PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 159
October 27, 1920.
CHARIVARIA.
Some idea of the evils consequent on a
coal strike can be obtained when we hear there was talk of a football
match in the North having to be cancelled.
Mr. Lloyd George is certainly most
unlucky. As a result of the coal strike the New World has again been
postponed.
We are assured that everything has been done to safeguard our food
supply. We ourselves have heard of one grocer who has sufficient fresh
eggs to last him for many months.
“Large numbers of South Wales miners left by train yesterday for
the seaside,” says Lloyd’s News. Unfortunately they did
not travel by the Datum Line.
The Opera House at Covent Garden is to be used as a cinema theatre.
Meanwhile the House of Commons remains firm.
The Daily Mail Prize Hat has now been chosen, though it is
not yet definitely decided whether the wearing of it will be made
compulsory. If it is, we understand that
Mr. Winston Churchill will apply for
exemption.
Thieves have broken into the railway station at Blaenau Festiniog
and stolen a quantity of chocolate. Apparently with the idea of
confusing the police, they left the name of the station behind
them.
Twenty-one persons have been injured as the result of the explosion
of a bomb in a first-class carriage on the Brazil Central Railway. The
culprit, we understand, has written to the company expressing regret,
but pointing out that no seat was available in a third-class
carriage.
A ship’s cook has been fined twenty shillings for refusing to
join his ship, his excuse being that he had seen a rat as big as a cat
in the cabin. It was pointed out to him that only ship’s
officers are entitled to see rats in the cabin.
A company has been formed at Stockholm for storing wind power.
There should be a great demand for the insides of some puff pastry
that we know of.
An American has invented an aeroplane capable of remaining in the
air for hours and hours. This is nothing to
Mr. Asquith’s Irish solution, which
is guaranteed to remain in the air for years and years.
Brides are getting rather tired of Harris’s lilies, says a
writer in
The Daily Graphic. It is only natural that brides should become
rather bored if they always wear the same sort of flowers every time
they’re married.
Mr. E. Van Ingen, a New York merchant
now in London, boasts that he has crossed the Atlantic one hundred and
sixty-eight times. It may be against the Prohibition laws, but we
fancy it would be cheaper if he kept a few bottles of the stuff in New
York.
A medical man advises people to use dried milk on health grounds.
We have felt for some time that what was wanted was a really good
waterproof milk.
Mr. E. A. Douse has spent forty-two
years in a Cheshire post-office. It is only fair to say that the young
lady behind the counter didn’t notice him standing there all
that time.
A Hertfordshire farmer, says The Daily Mail, has counted one
hundred and twenty-three grains of wheat in one ear. Our contemporary
has not yet decided what can be done about it.
“What is the right age for a man to marry?” asks
Miss Gertie Wentworth-James. The answer is,
Not yet.
While addressing a meeting of miners an extremist declared that the
idle rich were the cause of all industrial troubles. It has since been
reported that several of the audience immediately proceeded home and
told themselves off in front of a mirror.
We understand that the miners greatly desire that Ireland will
remain quiet for a short period, and thus refrain from distracting
public attention from their cause.
“Lord Northcliffe,” says The New York World, “is always in
advance of public opinion.” This is a fitting rejoinder to those who
tell us that he is always behind The Times.
We cull the following from a speech of
Senator Harding: “As I note the cornfields
I am reminded that we still plough the land and plant and cultivate
the fields in order to grow crops.” We would remind the Senator that,
with the Elections drawing daily nearer, the habit of making such
sweeping and unguarded statements as the above is extremely
dangerous.
We advise all readers to stick to their own particular newspaper,
as a sudden change might upset the “net sales” which are being so
carefully compiled at the present moment.
The up-to-date song-writer, says a musical journal, must strike a
sad and soulful note this season. We are already engaged in writing
“The Scotsman’s Farewell to his Corkscrew.”
A theatrical writer informs us that The Laughing Husband
will be revived this year. Not in our suburb, unless the cost of
living drops considerably.
Betty. “Grandma, I know my twelve
times.”
Grandma. “Do you, dear? Well, what are
twelve times thirteen?”
Betty. “Don’t be silly, Grandma.
There isn’t such a thing.”
“The modern Hydra, embracing innumerable adverse
factors, would appear at least as many headed as the ancient, for as
fast as one is more or less effectively decapitated up comes another
to upset the applecart.”Financial Paper.
Classical students will, of course, remember how cleverly Hercules
made use of this habit of the Hydra to secure the apples of the
Hesperides.
THE DINING GLADIATOR;
or, War to the Knife (and
Fork).
(Being further Extracts from a certain Diary.)
II.
Wrote an even better article than ever,
on indigestion as a determining factor in national moral.
Pointed out how important it is, if we are to think coolly, that we
should eat discreetly. Sufficiently, of course, but with thought.
At the Tribunal all the afternoon, busily combing out.
To the Hippodrome in the evening. A most diverting show.
Northcliffe is becoming impossible and I
must find another paper. Several of my best commas cut out of
to-day’s article. All reference to the necessity for immediately
beheading Asquith omitted yesterday. Was
comforted by lunch at the Carlton with Doris
Keane, Gertie Millar and
Scatters. We had some good jokes.
The news of my resignation from The Times has set my
telephone ringing all the morning with congratulations, requests for
interviews and offers of employment. Also some attractive invitations
to dinner and week-ends. The War for the moment seems to be forgotten.
Wonderful, the power of the printed word!
My first article in The Morning Post, distributing blame and
praise with my usual deadly accuracy. Wonder what
poor Northcliffe is doing without me.
Received long letter from Haig asking
for instructions, which I sent by return.
Lunched at the Carlton with some charming musical-comedy actresses.
To the Tribunal after. Dined at the National Sporting Club and saw a
good fight.
A visit from an Italian personage of consequence, who told me that
my articles are the talk of Italy. If writing could win wars, he said,
my pen would have done it.
L. G. came up to Carryon Hall heavily masked. I gave him an
excellent dinner and some equally good advice, and he left much
heartened.
Dined at Lady Randolph’s. A merry
crowd there. Every one very gay and amusing; but we forgot
that Winston was our hostess’s son
and castigated him badly. Lady Juliet said
that with some people, no matter what they begin to talk about, even
with Cabinet Ministers, it all comes back to food.
Wrote a careful article pointing out that we must have at least one
hundred more divisions in the West before next Friday.
I was gratified to learn to-day that in consequence of my
articles The Morning Post has doubled its circulation,
while The Times hardly sells a copy.
Lunched with Massingham of The
Nation, who eats more sensibly than he writes.
In Paris. Saw Clemenceau at the War
Ministry. His table was littered with papers and reports, amongst
which he pointed out laughingly one of my articles. I can’t
think why he laughed. Lunched at Voisin’s.
Left for rapid tour of inspection to British H.Q. Found much to put
right. Issued an Order of the Day to soldiers of all ranks. The
Germans, hearing of my presence, made desperate attempts to bomb me,
but failed. Food at the Front not very alluring.
Yesterday’s article, I learn, put the wind up the War
Cabinet, and great things may result. All my pleasure spoilt, however,
by breaking a tooth on a pellet in a Ritz grouse.
Visited the French H.Q. and was pleased
with Foch, whom I asked to run over to
Carryon when he was ever in any doubt. Sent home a powerful article
which, when it is reproduced in all the French papers, as it will be,
should encourage him and improve his position.
Dined at Lady Ridley’s. A very
cheery party and much chaff. Mrs. Asquith
said that she was writing her reminiscences. I made no mention of my
diary, but if I don’t get it out in book form before hers
I’m not the Colonel of the Nuts.
To-day’s article should bring things to a head very shortly.
Shall be very glad when it is over and I can rest a little. Took some
bicarbonate of soda.
Armistice signed. Spent the day in a kind of triumphal procession
from restaurant to restaurant, at each of which I was hailed with
applause.
Reached Versailles and let the news be known. A visible quickening
up already to be noted.
Sent for President Wilson, but something
must have prevented his coming. Lunched at Paillard’s and dined
at Larue’s. Saw an amusing Palais Royal farce.
June 28th, 1920.—Treaty of Peace, for which I have
worked so long, signed at last. Now I can utter my Nunc
Dimittis, having accomplished the two ends I had in view—to
bring the first world War to a more or less satisfactory finish and to
make it dangerous for any but the deaf and dumb to dine out.
