried,” exclaimed Mr. Daily in passing.
“Things seem to be easing down. Even you are not so nimble as
you were. This silence of the public troubles me—haven’t
been saying things about us for a long time.”

“Some people even praise us,” remarked Mr. Maily, disgust
mingling with the perspiration on his face.

“We’ll be damned if we put up with praise,” Mr. Daily
declared.

“We shall. We’d give praise if they’d damn us,” said Mr.
Maily.

“Never be funny, Maily, if you can help it,” warned Mr.
Daily. Then he remarked wistfully, “If they’d only burn us
again!”

“Couldn’t we go for the Archbishop of CANTERBURY?” asked Mr.
Maily. “To be burnt during morning service in a
cathedral—”

“No, these church-people couldn’t be roused, Maily. Too much
dillydally about them. They’d never fall to it.”

Mr. Daily jabbed his thumb against a white bell-push, and a
clerk appeared. “Got enough work to do?” asked Mr. Daily.

“And then some,” said the clerk.

“Well, get on with it,” shouted Mr. Daily impatiently, and
pressed a red bell-push.

“Plenty doing?” he asked the compositor who appeared.

“Twice that,” said the compositor.

“Then go to it,” barked Mr. Daily. Turning to behold Mr.
Maily mopping his brow, he cried, “For heaven’s sake don’t let
anybody see you standing still, Maily.”

“I was only thinking,” said Mr. Maily.

“Whatever for?” asked Mr. Daily.

“Do you suppose—”

“Suppose nothing. Know!”

“How would it be to—to denounce beer?” asked Mr.
Maily.

“Gad, but you’ve still got pluck,” said Mr. Daily with
something like admiration. “They’d burn us right enough. But
there is such a thing as too much pluck, Maily. Think again, if
you must think.”

“No,” Mr. Daily went on, “I doubt if a satisfactory burning
can be worked—it only comes by accident. Meanwhile, if
the public won’t talk about us, we must boom ourselves;” and he
sprinted to a yellow bell-push to summon the editor.

“This peace business,” said Mr. Daily to him—”Peace
must be signed! How’s that for a new stunt? Cut out ‘The
Soldiers’ Paper’ and call ourselves ‘The Paper that gets
Peace.’ Get the boys together, work out a scheme and come and
show us in half-an-hour.”

“But, Daily, is there any likelihood of peace not being
signed?” asked Mr. Maily, when the editor had gone.

“For goodness’ sake, Maily, pull yourself together. Don’t
you understand that one of the principles of our job is to back
certs?” said Mr. Daily.

Manager of Kinema Theatre (referring to the
two turbulent members of audience who have been
ejected). “HOW DID THE QUARREL COMMENCE?”

Doorkeeper. “THEY WERE FIGHTING, SIR, ABOUT WHICH
OF THEM THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE WAS WINKING AT.”

LINES TO A LEGIONARY.

(Members of the new corps of domestic servants are
called legionaries.)

“LOST, large retriever dog, flat-coated; when pleased or
expectant he grins, showing all his teeth; information
leading to his recovery will be rewarded.”—Glasgow
Herald.

It is supposed that he has been studying the portraits of
“Variety” ladies in the illustrated papers.

“He must, said Mr. Thomas, urge men to recognise that,
in the present state of the country, it was imperative that
soppages should be avoided.”—Liverpool
Paper.

Excellent advice; but in the present state of the country,
unless one wears waders, extremely difficult to follow.

“WANTED.—A suitable match for a well-connected and
refined Suri widower of 37; healthy and of good moral
character; monthly income about 500 rupees. Possesses
property. Late wife died last week.”—Indian
Paper.

It is a sign of the truly moral character to be definitely
off with the old love before you are on with the new.

“The five main points in the Prime Minister’s programme
are: (1) Punch the ex-Kaiser.”—Sunday Times
(Johannesburg).

The other four don’t matter, but we wish to take the
earliest opportunity of denying this totally unfounded
suggestion. Mr. Punch is not the ex-Kaiser, and never was.

Late Superintendent of Munition Canteen (in
dairy where she has dealt for over three years). “AND
YOU WON’T FORGET THE CREAM AS USUAL.”

Dairy Girl. “SORRY, MADAM. I REGRET YOU CANNOT
HAVE ANY MORE CREAM, AS YOU HAVE CEASED TO BE OF NATIONAL
IMPORTANCE.”

A LITTLE FAVOUR.

Maisie was terribly upset when she lost her gold curb bangle
(with padlock attached) between the hospital and the canteen.
The first I knew of it was seeing a handbill offering two
pounds’ reward on our front gate, with the ink still damp, when
I came home to lunch. There was a similar bill blowing down the
road. My wife had some more under her arm and she pressed them
on me. “Run round to the shops,” she said; “get them put right
in the middle of the windows where they’ll catch everybody’s
eye.”

The first shop I entered was a hosier’s. Since drilling in
the V.T.O. I have acquired rather a distinguished bearing.
Shopkeepers invariably treat me with attention. The hosier
hurried forward, obviously anticipating a princely order for
tweeds at war prices. I hadn’t the courage to buy nothing. I
selected the nearest thing on the counter, a futurist necktie
at two-and-six-three, and, as I was leaving the shop, turned
back carelessly. “By the by, would you mind putting this bill
in your window?” I said.

