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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10903 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 10903-h.htm or 10903-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/0/9/0/10903/10903-h/10903-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/0/9/0/10903/10903-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 153.
+
+OCTOBER 17, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The mutiny of the German sailors at Kiel is now explained. They
+preferred death to another speech from the KAISER.
+
+       ***
+
+A Constantinople poet has translated the plays of SHAKSPEARE into
+Turkish. The rendering is said to be faithful to the text, and it is
+assumed that a keen appreciation of Turkey's military necessities
+alone accounts for his reference to the "Swan of Avon" as the "Bulbul
+of Potsdam."
+
+       ***
+
+The use of flour as an ingredient of sausages is now forbidden. Young
+sausages which have hitherto been fed on bread and milk must either be
+broken to bones or killed for the table.
+
+       ***
+
+An optimist writes to express the hope that by this elimination of
+flour the dreadful secret of the sausage may be at last revealed.
+
+       ***
+
+The German Government has created a Pulp Commission. We have always
+said they would be reduced to it in time.
+
+       ***
+
+The King of SIAM'S royal yacht has been turned into a cargo boat.
+Reports that the Sacred White Elephant has been commandeered for use
+as a floating dock are still unconfirmed.
+
+       ***
+
+For giving corn to pheasants a fine of ten pounds has been inflicted
+on a merchant of New York (Lincs.) The removal _en bloc_ of this
+village from the mouth of the Hudson river to its present site should
+finally convince the sceptics of the magnitude of America's war
+effort.
+
+       ***
+
+The Vacant Land Cultivation Society offers a prize of ten shillings
+for the heaviest potato. Some of our most notorious potato-tellers are
+expected to compete.
+
+       ***
+
+The provision of steel helmets for the Metropolitan Police is all
+right so far as it goes, but the Force is still asking why it cannot
+be furnished with some protection for its other extremities.
+
+       ***
+
+From China it is reported that an aboriginal priest now claiming
+the Throne has been accustomed to eat the flesh of tigers, wolves,
+leopards, &c., also the human heart. It is, however, only fair to our
+own restaurateurs to state that, though China is alleged to be on the
+eve of war, there is as yet no food-control in that country.
+
+       ***
+
+An unusual scarcity of wasps is reported from various parts of the
+country. Nothing is being done about it.
+
+       ***
+
+A calf has been sold for two thousand seven hundred guineas in
+Aberdeenshire. The plucky purchaser is understood to have had for some
+time past a craving for a veal cutlet.
+
+       ***
+
+A new form of frightfulness is evidently being practised upon their
+guards by our interned Huns. "Some of them," says a contemporary,
+"purchase a hundred cigars with a portion of the one pound a day which
+is the miserable maximum they may spend on luxuries."
+
+       ***
+
+"People who speak of suicide seldom do anything desperate," says a
+well-known mental expert. So that the KAISER'S threat to fight England
+to the death may be taken for what it is worth.
+
+       ***
+
+An extraordinary meeting of German Reichstag Members has arrived at
+the decision that the Germans cannot hope for victory in the field. We
+see nothing extraordinary in this.
+
+       ***
+
+Professor BERGEN was once described as "the well-known inventor and
+philanthropist." He still invents (his latest is a gas-thrower,
+reported by the _Berliner Tageblatt_ to be "a veritable monster of
+destruction"), but has dropped the other job.
+
+       ***
+
+A swallow-tail butterfly which escaped from the Zoo has been
+re-captured at Eastbourne. When caught it gave the policeman to
+understand that it would go quietly.
+
+       ***
+
+Two men, we read, took twenty-two hours to chisel a hole through the
+three-foot flint concrete roof of the London Opera House. The report
+that they did this to avoid the Entertainment Tax has now been
+contradicted.
+
+       ***
+
+"The American Winston Churchill," says _The Daily Express_, "has to
+plod through life without a middle name." We all have our little cross
+to bear. Even the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS has to plod through life with
+the knowledge that there is another Winston Churchill loose about the
+world.
+
+       ***
+
+It is proposed that Parliament shall sit from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.,
+instead of from 3 to 11 P.M. We do not care for this crude attempt to
+mix business with politics.
+
+       ***
+
+The Boundary Commission Report advocates the creation of thirty-one
+new M.P.'s. It will be a bitter disappointment for those who were
+sanguine enough to hope that Redistribution would spell Reform.