E. V. L.
THE LATE WORM
(Being a correction of “A Ballad of the Early
Worm,” “Punch,” October 6th).
A few short weeks ago,
Is it unkind to harp again
Upon that tale of woe?
Pathetic every word;
Three wormlets fought to stand between
Pa and the Early Bird.
(By use of triple strength
They saved their father’s life—ah yes—
But not his total length).
That Father left his hole,
A briskly virtuous annelid,
To take an early stroll.
Called Vegetable Mould
And Earthworms (Darwin); if you look
You’ll find that you’ve been sold.
Authority I cite:
There never is an early worm;
Pa had been out all night.
And stayed till dawn next day;
For I will not attempt to hide
That worms behave that way.
Should not be filled with woe
At thought of Father’s tragedy;
His morals were so low.
Our Courtly Contemporaries.
“The Earl of Athlone walked away on foot, as is the
simple way of our Royal Family.” Sunday Paper.
“High-backed chair of Tudor period, about
1660.”—Advt. in Daily Paper.We don’t question its genuineness, but infer that it has been
subjected to Restoration.
“Furnished House, consisting of dining, drawing, eight
breakfast rooms, etc.” Sunday Paper.Would suit a large family inclined to be short-tempered in the
morning.
A TOO-FREE COUNTRY.
Alien Rioter. “DOWN WITH EVERYBODY!”
P.C. John Bull. “WELL, WE’LL MAKE
A START WITH YOU.”
PEOPLE WE ADMIRE.
THE HERO WHO KEEPS UP HIS ARMY EXERCISES, STRIKE OR NO STRIKE.
A LETTER TO THE BACK-BLOCKS.
Dear Ginger,—So you have bought a
very promising little gold-mine from a rollicking Irish nobleman
called Patrick Terence O’Ryan, who is retiring on Mayo to take
up the paternal estates. H-m!—have you? And you think you
yourself will be retiring home presently on the proceeds of the said
mine? H-m! again. There is a certain familiarity in your description
of the gentleman. Tell me, has this Hibernian philanthropist a slight
squint, a broken nose and a tendency to lisp in moments of
excitement?
I think I see you nod.
Ginger, I once bought a mine from that man. His name was Algernon
Maddox Cholmondely then, and he was homeward bound to assume
the ancestral acres in Flint. He escorted me down the hole and
displayed visible gold sparkling all along the reef. A week after he
had gone I found that he had put it there with a shot-gun—an old
“salter’s” trick, but new to me at the time. You are not likely
to be seeing Patrick Algernon Terence Maddox O’Ryan-Cholmondely
again, but, if you should, remember me to him, please—with the
business end of a pick-axe. Always delighted to keep in touch with old
friends.
Ginger, you never can tell. This is not an original remark.
One of our brainy boys—George Bernard, unless I
err—thought of it before I did; went away into the wilderness,
wrapped his grey-matter in wet Jaeger bandages, subsisted on a diet of
premasticated grape-nuts and produced this aphorism. And there’s
a world of truth in it, my son. You certainly never can.
One fine morning last August (yes, there was one), I stepped
out of my diggings in an obscure Cornish fishing-village to find a
gentleman busily engaged strangling a lady on the cliff side. He had
her by the throat and was gradually forcing her over the edge. Once in
Bristol I interposed in a slogging contest between husband and wife
and was very properly chastised for my interference, not only by the
happy pair but by the entire street, who had valuable bets laid on the
event. That, you say, should have been a lesson to me. But you know
me, Ginger, impetuous, chivalrous, brave; I simply couldn’t
stand there and watch a defenceless woman—moreover a
good-looking woman—foully done to death like that. I flung
myself upon the villain—that is to say I spoke to him about
it.
“Oh, dash it, old bean,” I said, “draw it mild!”
Somebody shouted something behind me, but I didn’t catch its
purport for the sufficient reason that at that moment the
long-suffering cliff gave way and we all went overboard, all three of
us, he, she and it—me.
Fortunately the drop wasn’t terrific—not more than four
feet or so—and the tide happened to be in at the time, which was
very decent of it. My first thought as I came to the surface—or,
at any rate, one of my first thoughts—was “What of the
woman?” I struck out for the poor creature. At the same moment she
struck out for me, and, what is more, she got me too, clean between
the eyes—a straight left-hander.
Mistress. “Would you like to go out this
afternoon, Mabel?”
Mabel. “I am going
out.”
“Out of my way, fathead!” she
hissed [pg
325]and went on for the shore under her own steam at about
forty knots an hour. I was washed up myself, along with a quantity of
other jetsam, a few minutes later, to be met by a small furious man
with a heliotrope complexion and white spats who wagged bunches of
typescript under my nose and informed me that I had absolutely ruined
about twenty million feet of the Flickerscope Company’s
five-reel paralyser, “The Smuggler’s Bride.”
Of course you say that you saw what was coming all along. Of course
you did. But wait a moment.
Yesterday afternoon I was strolling down a certain fashionable
street when a loud explosion occurred in a near-by shop and a cloud of
acrid grey smoke came rolling out. Being by nature as inquisitive as a
chipmunk I was on the point of shoving my head round the door-jamb to
see what was up when caution prompted me to turn round. Yes, there
they were, of course, a tall, thin youth winding away at a cine-camera
like an Italian at a barrel-organ, and beside him a heavy-weight
Israelite, dancing a war-dance, waving bunches of typescript and
howling at me to stand clear. I had very near ruined a further mile or
two of film.
I sprang out of range, and then, wishing to atone for my previous
blunders and prove that I really had no malevolent intentions towards
a struggling industry, I went round and assisted the caracoling
producer in stemming the crowd. Among others I stemmed a pushful
policeman. I didn’t notice he was a policeman until he was
biting the dust, with my stick between his legs. However an
instantaneous application of palm-oil made it all right between us,
and he squatted half-stunned on the kerb, nursing his brow with one
hand, my five bob with the other and took no further interest in the
proceedings. And very interesting they were, too.
Three masked men dashed out of the shop laden with booty and were
pursued by a fourth, whom they knocked on the head and left lying for
dead on the pavement. Most realistic. The crowd, led by me, cheered
like mad. Then the thieves jumped into a waiting car and were whirled
away. That done, the photographer and his step-dancing friend leapt
into a second car and were whirled away also. Once more we cheered. I
made a short speech to the effect that everything was all right with
the British Cinema business and, after leading a few more cheers for
myself, came home.
“Well,” you say, “all very jolly and so on, but what about it?”
There’s this about it, old companion, just this, that I am
very probably spending a meditative winter in gaol. The charge is that
I did aid and abet a peculiarly ingenious gang of desperadoes to blow
a jeweller’s safe, knock the jeweller on the head and get safely
away with the stuff. I am even accused of obstructing the police. An
inspector has been round to see me this morning and he tells me there
is practically no hope. He advises me, as between friends, to make a
clean breast of it, return the boodle, betray my accomplices, plead
mental deficiency and trust to the clemency of the Court. It’s
pretty rough, after making all arrangements for spending a cheerful
Christmas in Algiers, to have it changed to cold porridge in Parkhurst
or Princetown. Of the two I hope it’ll be Parkhurst, for
Princetown, so habitués tell me, is no place for a
growing lad when the wintry winds do blow.
Thine, de
profundis Patlander.
Rhymes of Unrest.
Who gave himself up to despair;
For he said, “If we’re paid
On our ’get,’ I’m afraid
That I canna ca’ canny no mair.”
Said the wise old saw of old;
But the miners say, “What rot!
Strike while the weather’s cold.”
“The art of decoration is alien to painting in
this—that you must mix your colours with your
brains.”—Daily Paper.We await a reply from the intellectuals of Chelsea.
“There is one building now being erected, within a few
miles of Manchester as the cock crows.”—Provincial
Paper.We are unfamiliar with this method of mensuration.
ABOUT CONFERENCES.
We may not have coal, but we can have
conferences. A conference is the most typically English thing that
there is. The old Anglo-Saxons had them and called them moots. Why
they called them a silly name like that, when “conferences” would have
done just as well, one can’t imagine; but they had their notions
and stuck to them. They would have called Parliament a moot; in fact
they did. They called it a moot of wise men. Sarcastic beggars, these
Anglo-Saxons!