His lip curled. “This is a high-class business. We make it a
rule—no bills,” he said.

At the butcher’s next door there were several customers.
They all gave way to me. I made purchases worthy of my
appearance and carriage, half an ox tail and some chitterlings.
Then I proffered a handbill. The man in blue accepted it and,
before I had opened my lips, returned it to me wrapped round
the ox tail. I was too taken aback to explain. In fact, when he
held out his hand, I mechanically gave him another bill for the
chitterlings.

At the next shop, a fancy draper’s, I acted with cunning. In
the centre of the window, on a raised background of silver
paper, was displayed a wreath of orange-blossom veiled with
tulle. I bought it. The young ladies were hysterical. “May I
ask permission to put this little handbill in its place?” I
said. They appealed to the shopwalker. “In the absence of the
head of the firm I cannot see my way to accede to your
request,” he said. “At present he is on the Rhine. On his
demobilisation I will place the matter before him if you will
leave the bill in my hands.” I left it.

I skipped a gramophone emporium and a baby-linen shop and
entered a fishmonger’s. Here I adopted tactics of absolute
candour. “Look here,” I said, “I haven’t come to buy anything.
I don’t want any fish, flesh or red-herring, but I should be no
end grateful if you would stick this bill up for me
somewhere.”

“Certainly, Sir, as many as you like,” said the proprietor
heartily.

Gleefully I gave him two. One he stuck on a hook on top of a
couple of ducks, and it flopped over face downwards on their
breasts. The other he laid in the middle of the marble counter,
and the next moment his assistant came along and slapped an
outsize halibut on it.

I went into a jeweller’s next and purchased a gold curb
bangle (with padlock attached).

“You clever old thing,” said Maisie; “you’d never tell one
from the other, would you? Mine’s a tiny bit heavier, don’t you
think? I’ve just found it in the soap-dish. I’ll change this
for a filigree pendant. All my life I’ve longed for a filigree
pendant”

“For 85 tons of blackberries, gathered last autumn,
Northamptonshire elementary school children were paid
£2,380, 3d. a lb.”—Daily Paper.

The young profiteers!

“Splendid imitation almond paste for cakes can be made
as follows: Take four ounces of breadcrumbs, one small
teaspoonful of almond essence, four ounces of soft white
sugar, and one well-eaten egg to bind the
mixture.”—Answers.

The difficulty is to get the egg.

APRÈS LA GUERRE.

“On ne sait jamais le dessous des cartes,” as the
perplexing dialect of the aborigines of this country would put
it. William and I, when we used to discuss after-the-war
prospects o’ nights in the old days, were more or less resigned
to a buckshee year or two of filling shell-holes up and pulling
barbed wire down. Instead of which we all go about the country
taking in each others’ education. No one, we gather, will be
allowed to go home until he has taken his B.A. with honours.
And after that—But it would be better to begin at the
beginning.

It began within ten days of the signing of the armistice,
assuming the shape of an official inquiry from Division, a
five-barred document wherein somebody with a talent for
confusing himself (and a great contempt for the Paper
Controller) managed to ask every officer the same question in
five different ways. They cancelled each other out after a
little examination and left behind merely a desire to discover
whether or not each officer had a job waiting for him on his
return to civil life. William and I took the thing at a gallop,
stuck down a succinct “Yes. Yes, No, No. Yes,” subscribed our
signatures and returned the documents—or so William
proposed to do—”for your information and necessary
inaction.”

“They’re getting deuced heavy about these jobs, aren’t
they?” observed William a day or two later. “The Old Man wants
to see us all at orderly-room for a private
interview—he’s got to make a return showing whether his
officers have got jobs waiting for them, if not, why not, and
please indent at once to make good any deficiencies. Hullo,
what’s this?”

It happened to be William’s mail for the day—one large
official-looking envelope. It turned out to be a document from
his old unit (he had entered the Army from an O.T.C.), headed,
“Resettlement and Employment of ex-Officers: Preliminary
Enquiry.” It was a formidable catechism, ranging from inquiries
as to whether William had a job ready for him to a request for
a signed statement from his C.O. certifying that he was a
sober, diligent and obliging lad and had generally given every
satisfaction in his present situation. In case he hadn’t a job
or wanted another one there were convenient spaces in which to
confess the whole of his past—whether he had a liking for
animals or the Colonies, mechanical aptitude (if any), down to
full list of birth-marks and next-of-kin. William thrust the
thing hastily into the stove. But I observed that there was a
cloud over him for the rest of the day.

However, we both of us satisfied the examiner at the
orderly-room, though the renewed evidence of a determined
conspiracy to find work for him left William a trifle more
thoughtful than his wont. Shades of the prison-house began to
close about our growing joy, “These ‘ere jobs,” remarked
William, “are going to take a bit of dodging, dearie. Looks to
me as though you might cop out for anything from a tram-driver
to Lord Chief. Wish people wouldn’t be so infernally obliging.
And, anyway, what is this—an Army or a Labour
Exchange?”