+
+       ***
+
+The Government has commandeered all stocks of rum. The rigours of war,
+it seems, must be suffered even by our little tots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Wit._ "AH, NOW YOU'RE FOR IT, ALBERT?"
+
+_Tractor-Driver._ "WOT'S THE MATTER?"
+
+_The Wit._ "WHY, YOU'VE BEEN AND GONE AND COME ON PARADE WITHOUT
+YOUR SPURS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The bridegroom, 6 ft. 35 ins. in height, was wearing the
+    full-dress uniform of a captain in the Army."--_Great
+    Yarmouth Independent_.
+
+He would need it all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Headline to a description of a recent push:--
+
+    "VONDERFUL RESULTS."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+The "Hidden Hand" in the composing-room?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.
+
+    ["Stedfastness and righteousness are the qualities which the
+    German people value in the highest degree, and which have brought
+    it a good and honourable reputation in the whole world. When we
+    make experiments in lies and deception, intrigue and low cunning,
+    we suffer hopeless and brutal failure. Our lies are coarse and
+    improbable, our ambiguity is pitiful simplicity. The history
+    of the War proves this by a hundred examples. When our enemies
+    poured all these things upon us like a hailstorm, and we convinced
+    ourselves of the effectiveness of such tactics, we tried to
+    imitate them. But these tactics will not fit the German. We are
+    rough but moral, we are credulous but honest."--_Herr DERNBURG, in
+    "Deutsche Politik."_]
+
+  In Eden bowers, so fair to see,
+  There dwelt, when sin was yet to be,
+  A guileless Serpent up a tree,
+    Sniffing the virgin breezes;
+  Till EVE (the huzzy!), one fine day,
+  With evil purpose came his way,
+  And led that simple worm astray
+    By low and wicked wheezes.
+
+  A Wolf there was, quite sweet and good,
+  Till in his path Red Riding-Hood
+  Went camouflaging through the wood--
+    A brazen little terror;
+  Large teeth she had and bulgy eyes
+  And told the most amazing lies,
+  And taught him, in a flowery guise,
+    The downward route to error.
+
+  Of Fritz's nature, fresh as morn,
+  Pure as a babe that's just been born,
+  Clean as a poodle lately-shorn,
+    These are symbolic samples;
+  The Wolf unversed in specious vice,
+  The Serpent with a taste as nice
+  As anything in Paradise--
+    Debauched by bad examples.
+
+  England seduced us. 'Neath her spell,
+  Mistress of lies, we fell and fell
+  Into the poisoned sink, or well,
+    Of faked and fabulous rumour;
+  And there, as we were bound to do,
+  We failed, because we loved the True,
+  And loathed the False as alien to
+    Our artless German humour.
+
+  I speak as one who ought to know;
+  Myself I tried a trick or so
+  In U.S.A. and had to go,
+    Looking absurdly silly;
+  And now against us, big with fate,
+  That Hemisphere has thrown its weight,
+  Both North and South (though up to date
+    We haven't heard from Chili).
+
+  Laughter we've earned--a noble shame!
+  Built to achieve a higher aim,
+  We honest Huns can't play the game
+    Of shifty propaganders;
+  Henceforth we'd better all get back
+  On to the straight and righteous track
+  And help our HINDENBURG to hack
+    (If not too late) through Flanders.
+
+  O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Red heels were much in evidence, both Lady D---- and Lady C----
+    affected them, and they were to be seen in other unexpected
+    places."--_Observer_.
+
+Certainly their use as ornaments in the small of the back surprised us
+a good deal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CARP AT MIRAMEL.
+
+    [In the following article all actual names, personal, geographical
+    and regimental, have been duly camouflaged.]
+
+The carp that live in the moat of the Château de Miramel (in the zone
+of the armies in France) are of an age and ugliness incredible and
+of a superlative cynicism. One of them--local tradition pointed to a
+one-eyed old reprobate with a yellow face--is the richer these hundred
+years past by an English peeress's diamond ring.
+
+From the bottom of the moat one world-war is like another, and none
+of them very different from peace. It is but a row of grinning red
+healthy faces over the coping and a shower of bread and biscuit.
+
+When the nightmare of BONAPARTE was ended in the Autumn of 1815, the
+22nd K.R. Lancers, commanded by an English peer, billeted themselves
+in and around the Château de Miramel. The English peer, finding time
+hang heavy on his hands, or my lady's letters proving insistent, sent
+for her to come out to him at Miramel. You could do that sort of
+homely thing in 1815.