The advantages of having a conference about everything are almost
too numerous to explain. For one thing, suppose Smith is coming to see
you at 2.30 p.m. “It’s no use his
waiting now,” you say. “I’ve got a conference at 3. Tell him to
come back at 5.30.” And when he comes back at 5.30 of course the
conference is still going on, so you don’t have to see him at
all.
There is nothing again that makes you feel so deliciously important
as being at a conference. You may be a leader of quite an
insignificant body of workers, like the Nutcracker-Teeth Makers’
Union, but you rub shoulders at a conference with men whose names are
a household word throughout the whole of Great Britain, amongst those
who have houses. The distinguished and the undistinguished lay their
heads together; the spat-wearing get their feet mixed with the
non-spat-wearing; though there is rather a fake, mind you, about this
spat-wearing business, for it may simply mean that the uppers are very
badly worn, or that only that very bright pink pair of socks came home
from the wash this week, or even that there are no socks underneath at
all.
But anyhow, at a conference, Tom, Dick and Harry hobnob with Bob,
James and George, and all are equal, except perhaps the chairman, who
has two more pens in front of him and a much larger ash-tray.
Mr. Bevin and Sir
Eric Geddes smile affably across at each other, and the Prime Minister
and Mr. Cramp find out how much they have in common, such as love of
poetry and pelargoniums. The mine-owner offers the miners’
representative a cigarette, and the miners’ representative says to the
mine-owner, “Many thanks, old boy; but I’ll have one of my own.” And
after it is over they all go out and stand arm-in-arm in a long row to
be photographed for the papers, and are read next morning from left to
right. It is the ambition of every properly constituted Englishman to
wake up some morning and find that his portrait is being read from left
to right; but how few succeed.
The total output of conferences in this country during one year has
never been computed yet, but it is supposed to exceed that of any
country in the world, except Red India. If there were to be a strike
of conferents or conferees, whatever they are called, in England, it
is impossible to say what would happen. But it might be possible to
lay down a datum line—a shilling extra for the first million
words above two hundred and fifty million per shift, and two shillings
more for every million words above that. Fortunately this will never
be necessary, for people who confer are so fond of conferences that
they will never down chairs.
And no wonder. Only a very strong man can hew coal, and only a very
reckless one can make a speech, but almost anyone can confer if he has
a large enough ash-tray; and there seems no reason why more people
shouldn’t confer. Everybody is interested in conferences,
whatever they are about, and the British public ought to be admitted
to this kind of thing. One is always reading in the paper that the
sound commonsense or the traditional sense of fair play of the great
British public will support the miners in any just claim; but this
claim is not just or just isn’t, or something of that sort. But
how do they know what the great British public will feel about it?
They aren’t there, are they? There ought to be representatives
of the G.B.P. on all these conferences. They ought to be chosen from a
rota, like jurymen. Very likely one of them would have found out what
a datum line is, anyway. There’s a man who comes up in the train
with me in the morning who thinks he knows, but unfortunately he gets
out at Croydon so we haven’t found out yet.
By having a lot more conferences and having a lot of
representatives from the public on them all, and paying them well for
it, one could practically settle the unemployment problem for the
winter. If the Government can only be brought to see that this is the
only statesmanlike course, and the sole course consistent with the
Anglo-Saxon sense of justice, and capable of leading to a satisfactory
Exploration of Avenues, Finding of Bridges and Discovery of Ways Out,
we may all achieve our life’s ambition some day and open the
morning paper to find that we are being read at last from left to
right. “Mr. Robert Williams,
Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. J.
H. Thomas,
Lord Riddell,” and so on and so on, till
you come at last to “J. Smith, Esq., R.B.P.,” smiling the widest of
all. R.B.P.’s, I think, should wear a distinguishing
mark—a single spat perhaps. Evoe.
MORE SECRET HISTORY.
[According to a report in a daily paper, at the recent Peace
Conference held at Spa, where the delegates were royally entertained
in the matter of hotel accommodation, meals, etc., the cigar bill
(which has been sent in to the League of Nations and sent out again)
amounted to three thousand two hundred pounds. What the delegates
could not smoke they seem to have taken away with them.]
Rent in the veil which keeps the public blind,
And thus obtain a pretty shrewd idea
Of what goes on behind;
Reveal apparent trifles which befall,
Proving that men whom we supposed immortal
Are human after all.
For smoking “free” cigars with so much zest,
Frankly I feel ’twas little short of shameful
To go and pinch the rest.
Your beef was rightly of a super-cut;
A modicum of wine does whet the senses;
But those cigars—tut, tut!
Much more appropriate, in my humble view,
When Nation nestles cheek by jowl with Nation,
And far, far cheaper too.
Might I suggest your vicious ways should cease,
And that in future you conduct your pow-wows
Over the pipe of peace.
An Affectionate Diminutive.
“Lord Buxton, who retired this summer from the post of
High Commissioner and Governor-General of South Africa, has been made
an early.”—Daily Paper.
A correspondent, referring to Mr. Punch’s
quotation (from an Australian paper) of the title of a song, “It was a
Lover and His Last,” suggests “Ne suitor ultra
crepidam.“
On the coal strike:—
“We look to the Government to keep all doors open. We
look to the public to keep cool.”—Westminster
Gazette.
The public should have no difficulty in doing its part if the
Government do theirs.
TRANSPORT: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
Giles. “I didn’t
’ardly agree wi’ the Vicar in wot ’e said about them
early martyrs bein’ thrown to the lions an’ burnt at the
stake an’ livin’ on for ever.”
Curate. “Why not?“
Giles. “Well, Zur, no constitootion
could stand it.”
THE CONSPIRATORS.
V.
My dear Charles,—Let me remind you
that the Bolshevist conspirator has to stir up conflagrations in other
countries without leaving his own. Passports and things are put in to
make it more difficult when he comes to getting his inflammable
material and directions for use over the frontier. So he has to invent
a way over the obstacles.
The first prize is awarded to the following: Secret instructions
are printed in Arabic and the pages containing them are bound up in a
five hundred page book in that language. The courier, an Oriental,
carries this book openly in his hand when he presents himself at the
frontier. It is ten to one that an innocent-looking book, thus
carried, will not be suspected; a hundred to one against there being
an official capable of reading it; five hundred to three against that
official trying one of the guilty pages, if he is there and duly
suspicious. Yet, with a hundred and sixty-six thousand chances against
it, our Little Man got hold of those instructions.
The Sherlock Holmes of fiction is a gaunt figure, with a hatchet
face, spare of flesh. Our Little Man is a chubby lad, standing about
four foot ten in his stockinged feet, rubicund and corpulent, and he
wears a mackintosh with a very mackintoshy smell in all weathers. He
never did a day’s work, and he never means to try, but he is a
genius at getting it out of others. Some say he is of Swiss origin,
some say he is American, and some say that surely he must be Chinese;
he was never certain himself until Czecho-Slovak was invented, and he
plumped for that. He has the degree of Master of Arts; what arts I
don’t know; probably the black ones. His inner knowledge of the
human species seems to give him plenty to laugh at. He notices
everything, forgets nothing, and there is never a weakness in a man
but he is on to it. He made up his mind that those secret instructions
were passing and set about to find how they passed and what they were.
He was too lazy to begin at the beginning, so he began at the end. He
called in person, as a commercial traveller, at the suspected office
of destination, and in the short time available ascertained that the
door-keeper who turned him out was a patriotic and fervent admirer of
the wine of the country.
Our Little Man had no vulgar idea of getting the secret out of him
by making him drunk. If there was a secret it wouldn’t be in the
door-keeper. But he and that door-keeper got to drinking together and
the door-keeper did all the paying; the drinking and the paying went
on by progressive degrees till the door-keeper had no money and only a
still almighty thirst left. The Little Man left him with his thirst
for a few days, until it became intolerable, and the door-keeper
insisted that something simply must be done about it. The Little Man
regretted that he could not give the necessary money to finance
further orgies, but he would gladly advance it. Four nights got the
door-keeper well in his debt, and our Little Man then began to talk
about repayment. The door-keeper said he had no money; the Little Man
said he must get it. Off whom? His employer.
How was the door-keeper to get his employer’s money off him?