As the days wore on the strain became more and more intense.
William’s old school had contrived an association which begged
to be allowed to do anything in the world for him except leave
him for a single day in idleness. And what time the Army was
not making inquiries about his own civil intentions and
abilities it was insisting on his extracting the same
information from the platoons. William grew haggard and morose.
He began looking under his bed every night for prospective
employers and took to sleeping with a loaded Webley under his
pillow for fear of being kidnapped by a registry office. He
slept in uneasy snatches, and when he did doze off was
tormented by hideous nightmares.

In one of them he dreamt he was on leave and walking through
the City. At every doorway he had to run the gauntlet of lithe
and implacable managing directors, all ready to pounce on him,
drag him within and chain him permanently to a stool—with
the complete approval of the Army Council. In another he was
appearing before a tribunal of employers as a conscientious
objector to all forms of work.

The last straw was when the Brigadier caused it to be made
known that if any officer was particularly unsettled about his
future he might be granted a personal interview and it would be
seen what could be done for him. William sat down with the air
of one who has established a thumping bridgehead over his
Rubicon and wrote to the Brigadier direct and as
follows:—

“SIR,—I have the honour to hope that this finds you a
good deal better than it leaves me at present. In case you
should be in any uncertainty over your prospects on return to
half-pay, I shall be happy to grant you a personal interview at
my billet (Sheet 45; G 22a 3.7.) and see whether anything can
be arranged to suit you. I may add that I have a number of
excellent appointments on my books, from knife-boy to traveller
to a firm of mineral water manufacturers. For my own part my
immediate future is firmly settled, thank you. For at least
three months after my discharge from the Army I have no
intention of taking up any form of work.

“I have the honour to be, Sir,

“YOUR OTHERWISE OBEDIENT SERVANT, ETC.”

The court-martial was held last Thursday and sentence will
be promulgated any day now. Medical evidence certified William
as sane enough to understand the nature of his offence, but as
the War is over it is unlikely that he will be shot at dawn.
William himself is confident that he will be cashiered, a
sentence which carries with it automatic and permanent
exclusion from all appointments under the Crown. “That makes a
tidy gap in the wire,” says William hopefully. “They won’t even
be able to make a postman of me. With a bit of luck I’ll dodge
the unofficial jobs—I get that holiday after all, old
bean.”

“HUNTING. THE DANGER OF KICKING
HORSES.”—Times.

Generally the shoe is on the other foot.

“The Falkirk iron fitters, by an overwhelming majority,
have opposed the forty-hour week and have agreed to a
forty-four hour week.”—Provincial Paper.

Bravo, Falkirk!

“The announcement of the augmentation of the British
beet in the Mediterranean appeared exclusively in the
‘Sunday Express.'”—Daily Express.

It doesn’t seem anything to boast about.

“WANTED.—On a farm, two capable European young or
middle-aged girls.”—South African Paper.

There are lots of girls answering this description, but the
difficulty is that most of them are too shy to admit it.

“M. Clemenceau … speaks English with rare perfection,
having spent years in the United States.”—Daily
Paper.

“M. Clemenceau, speaking in excellent English, said
‘Yes.'”—Sunday Paper.

What he really said, of course, was “Yep.”

Question and Answer.

SERVICE EVOLUTION.

BUD.

BLOSSOM.

FRUIT.

Guest (who has cut the
cloth). “BILLIARDS REQUIRE CONSTANT PRACTICE.”

ANOTHER CRISIS.

(By a Futility Rabbit Keeper.)

Secrets of the Peace Conference.

“The proceedings yesterday afternoon began punctually at
three o’clock. Lord Robert Cecil sat with the British
delegates. M. Léon Bourgeois sat among the French
delegates.”—Manchester Guardian.

And not, as might have been thought, vice
versâ.

“A thoroughly capable and energetic man wanted, who will
look after a family concern: Must understand management of
25 acre farm with 10 cows, about four acres may have to be
broken up. Must be an experienced brewer, capable of
mashing 10 times a week, and taking entire charge of
brewing operations with assistance of unskilled labour.
Must be conversant with licensing laws and requirements,
also present restrictions as applying to brewing;
thoroughly understand and superintend wines and spirits
department, direct repairs, capable buyer, general manager,
organiser and foreman. Must be thorough accountant, capable
of directing office and branch work, conversant with
income-tax and excess profits duty practice. Able to drive,
or willing to learn a 4-ton Commer lorry, must be
motor-cyclist to visit branches, and manage public-houses.
Absolutely essential to understand and drive oil
engines.—Further particulars apply —— and
Sons.”—Daily Paper.

What we chiefly miss is any information as to how the man is
to fill up his spare time.

“ITALIAN SPELLING.

“There are to be streets in Athens named after President
Wilson and after Mr. Lloyd George. In the ‘Patris,’ an
Athens paper, we read that ‘Wilson’ is spelt ‘Ouilson,’
whilst ‘George’ is Tzortz,’ ‘Bonar Law’ is ‘Mponar
Lo.'”—Birmingham Mail.

We bow to our contemporary’s erudition, but we confess it
all looks Greek to us.

THE PROGRESSIVE WEIGHT-LIFTER.

Betty. “MUMMY, DOES GOD SEND US OUR FOOD?”

Mother. “YES, DEAR; OF COURSE HE DOES.”

Betty. “BUT WHAT A PRICE!”

ALL THE TALENTS.

Now that hostilities are at an end it is thought by many
intelligent young subalterns that a little variety might well
be introduced into Army routine.

For instance, at a General’s Inspection why should not
Officers’ duties be allotted after this fashion?—

The Commanding Officer will bind up the Second-in-Command
with a length of red tape, showing that no escape is possible
from this form of entanglement.

The Adjutant will give an exhibition of paper manipulation,
using various Army Forms for this purpose.

The Assistant-Adjutant will demonstrate how a morning’s work
may be made of the changing of a pen-nib, while still creating
an impression of devoted industry.

The Messing Officer will fry a fillet of sole by means of
haybox cookery, and during the process will publicly skin a
ration rabbit in such a way that not the slightest depreciation
is caused in the value of 2½d. attached to a
rabbit-skin.

The Officer i/e Demobilisation will demobilise you while you
wait (provided you can wait long enough).

The Quartermaster will make a model of Hampton Court Maze,
illustrative of the intricacies of his department, taking care
that his model appropriately differs from the original in
having no means of exit.

The Medical Officer will demonstrate how the huge national
accumulation of No. 9 pills may be adapted to civilian purposes
by using the pill (a) as a fertiliser for the Officers’
tennis lawn, and (b) as a destroyer of the superfluous
grass bordering thereon.

Company Commanders will collaborate in a display of standing
on their own feet without the assistance of their respective
Company Sergeant-Majors. (N.B.—Absolute silence is
requested during this very delicate performance.)

The Junior Subaltern will give an exhibition of stunt
saluting.

TO MY DRESS SUIT.

The Mayor. “THE CONTENTS OF THE
PURSE WILL IN TIME INEVITABLY DISAPPEAR; BUT
(laying his hand on the clock) HERE IS
SOMETHING WHICH WILL NEVER GO.”

A PLEA FOR PROPORTION.

[Its contemporaries having told us all about Mr. Lloyd
George’s hat and how President Wilson ate a banana, The
Daily Express recently went one better with the
headline, “Mr. Balfour joins a Tennis Club,” as the
subheading of its “Peace Conference Notes.”]

“A married man, aged 34 years, collided with the mail
train when riding a motorcycle into Hawera on Friday. His
right arm, collarbone, and blue hospital uniforms on
Thursday morning.”—New Zealand Herald.

We rather like this telescopic style of reporting. It leaves
something to the reader’s imagination.

“To Parents and Pawnbrokers.—Anyone assisting to
remove the Charity Boots, marked B., from the Children’s
Feet, which are the property of Mr. J. B—— and
his Supporters, WILL BE PROSECUTED.”—Irish
Paper.

A distressful country, indeed, where the children do not own
their own feet.

WINCHESTER’S OPPORTUNITY.

War legislation has pressed hard on many callings, and on
none more than that of the architect. But the embargo has been
lifted; the ancient art is coming to its own again, and it is
of happy omen that the new President of the Royal Academy has
been chosen from the architects. In this context we welcome the
stimulating article in a recent issue of The Times
à propos of the Winchester War Memorial. “Are we
never,” asks the writer, “to take risks in our architecture?”
and his answer, briefly summed up, is “Perish the thought.
De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace.”
It is, of course, a pity that the Winchester War Memorial
scheme has not met with the unanimous approval of Wykehamists.
Possibly they have reason, for while adding a new cloister, a
new gateway and a new hall to the existing school buildings, it
involves the pulling down of the Quingentenary Memorial
Building, erected some twenty years ago, and of some old houses
in Kingsgate Street. Some consider such a drastic destruction
to be unfortunate, but, says The Times, it is “necessary
if any scheme worthy of the occasion is
[pg 107] to be carried out.”
Moreover it is proposed to re-erect the Quingentenary
Memorial on a new site, “where it will certainly look as
well as ever.”

The greatest event in our history, as the writer finely
observes, cannot be worthily commemorated by any timid
compromise. Winchester has set a splendid example, but it is
perhaps too much to expect that it will be followed by London,
owing to the inevitable clash of conflicting interests in our
unwieldy metropolis. The erection of a new Pantheon on the site
of St. Paul’s and the removal of WREN’S massive but
démodé structure to Hampstead Heath, where
it would certainly look as well as ever, is, we fear, however
much The Times may desire it, beyond the range of
practical politics. But example is infectious, and if only the
Winchester authorities would expand their scheme and carry it
out with Dantonesque audacity to its full logical conclusion,
other towns and cities might ultimately fall into line.

Winchester Cathedral, as we need hardly remind our readers,
has only been rescued from subsidence and collapse at an
immense cost by a lavish use of the resources of modern
engineering. The building itself is not without merits, but its
site is inconspicuous and the swampy nature of the soil is a
constant menace to its durability. The scheme which we venture
with all humility to suggest is that it should be removed and
re-erected, in the same spirit though in the architectural
language of our own day, on the summit of St. Catherine’s Hill,
where it would look better than ever, and be connected by a
scenic neo-Gothic railway with Meads. This would not only add
to the amenities of the landscape, but enable the present
cathedral site to be utilized for a purpose more in consonance
with the needs of the age. We do not presume to dictate, but
may point out that if the deanery and the canons’ houses were
pulled down and re-erected on the golf-links, where they would
look better than ever, space would be available for a majestic
aerodrome, or, better still, an experimental water-stadium for
submarines, in memory of KING ALFRED, the founder of our
Fleet.