By selling him a safe. Our Little Man then divulged that he was in
reality a commercial traveller in safes; if the door-keeper would get
his employer to buy one of his safes the Little Man would forgive him
his debt by way of commission. He felt sure that the Head of the
Office had a weakness for precautions. The door-keeper, now
enthusiastic, said he should just think he had! The Little Man felt he
was getting warm. The door-keeper put the deal through and prevailed
upon his master to instal a really safe safe in the office, instead of
the old one. You had only to look at it to see it was impregnable by
fire, water or the King’s Enemies. But one set of keys stayed
with the Little Man.
The drinking (by both) and the paying (by the door-keeper) were
resumed. When the debt was again large enough the Little Man imposed
new terms. This time he wanted to see the Head of the Office himself,
to put further deals through. The door-keeper thought deeply, but
could see no harm in this. The Little Man was thus introduced into the
presence, and startled it by pointing to the safe and offering to do
burglar on it any night of the week. The Head was manifestly
concerned.
“We have here,” said the Little Man, producing two formidable slabs
of steel hinged together and leaving room between them when locked for
a wad of papers only—”we have here a special strong box exactly
suited for the storage of your bank-notes. Put them in this box, and
the box in the safe, and then you really are ahead of your
enemies.”
The Head bought. He gave the Little Man less money than he had
spent on the strong box, and the Little Man gave him less keys than he
was entitled to. The drinking and the debt were resumed, and, when it
came to a question of settlement for the third time, the Little Man
pointed out to the door-keeper that, if he hadn’t the money to
repay, then he must steal it. He now divulged that he was not really a
broker, but a breaker of safes and strong boxes. He handed the
door-keeper a key of his employer’s safe. In the safe would be
found the strong box. In the strong box would be found some notes of
high value, unless he was very much mistaken.
So the door-keeper went and opened the safe and returned. And the
Little Man opened the strong box, and
he was [pg 329]very much mistaken. There was never a
note there; just half-a-dozen pages torn out of a book printed in
Arabic.
He was so angry that he gave the strong box one on the lid for
itself, with the result that he couldn’t lock it again. However,
he said he had a friend who could lock or unlock anything, and he left
the door-keeper drinking, for the first time at the Little Man’s
expense, while he took off the box to be repaired by his friend. The
latter happened to be in the next room with a camera. The pages were
photographed; the Little Man returned to the door-keeper with the
strong box, now capable of being re-locked; the door-keeper returned
to the office and put back the strong box, locked, into the safe,
which he also locked, and was wiping the sweat off his forehead and
congratulating himself that no one was the worse, when he was startled
to find a policeman had been watching him all the time.
But he proved to be a very amenable policeman. He said he would
take no action before he and the door-keeper had had time to talk it
over next day. By the time that talk came the photographs had been
developed, printed and translated. But the policeman did not wish to
bore the door-keeper with the tiresome details. To put it quite
shortly the policeman thought it was a most excellent crime, worthy of
repetition at intervals.
Yours ever, Henry.
(To be continued.)
CONCENTRATION.
NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.
The ——.
So rude to talk about the ——.
What funny folk we are!
I think we’ve got the jealous hump
Because we see we’ll never jump
So skilfully and far.
For, if one’s nibbled by a gnat
Or harvest-bugs or things like that,
One seldom keeps it dark;
One may enlarge upon the tale
If one is gobbled by a whale
Or swallowed by a shark;
But if you speak about the bite
Of this abandoned parasite
You’re very, very rash;
So sure is it to raise a frown
I dare not even write it down;
I simply put a ——.
None but an entomologist
Will quite admit the things exist,
And generally they insist
On using other names;
For, when at night Professors leap
Out of their scientific sleep
Because these little devils keep
Playing their usual games,
They never shout, “It seems to be
A something, something, something ——!”
(The word is never used, you see,
Except by artisans);
No, as they fling the bedclothes high
They give a wild but cultured cry,
“Confound it! Botheration! Hi!
A Pulex irritans!” A. P. H.
Our Ruthless Motorists.
“Triumph 1920 4 h.p. Model H, also Baby, both brand
new; sacrifice, £5 off each.”Motor Journal.
“It was intended to hold mock trials in order to
familiarise women with court procedure and ’legal
shibboleths.’When I saw her to-day, Miss —— said that
’techniaclities’ would have been a better
word.”—Evening Paper.
We hate to contradict a lady, but we cannot agree.
Aggrieved Profiteeress (studying photographs of the
Peerage). “Well, I don’t see as
they’ve any call to look that ’aughty. Like as not me
an’ you’d be wearin’ coronets this minute if all our
ancestors ’adn’t a-been cut off in the Wars of the Roses,
or somethink.”
WORKING FOR PEACE.
(Extracts from the Diary of Mr. John Robert Boffkins, Trade
Union Leader.)
Monday.—Rose with a heart over-flowing with love
towards my fellow-men. Industrial strife must cease. Strikes are a
barbarous and futile method of redressing wrong. Rather think that an
increase in wages of two shillings a day would appeal to our members.
Must inquire.
Tuesday.—Have confirmed my opinion that a
two-shillings’ increase would appeal to our members. They all
seem enthusiastic over the suggestion. They appear to be under the
impression that the idea is their own. It is not. It is mine. If it
materialises I shall be most popular. But I am all for peace. A strike
is out of the question. I shall spare no effort to prevent one.
Wednesday.—Presented formal demand to employers
to-day. Told our members they must be firm to the bitter end. The
two-shillings’ increase is their strict due, and, if we present
a united front, the grasping capitalist will be brought to his knees.
Am working night and day for peace.
Thursday.—Pointed out to the employers that a strike
is inevitable unless they give way. We can make no concession. My
whole energies are concentrated on preventing a strike. Told our
members that unless they remain firm the employers will crush them. A
strike would be a national calamity and might spell ruin to the
country.
Friday.—The possibility of a strike looms larger. Can
nothing be done to prevent it? Informed the employers that we declined
to abate one iota of our claim. “All or nothing” is our motto. Also
refused to go to arbitration. Warned the employers that a strike means
starvation for women and children. The prospect appals me.
Saturday.—The employers, who seem to be determined on
a strike, have offered the men two shillings if they will consider the
question of working five days a week instead of four. We refused their
offer and demanded that our claim should be conceded unconditionally
by noon, failing which our members would cease work.
Later.—The strike has commenced. Heaven knows that I
did everything to prevent it which human being could do. The
capitalists seem to have made up their minds to force civil war and
all its horrors upon the country. The spectacle of little children
starving causes me acute distress.
A GUIDE TO GREATNESS.
[Mr. Jacob Epstein
maintains in The Daily Mail that a man to be a creative genius
must lead an orderly domesticated life.]
Immured in a Bloomsbury flat,
And yearned for the kudos of Kipling
For fees that were frequent and fat;
But editors, far from discerning
The worth of the pearls that I placed
At their feet, had a way of returning
The same with indelicate haste.
The sweetest and neatest of wives,
I found, after peeling a tater
Or imparting a polish to knives,
I could scribble with frenzy and passion,
That the breaking of coal would inspire,
In a truly remarkable fashion,
My soul with celestial fire.
I’ve cancelled my grudge against Fate;
My lyrical efforts are now sold
At a simply phenomenal rate;
And, whether I’m laying the lino
Or bathing the babes, I regard
The job as a cushy one: I know
The way to succeed as a bard.
THE SCALES OF JUSTICE.
Sir Robert Horne. “I WANT TO KEEP THE
BALANCE. NOW THEN, BOTH TOGETHER.”
The Miner. “NO. YOU
BEGIN—AND THEN PERHAPS I’LL THINK ABOUT IT.”
P. C. Greenwood.
“Arrah! Get out wid yez and let the lady
pass.”
ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
Tuesday, October 19th.—A start was made with half a
hundred Questions, and, considering that most of them had been in cold
storage since before the Recess, it was surprising how fresh they
remained. Persia and Mesopotamia—not to mention
Ireland—are still unsettled; the Turkish Treaty is not yet
ratified; the cost of living continues to rise, and the ratio of
unemployment has alarmingly advanced, especially in the case of
ex-service men.
These last are to be found work in the building trades, with, it is
hoped, the assistance of the trade unions, but, if that hope is
disappointed, then without it. The country requires half-a-million
houses built. “Here are men who could assist,” said
the Prime Minister, “and we propose that
they should be allowed to assist.”