Into the question of details, design and cost it is not for
us to enter. We confine ourselves to appealing with all the
force at our command to Winchester, fortunate, as The
Times reminds us, in the choice of an architect of genius
and ingenuity, to persevere, to rise to the occasion, to cast
compromise to the winds and above all to remember that the
greatest compliment which can be paid to the architects of the
past is to remove their buildings to sites where they look
better than ever and do not suffer from the immediate
neighbourhood of the masterpieces of their successors.
Architecture has been defined as “frozen music.” But on great
occasions such as this it needs to be taken out of its
cold-storage and judiciously thawed.

THE SOFT ANSWER.

Navvy (to person who has accidentally bumped
him). “GO TO
BLANKETY—BLANK—BLANK—BLAZES.”

Person. “GENTLE STRANGER, YOUR LIGHTEST WISH,
EXPRESSED IN SUCH COURTEOUS LANGUAGE, IS TO ME A
COMMAND.”

[Ambulance call.]

“Lost, sulky inflate.”—Glasgow Citizen.

CIVIL EDUCATION FOR SOLDIERS.

When the armistice was signed and the close season for
Germans set in, it occurred to the authorities that it would be
a waste of labour to continue to train some few million good
men for a shooting season that might never re-open, and the
weekly programme became rather a sketchy affair till some brain
more brilliant than the rest conceived the idea of giving a
good sound education in the arts of peace to this promising and
waiting multitude. The idea was joyfully accepted, and
gradually filtered through its authorised channels, suffering
some office change or other at each stage till it finally
reached one of our ancient seats of learning. It arrived rather
like the peremptory order of a newly-gazetted and bewildered
subaltern, who, having got his platoon hopelessly tied up,
falls back on the time-honoured and usually infallible “Carry
on, Sergeant.”

There were some six-hundred white-hatted cadets stationed at
this spot, all thirsting (presumably) for information on gas,
and Mills bombs, and studs on the cocking-piece, and forming
fours, and vertical intervals and District Courts-martial; and
when the order came to “carry on” with education it caused
something like a panic. A council of war nearly caused
Head-quarters to cancel a battalion parade, but they pulled
themselves together and held the drill, and the appointed Jack
as “Battalion Education Officer,” and empowered him to draft a
scheme of work.

When produced it consisted of fourteen paragraphs, each of
which finished up with the sentence, “This is obviously a
problem for the Company Commander.” Jack had nothing to learn
as to the duties of a battalion specialist and realised that
his responsibility lay simply in providing Company Commanders,
and then finding problems for them to solve. As the Company
Commanders were already in being his work was simplified.

However, the Company Commanders, being men of merit,
cheerfully accepted the situation and approached their victims.
“We are going to teach you,” they said. “What would you like to
be taught?”

“Well,” said the victims, “what have you got?”

“Oh, anything you like,” said the Company Commanders. “Just
you choose your subject and we’ll do the rest.”

Now that was very generous, but rather rash. For the victims
took them at their word, and so by the time the perspiring
Platoon Commanders had produced their returns (in triplicate)
it was found that there were forty-three subjects to be
provided for, including seven languages, six branches of
science, four kinds of engineering, six commercial subjects and
various sundries, such as metaphysics, wool-classing and
coker-nut planting.

The way the Company Commanders dealt with this problem was
quite simple and ingenious. They sent for all junior officers
and asked what they were prepared to teach. The result seemed
really rather good. Tom said he would take French, having spent
three months in Northern France before they sent him to
Salonika. Dick’s father has an allotment and Dick himself
occasionally hunts, so he chose Agriculture, Oswald chose
Mathematics, on the strength of having been a
Quartermaster-Sergeant in the Public Schools Brigade in
September, 1914. Wilfred once went to a gas course for ten
days, so of course his subject was Science. Arthur really does
know something about Architecture and can also enlarge a map
quite nicely, so he put down Drawing. John chose Theology. He
said he once read the lessons in church; really he thought he
was safe to draw a blank.

Once more the Company Commanders were equal to the
emergency. They looked at it in this way. French is a foreign
language; Spanish is also a foreign language. Tom offers to
teach a foreign language; therefore Tom shall teach Spanish.
Corn-growing in Western Canada, sheep-raising in Australia and
coker-nut planting are all obviously agriculture. Dick says he
can teach Agriculture; so he shall. The science of manures
caused some discussion as to whether it should be agriculture
or science, but it was finally settled in favour of science,
which also included physics, electricity and crystallography.
John got four theological students, but, when he investigated,
he found that one was a Jew and one a Presbyterian minister,
while the other two, like himself, thought that no one else
would have thought of it. And these touch only the fringe of
the subject.

The indent sent in for materials was a rather formidable
one, but the article most in demand was a sheep, which was
wanted at the same time by Dick for his Agriculture and Arthur
for his Drawing, and also by Mac, who is O.C. the Butchery
class. Mac wrote a polite little note saying he must have at
least one a week, and he’d like “a pig to be going on with, if
you please,” promising to hand, the latter over complete and in
good order, when he’d done with it, to Jones for his
bacon-curing class, “upon receipt of signature for same.”

Politically inclined Nurse
(exhibiting new daughter to M.P.). “LET US
‘OPE, SIR, THAT SHE MAY LIVE TO BE CALLED THE MOTHER
OF THE ‘OUSE OF COMMONS.”

Commercial Candour.

“120 Pairs Unbleached Calico Sheets, 2 x 2¾
yards. Sale price, 12/11 per pair; present value, 1/- per
pair.”—Yorkshire Paper.

“Including new enlistments there are about 1,000 men
concentrated in and around Berlin.”—Manchester
Guardian.

Let FOCH be warned.

“BAD BOYS AND THE BIRCH.

“We are glad to observe that the Recorder has decided to
adopt stern measures with juvenile offenders who are
brought before him in future.”—Irish
Times.

“Stern measures” is good.

“NON-STOP WAIST DRIVES, Every Wednesday Evening at 8.30.
£10 Top, and Six other Special
Prizes.”—Local Paper.

Believed to be under the patronage of the
FOOD-CONTROLLER.

THE FOOD PROBLEM IN PARIS.

The cost of living in the vicinity of the Peace Conference
has been enormously exaggerated. Likewise the difficulty of
reorganizing Europe on a truly ethnic basis. By combining the
two questions I have found them immensely simplified, and I
have been in Paris only three days.

My meaning will be clearly illustrated by the record of a
single day’s experience—with the representative of the
Dodopeloponnesians for déjeûner and the
delegate of the Pan-Deuteronomaniads for dinner.

I made the acquaintance of the first in the lift. On the way
down it came out that I was journaliste assisting at the
Conference of the Peace, whereupon the other introduced himself
as secretary of the Dodopeloponnesian delegation and eager for
the pleasure of entertaining me at
déjeûner.

Nothing international arose in connection with the hors
d’oeuvres. It was between the soup and the fish that my
host inquired whether I had yet found time to look into the
just claim of the Dodopeloponnesian people to the neighbouring
island of Funicula.

“You mean,” I said, “on the ground that the island of
Funicula was brought under the Dodopeloponnesian sceptre on
September 11th, 1405, by Blagoslav the Splay-fingered, from
whom it was wrested on February 3rd, 1406, by the Seljuks?”

“Precisely,” he said. “But also because the people of
Funicula are originally of Dodopeloponnesian stock.”

“Yet they speak the language of Pan-Deuteronomania,” I
said.

“A debased dialect,” he said, “foisted upon them by a
remission of ten per cent. in taxes for every hundred words of
the lingo learned by heart, with double votes for irregular
verbs.”

The entrée, something with eggs and jelly, was
excellent.

“Far be it from me to deny,” I said, “the fact that Funicula
is by right a part of the inheritance of the
Octo-syllabarians”—and I bowed gracefully to my host, who
raised his glass in return—”and I agree in advance with
every argument you put forward in favour of a restored
Sesquicentennial commonwealth by bringing together the
scattered members of the Duodecimal race from all over the
world. In fact,” I added as the waiter poured out the
champagne, “it seems to me that in addition to the Island of
Funicula there properly belongs, in the realm of your Greater
Anti-Vivisectoria, the adjacent promontory, geyser and natural
bridge of Pneumobronchia, from which the last Seljuk ruler,
Didyffius the Forty-fifth, leaped in front of a machete wielded
by his eldest son, who therefore became Didymus the
Forty-sixth.”

He was delighted to find so much sympathy and understanding
in an alien journalist from far across the seas. His bill, so
far as a hurried and discreet glance could reveal, was 89
francs 50 centimes, not including the taxe.

On the other hand, the sous-secrétaire of the
Pan-Deuteronomaniad delegation, who took me out to dinner that
same night, paid 127 francs (including theatre tickets) before
he proved to my satisfaction that the basic civilization of
Funicula Island is after all Pan-whatever-you-call-it.

At any rate my point is made. My expenditure on food these
three days in Paris has been negligible, and there is rumour
that the Supra-Zambesian delegation is thinking of opening a
hotel with running water, h. and c., in every room.

Gunner. “DO YOU PLAY THE PIANO?”

Jack. “NO, SIR.”

Gunner. “NOR THE ‘CELLO?”

Jack. “NO, SIR.”

Gunner. “WELL, THE NEXT TIME YOU HEAR RUMOURS OF
A BARBER JUST FOLLOW THE MATTER UP.”

DULCE DOMUM.

ROMANCE WHILE YOU WAIT.

My friend and I occupied facing seats in a railway-carriage
on a tedious journey. Having nothing to read and not much to
say, I gazed through the windows at the sodden English winter
landscape, while my friend’s eyes were fixed on the opposite
wall of the compartment, above my head.

“What a country!” I exclaimed at last. “Good heavens, what a
country, to spend one’s life in!”