Over a prospect already sufficiently bleak there broods the shadow
of the coal-strike. Sir Robert Horne, in
presenting the case for the Government, was admirably clear but,
perhaps naturally, a little cold. Only when the new lighting
arrangement had flooded the House with artificial sunshine did the
Minister warm up a little and hint that a way of peace might yet be
found.
I wonder if it was by accident or artifice that
Mr. Brace began his plea for the miners
with the admission that they had only dropped the demand for the
reduction of fourteen shillings and twopence in the price of domestic
coal when they discovered that “the money was not there.” Anyhow the
laughter that ensued served to put Members into a good temper and to
cause them to lend a friendly ear to his suggestion that the two
shillings advance, though in his view only “dust in the balance,”
should be “temporarily” conceded, pending the establishment of a
tribunal which should permanently settle the conditions of the mining
industry. The increase of output which everyone desired would then be
brought about.
Most of the speakers who followed seemed to think that
Mr. Brace had sown the seed of a
settlement. It was left to the Prime
Minister, who evidently did not relish the task, to awaken the
House from its beautiful dream. He pointed out that to accept the
proposal would be to give the miners what they had originally claimed,
without any guarantee that the greater output would be forthcoming. If
it were not forthcoming and the two shillings were taken away, what
would happen? “A strike,” cried someone. “Precisely,” said
Mr. Lloyd George; only it would have been
provoked by the Government instead of by the miners. He was not
prepared to do business on those lines.
And so the debate came to an end rather than a conclusion.
Wednesday, October 20th.—The Peers plunged into the
morasses of the Irish Question. Lord Crewe
asked for an official inquiry into the alleged “reprisals” and
particularly instanced the attacks upon the creameries. Rather than
that Ireland should be “pacified” by such methods as these he would
see her engaged in civil war, “fairly conducted on both sides.” From
these words it may be gathered that his lordship’s knowledge of
civil war is happily not extensive.
Furnished with a voluminous brief from the Irish Office,
Lord Curzon made a long reply, the purport
of which was that many of the reprisals were bogus, many were actions
undertaken in self-defence, while the rest were generally due to men
“seeing red” after their comrades had been brutally murdered. The
Government did not palliate such cases, and had instituted inquiries
and taken disciplinary action against the offenders, when known; but
they were not prepared to set up a public inquiry such as
Lord Crewe had demanded. It would only
substitute “a competition in perjury” for the present “competition in
murder”—a somewhat infelicitous phrase by which, as he
subsequently explained, he did not mean to imply, as
Lord Parmoor suggested, that police and
rebels were engaged in a murderous rivalry.
Simultaneously the House of Commons was engaged upon an identically
similar debate. Mr. Arthur Henderson was as
lugubrious as Lord Crewe in presenting the
indictment and distinctly less adroit in selecting his facts. His
theory was that the Government had provoked the Sinn Fein outrages by
its treatment of the people. Why, women had been prevented from taking
their eggs to market!
Sir Hamar Greenwood spoke from the same
brief as Lord Curzon, but threw far more
passion and vigour into its recital. There had been some reprisals, he
admitted, but they were as nothing compared to the horrors that had
provoked them; and he protested against the notion that “the heroes of
yesterday”—the R.I.C. is mainly recruited from ex-service
men—had turned into murderers. As for the creameries, he had
never seen a tittle of evidence that they had been destroyed by
servants of the Crown, and he warned the House not to believe the
stories put out by the propaganda bureau of the Irish Republican Army.
He was still a convinced Home Ruler—an Ulster hot-gospeller had
accused him of being a Sinn Feiner with a Papist wife!—but the
first thing to do was to break the reign of terror and end the rule of
the assassin. That they were doing, and there was no case for
Mr. Henderson’s “insulting
resolution.”
The Opposition for the moment seemed stunned by
the Chief Secretary’s sledge-hammer
speech. No one rose from the Front Bench and
Lieutenant-Commander Kenworthy had to
overcome his modesty and step into the breach. Later on,
Lord Robert Cecil, on the strength of
information supplied by an American journalist, supported the demand
for an inquiry. So did Mr. Asquith, on the
ground that it would be in the interests of the Government of Ireland
itself; but this argument was obviously weakened by
Mr. Bonar Law’s reminder that in 1913
and 1914 Mr.
Asquith himself had deprecated inquiries in somewhat similar
circumstances. The Government had a very good division, 346 to 79; but
there were many abstentions.
Thursday, October 21st.—It was, no doubt, by way of
brightening an unutterably gloomy week that
Mr. L’Estrange Malone, who has not
hitherto been known as a humourist, invited the Government to
intercede at Washington for the release of the
notorious James Larkin, now languishing in
an American gaol. Inasmuch as Larkin had
been convicted for having advocated the overthrow of the United States
by violence, Mr.
Harmsworth did not think H.M. Government were called upon to intervene.
Mr. Malone understood from this that the Government had no sympathy with
British subjects in foreign lands, and so he got another laugh.
Commander Bellairs thought it would be a
good idea if the League of Nations, pending the discharge of its more
important functions, were to offer rewards for world-benefiting
discoveries such as a prophylactic against potato-blight.
Sir John Rees saw his chance and took it.
“Does the League,” he inquired, “declare to win on Phosphates, Peace
or Potatoes?”—thus supplying proof positive that he owes his
precise pronunciation to past practice with “prunes and prisms.”
It was rather impudent of Mr. Adamson,
who has just been instrumental in throwing out of work some hundreds
of thousands of his fellow-citizens, to initiate a debate on
unemployment. Most of the speakers endeavoured to throw the blame on
“the other fellow”—the Government on the trade unions, the trade
unionists on the employers, and the employers on the Government. A
welcome exception was Mr. Hopkinson, who
boldly blamed the short-sighted selfishness of some of his own class.
Employés would not work their hardest to “make the boss a
millionaire.” As a fitting
finale to an inconclusive debate the Prime Minister announced that in
order to force a settlement of the coal-strike the railwaymen—Mr.
Thomas, apparently, dissenting—had threatened to join the unemployed.
Harassed Secretary. “I say, you
needn’t make bunkers, you know.”
Our Erudite Contemporaries.
“Willard was game and well trained, and in stature he
was Goliath to the Daniel of Dempsey.”—Evening
Paper.
A David come to judgment!
“The rate plague has developed to an alarming extent in
Thanet, and considerable anxiety is felt, especially as there appears
to be no effective preparation of poison to exterminate
them.”—Evening Paper.
And Thanet is not the only place.
THE TYPE-SLINGER.
The fluent pen of Lovat Fraser;
And swift as arrows, thick as hail,
His outbursts in The Daily Mail,
Exposing in impassioned phrase
The Premier’s wild and wicked ways.
And yet the Premier doesn’t squirm,
No, not a bit—the pachyderm!
But goes about with cheerful mien,
As if such things had never been.
In efforts to be more dogmatic,
And down the column, once a week,
His shrill italics fairly shriek.
But does the Premier bow his back
And go and give himself the sack?
Not he. Indeed, for all he troubles,
His critic might be blowing bubbles.
To make an even bigger row;
I’d like to see the sturdy fellow
Write articles that simply bellow.
I think the Premier might perhaps
Shiver and possibly collapse
If Lovat got to work in “caps.”
The Black Swan of Avon.
“A Native Drama
Entitled
’Inu vere ki pani’
(Popularly known as Merchant of Venice, but beautified
and enlarged to local taste), Interspersed with Popular Dialogues,
latest Songs, etc. Will (D. V.) be rendered by the ——
Guild.”—West African Poster.
WHAT OUR BOHEMIANS HAVE TO PUT UP WITH.
Shabbily-dressed person. “I’ve
lost the ticket, but I left a hat. That’s it over
there.”
Attendant. “I must ask you to find the
ticket, Sir, please. The hat that you indicate is quite
new.”
THE REVIVAL OF OLLENDORFF.
From the memories of my mid-Victorian
childhood, before the instruction of a governess had reached a point
at which the plunge was made into a preparatory school, three names
emerge with remarkable distinctness. “Little Arthur,” from whom I
derived my earliest knowledge of the History of England; “Henry,” by
whom I was grounded in the rudiments of the dead Latin tongue (but who
must be carefully distinguished from
James Henry, the Virgilian, who in turn had nothing whatever to do with
Henry James the novelist), and Ollendorff, the illustrious author of a
series of manuals for the teaching of living foreign languages.
Ollendorff, I fear, is not even the
shadow of a name to the present generation. There is no mention of him
in The Encyclopædia Britannica or in Chambers.