“Yes,” he said, withdrawing his eyes from the space above my
head. “And why do we stay in it when there are such glorious
paradises to go to? Hawaii now. If you really want divine
laziness—sun and warmth and the absence of all fretful
ambition—you should go to the South Seas. You can’t get
it anywhere else. I remember when I was in Hawaii—”

“Hawaii!” I interrupted. “You never told me you had been to
Hawaii.”

“I don’t tell everything,” he replied. “But the happiest
hours of my existence were spent in a little village two or
three miles from Honolulu, on the coast, where we used to go
now and then for a day’s fun. It was called—let me get it
right—it was called Tormo Tonitui—and there were
pleasure-gardens there and the most fascinating girls.” His
eyes took on a far-away wistfulness.

“Yes, yes?” I said.

“Fascinating brown girls,” he said, “who played that
banjo-mandolin thing they all play, and sang mournful luxurious
songs, and danced under the lanterns at night. And the bathing!
There’s no bathing here at all. There you can stay in the sea
air day if you like. It’s like bathing in champagne. Sun and
surf and sands—there’s nothing like it.” He sighed
rapturously.

“Well, I can’t help saying again,” I interrupted, “that it’s
a most extraordinary thing that, after knowing you all these
years, you have never told me a word about Honolulu or the
South Seas or this wonderful pleasure-garden place
called—what was the name of it?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Morto Notitui,” he then
replied.

“I don’t think that’s how you had it before,” I said;
“surely it was Tormo Tonitui?”

“Perhaps it was,” he said. “I forget. Those Hawaiian names
are very much alike and all rather confusing. But you really
ought to go out there. Why don’t you cut everything for a year
and get some sunshine into your system? You’re fossilising
here. We all are. Let’s be gamblers and chance it.”

“I wish I could,” I said. “Tell me some more about your life
there.”

“It was wonderful,” he went on—wonderful. I’m not
surprised that STEVENSON found it a paradise.”

“By the way,” I asked, “did you hear anything of
STEVENSON?”

“Oh, yes, lots. I met several men who had known
him—Tusitala he was called there, you know—and
several natives. There was one extraordinary old fellow who had
helped him make the road up the mountain. He and I had some
great evenings together, yarning and drinking copra.”

“Did he tell you anything particularly personal about
STEVENSON?” I asked.

“Nothing that I remember,” he said; “but he was a fine old
fellow and as thirsty as they make ’em.”

“What is copra like?” I asked.

“Great,” he said. “Like—what shall I say?—well,
like Audit ale and Veuve Clicquot mixed. But it got to your
head. You had to be careful. I remember one night after a day’s
bathing at—at Tromo Titonui—”

“Where was that?” I asked.

“Oh, that little village I was telling you about,” he said.
“I remember one night—”

“Look here,” I said, “you began by calling it Tormo Tonitui,
then you called it Morto Notitui and now it’s Tromo Titonui.
I’m going to say again, quite seriously, that I don’t believe
you ever were in Hawaii at all.”

“Of course I wasn’t,” he replied. “But what is one to do in
a railway carriage, with nothing to read, and a drenched world
and those two words staring one in the face?” and he pointed to
a placard above my head advertising a firm which provided the
best and cheapest Motor Tuition.

Demobilised.

Exhausted Shopman. “WELL, SIR, YOU’VE HAD ON
EVERY HAT IN THE PLACE. I’M SURE I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO
SUGGEST.”

Fastidious Warrior (hopelessly). “NO, I
SEE NOTHING FOR IT BUT TO REMAIN IN THE ARMY.”

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

MR. ARNOLD BENNETT’S new novel, The Roll Call
(HUTCHINSON), is a continuation of the Clayhanger series
to the extent that its hero, George Cannon, is the
stepson of Edwin, who himself makes a perfunctory
appearance at the close of the tale. The scene is, however, now
London, where we watch George winning fame and fortune,
quite in the masterful Five-Towns manner, as an architect. The
change is, I think, beneficial. That quality of unstalable
astonishment, native to Mr. BENNETT’s folk, accords better with
the complexities of the wonderful city than to places where it
had at times only indifferent matter upon which to work. But it
is noticeable that Mr. BENNETT can communicate this surprise
not only to his characters but to his readers. There is an
enthusiasm, real or apparent, in his art which, like the beam
celestial, “evermore makes all things new,” so that when he
tells us, as here, that there are studios in Chelsea or that
the lamps in the Queen’s Hall have red shades, these facts
acquire the thrill of sudden and almost startling discovery. I
suppose this to be one reason for the pleasure that I always
have in his books; another is certainly the intense, even
passionate sympathy that he lavishes upon the central
character. In the present example the affairs of George
Cannon are shown developing largely under the stimulus of
four women, of whom the least seen is certainly the most
interesting, while Lois, the masterful young female whom
George marries, promises as a personality more than she
fulfils. We conduct George’s fortunes as far as the
crisis produced in them by the War, and leave him contemplating
a changed life as a subaltern in the R.F.A. It is therefore
permissible to hope that in a year or two we may expect the
story of his reconstruction. I shall read it with delight.