Even in his own country he seems to have lapsed into obscurity, and
in Mendel’s
voluminous Conversations-Lexikon there is only a brief
reference to the Ollendorffian method, but no account of the man or
his history.
Yet he must have existed; Ollendorff
cannot have been a mere symbol. And as students
of Shakspeare have endeavoured to
reconstruct the man from his plays so I feel sure that the character
of Ollendorff, his interests and politics,
might very well be reconstructed from a study of his dialogues. One
must admit that his Teutonic patronymic is an obstacle to his revival,
but that difficulty can be surmounted by the adoption of an
alias. For example, by the omission of one of the “f’s” and the
transposition of one other letter his name, read backwards, becomes
Frondello, which is at once euphonious and void of all racial offence.
The Ollendorffian method, it may be noted for the benefit of the
ignorant, did not merely depend on the employment of question and
answer; it aimed at conveying information drawn from the homely
affairs of daily life and the relations between persons belonging to
different trades and occupations. “Have
you,” Ollendorff would ask, “the hat of the
gardener’s son?” And when this had been duly and correctly
translated into German or French the pupil proceeded to the answer,
“No, but I have the boots of the grocer’s brother-in-law.”
I think Ollendorff built better than he
knew; or perhaps he did know. A strong vein of Socialism runs through
all his examples, which seem to show a lively appreciation of the
Communistic principle. To him there was nothing wrong or dangerous in
this mutual interchange and enjoyment of property. He drew no
hard-and-fast lines between meum and tuum. We cannot
help thinking that, at a time when so much depends on the fusion of
classes, a new edition of these immortal dialogues, brought up to date
so as to meet the exigencies of the new poor, the new rich, the old
aristocracy and the new plutocracy, would be fraught with the most
salutary results.
The following are some crude suggestions of the lines on which the
revision might be carried out:—
“Have you the leathern waistcoat of the taxi-driver?—””No,
but I have the reach-me-down trousers of an inferior quality to those
worn by the village postman.”
“Have you the smooth-running automobile of the prosperous
grocer?”—”No, but I have the loan of the push-bicycle of my
former under-gardener’s uncle.”
“Are you going to marry the beautiful daughter of the
shoemaker?”—”Yes, and her brother has just become engaged to the
widow of my cousin the marquis.”
AT THE PLAY.
“The Romantic Age.”
Mr. Arthur Wontner (to himself).
“Well, I don’t think much of your taste in
clothes.”
I hope that Mr. Alan
Milne is a good enough critic to agree with me in thinking that
this is the best play he has so far given us. Not that the idea of it
is as new as that of his Mr. Pim or his Wurzel-Flummery,
but because, without sacrificing his lightness of touch and his sense
of fun, he has, for the first time, produced a serious scheme.
People will tell you that his Second Act was the weak spot in the
play; that the others were brilliant, but that this one, for its first
half, was tedious and delayed the action. They will say this because
they are familiar with A. A. M.’s humour, but not with his
sentiment. Yet it was in this middle Act that he gave us the best
passage of all, in presenting the philosophy of his pedlar, which had
in it something of the dewy freshness of the early morning scene in
the wood (“morning’s at seven,” as Pippa—not Mr.
Pim—said en passant). There was no real delay in the
action here, for the pedlar was providing the hero with the argument
without which he could never have persuaded the lady to yield; could
never have made her understand that Romance is not confined to the
trunk-and-hose period, or any age, so named, of chivalry, but is to be
found wherever there is a true companionship of hearts. Unfortunately
the effect of this passage was a little spoilt by what had just gone
before—a rather slow and superfluous scene with the village
idiot—and some of the audience imagined that the author was
still marking time.
Mr. Milne has an individual manner so
distinct that he can well afford to acknowledge his debt to
Sir James Barrie. As in Mary Rose,
so here (though there are no supernatural forces at work) we have the
sharp contrast between commonplace life, as lived by the rest, and the
life of Fairyland, as coming within the vision of one only. And we
were reminded too of the Midsummer-madness that overtook the company
in Dear Brutus. I won’t say that it wasn’t natural
enough for Melisande, under the fascination of a moonlit
Midsummer Eve, to imagine, when she chanced upon a gentleman in fancy
dress of the right period, that at last she had realised her dream of
a hero of romance; but she was stark Midsummer-mad to suppose, when
she met him early next morning with his costume unchanged, that he
would keep it on till he came to tea with the family, and then, still
wearing it, waft her off to Faerie.
But not even Barrie has ever made a
better scene than that which showed us the disillusionment of the
visionary when she is confronted with her blue-and-gold hero of
romance now transformed into a plain Stock Exchange man, his air of
banality enhanced by the last word in golf suitings. The humour of
this scene, in which she made conventional conversation without any
real effort to conceal her sense of the bathos of the situation, was
very perfect. The relatively simple humour of the match-making
mother—not so simple, all the same, as its spontaneity made it
appear—had the distinction which one expects of
Mr. Milne; but this was far the funniest
feature in the play.
It would have been an easy matter to make cheap fun,
as Mark Twain did in A Yankee at the
Court of King Arthur, out of the popular view of the Age of
Romance, but A. A. M. avoided that obvious lure. Indeed, in his
natural anxiety not to be taken too seriously in his first attempt to
be serious, he rather tended to make light of his own theory of modern
romance, laying a little too much stress at the end on the culinary
aspect of conjugal felicity.
I am not sure that Mr. Arthur Wontner
(to whom my best wishes for his new managership) quite realised, in
his doublet and long hose, my idea of a figure of mediæval
romance. In fact I am free to confess that I disagreed
with Melisande and preferred him in his golf-clothes. But
perhaps that was part of the idea, and
Mr. Milne meant me to feel like that.
Miss Barbara
Hoffe’s Melisande—a difficult part, because
she was the only other-worldly person in the play and the only one in
desperate earnest—was very cleverly handled. In her most exalted
moments of poetic rapture she was never too precious, and when called
upon for a touch of corrective humour was quick to respond.
Miss Lottie Venne laid herself out in
her inimitable way for a broad interpretation of the visionary’s
very earthly mother; indeed once or twice she almost laid herself out
of the picture; but she still remained irresistible. As a pair of
light-hearted young lovers Miss Dorothy
Tetley and Mr. John Williams played
really well in parts that were not nearly so easy as they looked. And
there was the dry humour of Mr.
Bromley-Davenport, as the father (I fear he must have missed the romance
of twin souls) and the open-air charm of Mr. Nicholson’s performance as
Gentleman Susan, the pedlar. In a word, my grateful compliments
embrace as good a cast as ever caught—and held—the spirit of an
author.
“Priscilla and the
Profligate.”
When you have been jilted by Cynthia at the church-door and,
two days afterwards, in a fit of pique marry Priscilla at sight
(of course you can’t always get a Priscilla to consent to
this arrangement; but Mr. Bensley Stuart Gore had a young ward
at school who wanted her freedom; so that was all right), you may
think to persuade the Faithless One that you have given solid proof of
your indifference to her. But you mustn’t dash off to Africa an
hour after your wedding with the declared intention of being eaten by
wild men or wilder beasts, because, if you do that, you give your
scheme away and Cynthia will have the satisfaction of knowing
that she has driven you to desperate courses. Yet that is what Mr.
Bensley Stuart Gore did (he was the “Profligate” of the title,
though he never gave any noticeable sign of profligacy).
After this strain on my credulity I felt prepared for anything, and
was not in the least surprised to find him, six years older and still
intact, on the terrace of the Hotel Casa Bellini, by the dear old
shores of Lake Maggiore, which, as the programme advised me, is in
Italy. It seemed, too, the most natural thing in the world that the
author, Miss
Laura Wildig, should have
collected Priscilla and Cynthia (the latter in tow of a
third-rate millionaire husband whom she loathed) at the same
address.
It was at this juncture
that Mr. [pg 337]Bensley Stuart Gore was inspired
with a Great Thought. In order to set Priscilla free (I ought
to say that he hadn’t recognised her) he would elope
with Cynthia. How
Priscilla set out to frustrate this noble sacrifice and secure
her husband for herself; how she bribed the caretaker to lock him up
with her in the “Bloody Turret” of an adjacent ruin; how subsequently,
at 2
a.m., in the public lounge of the hotel,
she tried to work upon his emotions by appearing in a black
night-dress (surely this rather vulgar form of allurement
is démodé by now even in the suburbs, or, anyhow,
is not so freshly daring as she seemed to think it), I will leave you
to imagine. Even Miss Iris Hoey’s
nice soft voice and pleasant câlineries could not quite
carry off this rather machine-made trifle. If anything saved it, it
was the acting of Mr. Frank Denton
as Jimmy Forde. Starting as Bensley’s “best man,”
he missed the wedding ceremony through going to the wrong church, but
after that he stuck close to his friend for the remainder of the plot,
and greatly endeared himself to the audience by the excellent way in
which he played the silly ass.
As for Bensley himself, you might have thought that he had a
sufficiently chequered career, yet Mr. Cyril
Raymond got very little colour out of the part. For the rest,
Mr. H. de Lange, as the millionaire, got a
certain amount out of the subject of his wife’s indigestion,
which was a sort of leit-motif with him; but most of the colour
seemed to have gone into the scenery, admirably designed and painted
by Mr. McCleery and
Mr. Walter Hann.
O. S.
Diner. “I say, waiter, I’ve asked
three times for potatoes.”
Waiter (still under the influence of military
discipline). “Beg pardon, Sir, but I’m
told off to concentrate on the cabbage.”
“LOGS TO BURN.”
Logs to save the coal a turn.“
Here’s a word to make you wise
When you hear the wood-man’s cries;
Never heed his usual tale
That he has splendid logs for sale,
But read these lines and really learn
The proper kinds of logs to burn.
If they’re old and dry;
Larch logs of pine woods smell,
But the sparks will fly.
Beech logs for Christmas-time,
Yew logs heat well;
“Scotch” logs it is a crime
For anyone to sell.
Birch logs will burn too fast,
Chestnut scarce at all;
Hawthorn logs are good to last
If cut in the Fall.
Holly logs will burn like wax,
You should burn them green;
Elm logs like smouldering flax,
No flame to be seen.
Pear logs and apple logs,
They will scent your room;
Cherry logs across the dogs
Smell like flowers in bloom.
But Ash logs, all smooth and grey,
Burn them green or old;
Buy up all that come your way,
They’re worth their weight in gold.
“GIRL EYE-MAKER.”
Picture-title in Daily Paper.
Perhaps we ought to mention that the eyes she makes are artificial,
not “glad.”
Our Discreet Press.
“Mystery surrounds the Russo-Polish peace negotiations
at Riga. According to a Central News message from Warsaw Marshal
Pilsudski has had a conference with??????????, the Premier, as to
whether demobilisation should take place shortly.”—Evening
Paper.
“When he [Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree] was prepared to
play Martin Chuzzlewit he wrote to me (and doubtless explained
to others) that he was going to present Mr. Micawber as
’a sort of fairy.’”—Sunday
Paper.
We suppose if Sir Herbert had
staged David Copperfield he would have cast himself for the
husband of Mrs. Harris.
THE PRIVATE FILM.
My attention has been drawn to the most
recent and perhaps the most terrible development of the Cinema by an
advertisement, from which I take the following extracts:—
“HAVE YOUR OWN FILM TAKEN.
The most Modern Method of gaining
Publicity.
To Members of Parliament, Mayors, Lecturers and other Public Men
and Women.
“The Cinema has become the cheapest, the surest and most rapid
road to publicity. It is estimated that a third of the population
attend the Cinema once a week. Messrs. Mump and Gump have therefore
fitted up a special studio for film work, in which you can now have
your own film taken, representing you in any action you may desire.
This method of publicity is specially recommended to Members of
Parliament. For instance one can be filmed writing a letter, which can
be closed down and handed to a messenger, which action can be followed
by the letter itself being thrown on the screen…. Think what this
means to a prospective Candidate when he goes to a constituency where
he is unknown. He takes with him twenty or more films. Your
constituents must see and know you before you can hope for their vote.
The Cinema introduces your personality and your policy.
“Your film will cost you—
First reel … Three guineas.
Each extra reel. One guinea.”
The more I see of business-men the less they seem to me to know
about business. I never read an advertisement without thinking, “How
much better I (or even you) could have done that!” Yet they will tell
you that it is their advertisements which make the money. It only
shows…. However. Messrs. Mump and Gump, for instance, have scarcely
skimmed the surface possibilities of their brilliant notion. This
invention is going to make politics tolerable at last. No man minds
being in the House of Commons; it is being in his constituency which
is so dreadful. And now he need never go there.
For instance, when the constituency is tired of the letter-film, he
can be filmed making a speech, which can be taken down and handed to a
typist, which action can be followed by the speech itself being thrown
on the screen—in instalments. The constituency will enjoy this,
because it will take much less time to read it than it would to listen
to it, and they can argue out loud about the meaning of Early English
phrases like Datum-line and Functional Representation. In fact they
can go on arguing during the Whips of Sin which will
follow.
As for the public man, it won’t take him two minutes to be
filmed making the speech, unless, of course, he has any very
complicated gestures; and it won’t take him any time at all to
compose it, because the private secretary will do that; and the
private secretary will be able to make sure that his joke
about Jereboam is not turned into a joke
about
Jehoshaphat at the last minute, or simply shelved in favour of a
peroration on rainbows. After the speech the M.P. can be filmed opening
a flowershow and, if necessary, writing a cheque to the local
hortiphilist society, which cheque can be thrown on the screen amid loud
applause, but need not, of course, go any further.
There is one other point, but it is rather a delicate matter:
Messrs. Mump and Gump say to the prospective Candidate, “Your
constituents must see and know you before you can hope for their
vote.” Are they quite right? I have seen a good many Candidates in my
time, and I can think of some to whom I should have said, “Your
constituents must never see you if you hope for a single vote.”
I mean, when one looks round the present House of Commons, one really
marvels how…. But perhaps I had better not go on with that. The
point is that a Candidate of that kind never
need be seen by his constituents now. A handsome young private
secretary, uniformed and beribboned, and the film does the rest.
Then I rather resent the assumption that Members of Parliament,
Mayors, Lecturers and Actors are the only people who require
publicity. I should have thought that those who spend their time
writing things in the public Press, which are read by the public (if
anybody), might have had at least the courtesy title of Public Man.
Anyhow, I am going to have three guineas’ worth. The only
question is, what sort of picture will most thoroughly “get” my
personality before a third of the population once a week? The moment
when I am most characteristic is when I am lying in a hot bath, and
to-morrow is Sunday; but I doubt if even a sixth of the population
would be really keen on that. I don’t mind writing a letter or
two, only, if it meant an extra reel every time I decided to write it
to-morrow instead, it would be rather a costly advertisement.
Really, I suppose, one ought to be done At Work in His
Study; but even that would require a good deal of faking. Ought
one, for instance, to remove the golf-balls and the cocoa-cup (and the
rhyming dictionary) from The Desk? Then I always write with a decayed
pencil, and that would look so bad. Messrs. Mump and Gump would have
to throw in a quill-pen. And I have no Study. I work in the
drawingroom, when the children are not playing in it. To go into The
Study I simply walk over to my table and put up a large notice:
“The Study. Do not Speak to Me. I am
Thinking.” Do you think that had better be in the film?
Or I wonder if a Comic would be more effective—a Shaving reel
or a Dressing reel? It is the small incidents of every-day life that
one should look to for the key to the character of a Public Man; and
once a whole third of the population had seen for themselves what pain
it gives me to put links and studs and all those things in a clean
shirt, they would understand the strange note of melancholy which runs
through this article.
But of course an author should have several different reels
corresponding to the different kinds of work which he wants to
publicitise. (That is a new word which I have just invented, but you
will find it in common use in a month or two.) People like
Mr. Belloc will probably require the full
politician’s ration of twenty or more, but the ordinary writer
might rub along with four or five.
When his Pug, Wog and Pussy is on the market there will be a
Family reel, in which he is pretending to be a tree and the children
are climbing it. And when he has just published The Cruise of the
Cow; or, Seven Hours at Sea, he will be seen with an intense
expression tying a bowline on a bight or madly hauling on the
throat-halyard—at Messrs. Mump and Gump’s
specially-equipped ponds. And for his passionate romance, The
Borrowed Bride—— But I don’t know what he will
do then.