Iron Times with the Guards (MURRAY), by an O.E., is
emphatically one of the books which one won’t turn out from
one’s war-book shelf. It fills in blanks which appear in more
ambitious and more orderly narratives. This particular old
Etonian, entering the new Army by way of the Territorials in
the first days of the War, was transferred, in the March of
1915, to the Coldstreams and was in the fighting line in April
of the same year. A way they had in the Army of those great
days. Details of the routine of training, reported
barrack-square jests and dug-out conversations, vignettes of
trench and field, disquisitions on many strictly relevant and
less relevant topics, reflections of that fine pride in the
regiment which marks the best of soldiers, an occasional more
ambitious survey of a battle or a campaign—all this from
a ready but not pretentious pen, guided by a sound intelligence
and some power of observation, makes an admirable commentary.
Our author’s narrative carries us to those days of the great
hopes of the Spring of 1917, hopes so tragically deferred.
Perhaps the best thing in an interesting sheaf is the
description of the attack of the Guards Division—as it
had become—on the Transloy-Lesboeufs-Ginchy road, with
its glory and its carnage.

It is to be feared that Battle Days (BLACKWOOD), a
new [pg 112] work by Mr. ARTHUR
FETTERLESS, author of Gog, will lose a good many
readers as the result of the armistice. There are battle
stories and battle books that are not stories that will live
far into the piping times of peace because they are human
documents or have the stamp of genius. These attractions are
not present in Battle Days, which in truth is rather
a prosy affair, though ambitious withal. It is not fiction
in the ordinary sense. Mr. FETTERLESS essays to conduct the
reader through every phase of a big “Push.” Pushes were
complicated affairs, and the author does not spare us many
of the complications. And unless the reader happens to be an
ardent militarist he is apt to push off into slumberland.
Cadets should be made to read this book as a matter of
instruction; for, though it lacks the subtle humour that
endeared Duffer’s Drift to us, it provides a striking
analysis of modern trench warfare.

The Curtain of Steel (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is the
fourth book which the author of In the Northern Mists
has given us during the War, and in essentials it is the most
valuable of the quartette. For here we have real history,
served, it is true, with some trimmings, but none the less a
true record of the doings of our Grand Fleet since the day when
the “curtain” was lowered. “Nothing,” our author says,
“nauseates a naval man so much as the attempt to represent him
as a hero or to theatricalise him and his profession.” It
behoves me then to choose my words with the utmost
circumspection, and I beg him to forgive my audacity when I say
that, if I were Book-Controller, a copy of The Curtain of
Steel would be in (and out of) the library of every school
in the Empire. I find courage to make this statement because I
see that he does not deny that a part of our “disease of
ignorance” concerning the Senior Service is due to the modesty
of Naval men. If he will please go on correcting that
ignorance, and in the same inspiring style, I wish an even
greater access of power to his elbow.

“I am allowed the reputation of a tolerable guide in writing
and style, and I can certainly help you to produce clear
English.” These words, written in 1881, are to be found in a
letter of GEORGE MEREDITH to his eldest son. They show how
wildly mistaken even the best of us may be with regard to our
own qualities and gifts; for if there is one thing that
MEREDITH could not produce, that thing is clear English. Mr.
S.M. ELLIS agrees with me in this particular point, and has
written George Meredith: His Life and Friends in Relation to
his Work (GRANT RICHARDS) to prove that this is so. The
book is a curious compound. At one moment Mr. ELLIS sets out in
detail the Meredithian genealogy, and shows that MEREDITH was
the son and grandson of tailors and did not relish the
relationship; at another moment he describes MEREDITH’S
delightful and exuberantly youthful characteristics as a
friend; and again he shows how badly MEREDITH behaved in regard
to his first wife (though she was much more in fault), and also
in regard to his first son, Arthur. Still the book is extremely
interesting and, though it does not profess to deal in
elaborate criticism, it contains some very shrewd comments on
MEREDITH’S work and the reasons that made his novels so many
sealed books to the British public. Here and there Mr. ELLIS
allows himself almost to write a passage or two in the style of
the master. This is one of them: “As he [Maurice Fitzgerald]
was the gourmetic instrument that brought Mrs. Ockenden’s art
to perfect expression, he appropriately attained
immortalisation jointly with her at the hands of the friend who
had shared with him the joys of that good woman’s superlative
cookery in Seaford days.”

THE PAY-TABLE.

“JOHN SMITH, A.B., THREE POUNDS TEN—

IN DEBT.”

“Wanted, half-governess for boy aged nine, girl aged
six; wages £30 per year.”—Morning
Post.

A half-governess is, we suppose, the feminine equivalent of
two quartermasters.

“Lady Nurse, nursery college trained, wanted, under 34;
very experienced babies.”—Provincial
Paper.

Perhaps they will know too much for her.

“Will gentleman, navy mackintosh, who spoke to lady,
blue hat, vicinity Park Station, Tuesday, 6 o’clock, speak
again same time?”—Liverpool Echo.

The gentleman will doubtless beg a ride on Mr. H.G. WELLS’S
“Time Machine” in order to get back in time for the
appointment.

[Sir WILLIAM BEVERIDGE. K.O.B., has been appointed
Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Food.]