And even now we have not exhausted the list of Public Men. There
are clergymen. Don’t you feel that some of those sermons might
be thrown on the screen—and left there? A. P. H.
The Merry Bishop.
To the jests of St. Albans’ gay Bishop demurs;
But the Bishop denies the offence and implies
’Tis the way of all asses to nibble at Furse.
“Harvest Festival celebrations took place at St.
John’s Church on Sunday evening, when the choir rendered the
anthem ’Praise the young ladies of the
choir.’”—Yorkshire Paper.
And we have no doubt they deserved it.
Butcher (at conclusion of scathing criticism of
horse). “Well, that’s my opinion,
anyway. And I ought to know something by now about a bit of
’orseflesh when I sees it.”
Groom. “Yes—and so ought your
customers too.”
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerks.)
How you regard Miss May Sinclair’s
latest story, The Romantic
(Collins), will entirely depend upon your
attitude towards the long-vexed question of the permissible in art. If
you hold that all life (which in this association generally means
something disagreeable) is its legitimate province and that genius can
transmute an ugly study of morbid pathology into a romance, you will
admire the force of this vivid little book; otherwise, I warn you
frankly, you are like to be repelled by the whole business. The title,
to begin with, is an irony as grim as anything that follows, in what
sense you will find as the story reveals itself. The Romantic
is a picture—what do I say? a vivisection—of cowardice,
seen through the horrified eyes of a woman who loved the subject of
it. The scene is the Belgian battlefields, to which John
Conway, being unfitted for active service, had taken out a
motor-ambulance, with Charlotte Redhead as one of his drivers.
All the background of this part of the tale is wonderfully realised, a
thing of actual and unforgetable experience. Here gradually the first
tragedy of
Conway is made clear, though shielded and ignored as long as possible
by the loyalty of fellow-workers and the obstinate disbelief of the
girl. Perhaps you think I am making too much of it all; treacherous
nerves were the lot of many spiritually noble men in that hell. But
little by little conviction of a deeper, less understandable, horror
creeps upon the reader, only to be explained and confirmed on the last
page. To be honest, The Romantic is an ugly, a detestably ugly book,
but of its cleverness there can be no question.
It would appear that Mr. A. E. W. Mason
is another of those who hold that the day of war-novels is not yet
done. Anyhow, The Summons (Hodder and
Stoughton) shows him dealing out all the old familiar cards,
spies and counter-spies, submarines and petrol bases and secret ink.
It must be admitted that the result is unexpectedly archaic. Perhaps
also Mr. Mason hardly gives himself a fair
chance. The “summons” to his hero (who, being familiar with the
Spanish coast, is required when War breaks out to use this knowledge
for submarine-thwarting) is too long delayed, and all the non-active
service part of the tale suffers from a very dull love-interest and
some even more dreary racing humour. Archaic or not,
however, Hillyard’s anti-spy adventures, in an exquisite
setting that the author evidently knows as well as his hero, are good
fun enough. But the home scenes had (for me at least) a lack of grip
and conviction by no means to be looked for from a writer of
Mr. Mason’s experience. His big
thrill, the suicide of the lady who first sends by car to the local
paper the story of her end and then waits to confirm this by telephone
before making it true, left me incredulous. I’m afraid The
Summons can hardly be said to have found
Mr. Mason in his customary form.
“To write another person’s life-history in the first person,
and yet give to it the verisimilitude of a genuine autobiography,
would under ordinary circumstances be a difficult if not impossible
undertaking.” So Mr. C. E. Gouldsbury tells
us in a note to Reminiscences of a Stowaway
(Chapman and Hall), and most of us will
cordially agree with him. But, after reading this volume of
reminiscences, I think you will also agree that
Mr. Gouldsbury has acquitted himself
admirably of a most difficult task. The man into whose skin, if I may
so express it, he has temporarily tried to fit himself was
Mr. Alexander Douglas Larymore, who started
his adventurous career as a stowaway in an “old iron tub,” and
eventually became Inspector-General of Jails in India. For nearly
forty years Mr. Gouldsbury was
Mr. Larymore’s intimate friend, and
has had sufficient data at his disposal to do justice to what was a
remarkably full and interesting life. Possibly those of us who retain
a tender spot in our hearts for stowaways may regret that
Mr. Larymore grew tired of the sea; but his
adventures were as numerous and amusing on land as on water, and they
are also valuable for the strong light they throw on the India of some
years ago. Mr. Gouldsbury has at once
provided a lasting tribute to the memory of his friend and written a
book which both in style and matter would be hard to beat.
The King. “Look here—this throne
won’t do; it is impossible for us to look dignified in
it.”
The Artificer. “I’m sorry, your
Majesty. There must be some mistake. I got it in my ’ead that
your Majesty ordered a lounge throne.”
Are you a victim to the Tarzan habit? Perhaps your eye may
have been caught by the word on bookstalls as the generic title of an
increasing pile of volumes; but knowing, like myself, that all things
explain themselves in time, you may have been content to leave it at
that. Meanwhile, however, the thing has continued to spread, till on
the wrapper of Tarzan the Untamed
(Methuen), which now at last finds me out,
its publishers are able to number its devotees in millions. Well, of
course the outstanding fact about such popularity is that in face of
it any affectation of superiority becomes simply silly. One has got to
accept this creation of Mr. Edgar Rice
Burroughs as among the definite literary phenomena of our time.
In the immediate spasm before me
Tarzan (who is, if you need telling, a kind of horribly exaggerated
Mowgli after a diet of the Food of the Gods) is represented as placing
himself at the disposal of the British forces in East Africa, and
attacking the Germans with man-eating lions. The rather chastening
feature of which was my own unexpected enjoyment of the idea. Even, for
one disconcerting moment, like the persons in the admonitory anecdotes
who taste opium “just for fun,” I began to feel that perhaps…. However
it passed, and the temptation has not returned. Meanwhile the real
nature of Tarzanism, whether some sinister possession or simply the
age-long appetite for the monstrous, just now a little out of hand,
remains as far from solution as ever.
Mr. Horace Bleackley, whose last
excursion into political fiction was a description of an
opéra-bouffe Labour Government in action, addresses himself,
in The Monster (Heinemann), to a
more serious theme. His monster is the factory system, and if I say
that this witty novel will provide the ignorant and comfortable with
instruction as well as entertainment I hope I shan’t have done
him any harm. The author, while making his points against the system,
notes truly enough that the risen ranker, the one who had been through
the dreadful mill, with its ninety-hour working week for children,
became the hardest master during that wonderful period of the
Manchesterising of England which laid the train for the explosions of
our present discontents. He reminds us also of that admirable speech,
made about every ten years for the last hundred or so in the House
with the same fervour and conviction, to the effect that any change in
conditions or wages would surely mean the complete ruin of the
country. A comforting speech, that! Perhaps Mr.
Bleackley, presenting three generations from Peterloo to the Jubilee of
Queen Victoria, covers too much ground for full effect, but he has
pleasantly gilded a wholesome pill for pleasant people. Good luck to
him.
I did not take the publishers’ statement that Pengard
Awake (Methuen) was “entirely unlike
Mr. Straus’s previous stories” as a
recommendation, however alluring it was intended to be, for he has
good and enjoyable work to his credit. I doubt, indeed, if he has yet
written a book more acceptable to the novel-reading public than this
tale of “action, mystery and wonderful adventures” (again I quote from
the paper wrapper). Possibly in a so-called mystery book the author
ought to have his readers guessing all the time, but if I was not
perpetually engaged in this rather exhausting pursuit I was, at any
rate, intrigued.
Pengard, who is also Sylvester, and yet is neither the one nor the
other, may be too much for your saner moments of credulity. But Mr.
Straus tells his queer story so plausibly and with so light a touch that
even though you may affect to scoff at his dashing improbabilities you
cannot escape their attraction. Indeed Mr. Straus’s adventure into
fields hitherto strange to him has been so successful that I am inclined
to ask him to continue cultivating them.
Life’s Little Contradictions.
“Now mind, you know, if I kill you it’s nothing, but if you
kill me, by Jingo, it’s murder.” This remark was put
by John Leech into the lips of a small
Special Constable, represented as menacing a gigantic ruffian, and was
not, as you might think, addressed by a Sinn Feiner to a member of the
Royal Irish Constabulary.
Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son.
Mr. Punch wishes to offer the most sincere congratulations to his
old friends on the occasion of the centenary of their firm.