+
+So my lady comes to Miramel, and the very first day, as she leans out
+of window in the round tower, mishandles her diamond ring (gift of my
+lord) and drops it into the moat. Her host, the good Comte de Miramel,
+dredged and drained, but no trace of the diamond ring was ever found.
+But old Cyclops, the carp, grinned horribly.
+
+In due course my lord and lady went home to the Isle of Fogs, and
+thence they sent their portraits to their host as a souvenir of their
+stay. Here indeed the portraits still hang, very graceful in the style
+of the period. And to the appreciative visitor Madame de Miramel (of
+to-day) shows a missive of thanks, written in indifferent bad French,
+in which my lady refers sorrowfully to "_ma bague diamantée_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once again the 22nd K.R. Lancers are billeted in Miramel. The other
+day I noticed on a worn stone pillar at the great door the following
+half-obliterated words:--
+
+    "ED. WYNN, pikeman of the dashing 22nd King's Ryol ridgemet of
+    lanciers. Sept. 1815";
+
+and freshly scratched above the inscription:--
+
+  "Better at piking than at speling.
+      22nd K.R. Lancers. JAS. BARNET. Sept. 1917."
+
+The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like another.
+There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd King's
+Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium for
+self-expression.
+
+Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or so.
+There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring of
+red grinning faces above the coping. Yesterday I threw a disused
+safety-razor blade over the old scoundrel's nose. And "Bless my soul!"
+he said, as he lazily bolted it, "there hasn't been such a year for
+minnows since 1815."
+
+But Armageddon 1917 holds surprises even for those who live at the
+bottom of a moat. For very early this morning a bauble fell into the
+moat that Cyclops himself couldn't digest. The old cynic was found
+floating, scarred belly upwards, on the surface of the water.
+
+The mess-waiter took charge of the _post-mortem_. Like the _Duke of
+Plaza Toro_, he "likes an interment" and rarely misses a last rite.
+A keen fisherman, he had little difficulty in extracting an exhibit
+for the Court's inspection, which he unhesitatingly pronounced to be
+a diamond ring in an advanced state of decomposition.
+
+The mess-cook, on the other hand, identified the relic as the
+stopping, recently mislaid, from one of his back teeth.
+
+In any case there seems little room for doubt that a Hun airman has
+avenged the long-dead lady.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ENIGMA.
+
+POLICEMAN (_on duty at St. Stephen's_). "STAND ASIDE, PLEASE."
+
+MR. PUNCH. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"
+
+POLICEMAN. "PARLIAMENT REASSEMBLING."
+
+MR. PUNCH. "WHY?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Ex-Bus-driver (in difficulties in the roadless zone)._
+"'ERE'S OLE PICCADILLY UP AGIN--FAIR IN THE 'IGHTH OF THE SEASON."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MUD LARKS.
+
+All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour" of old
+Atkins. Every distinguished tripper who comes Cook's-touring to the
+Front for a couple of days devotes at least a chapter of his resultant
+book to it. "How in thunder does Thomas do it?" they ask. "What the
+mischief does he find to laugh at?" Listen.
+
+Years ago, when the well-known War was young, a great man sat in
+his sanctum exercising his grey matter. Ho said to himself, "There
+is a War on. Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from
+comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the term
+of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined and
+bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and scared
+silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum diluted, reliefs
+late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them for diamond-studded
+munitioneers. Their wives will write saying, 'Little Jimmie has the
+mumps; and what about the rent? You aren't spending all of five bob a
+week on yourself, are you?' This is but a tithe (or else a tittle) of
+the things that will occur to them, and their sunny natures will sour
+and sicken if something isn't done about it."
+
+The great man sat up all night chewing penholders and pondering on the
+problem. The BIG IDEA came with the end of the eighth penholder.
+
+He sprang to his feet, fires of inspiration flashing from his eyes,
+and boomed, "Let there be _Funny Cuts_!"--then went to bed. Next
+morning he created "I." (which stands for Intelligence), carefully
+selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs of appropriate hue, and told
+them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever
+since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us.
+Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG
+accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon
+cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with
+rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen
+climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to
+'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of
+the green tabs will make of it. A hint is as good as a wink to them,
+a nudge ample. Under the genius of these imaginative artists the most
+trivial incident burgeons forth into a LE QUEUX spell-binder, and the
+whole British Army, mustering about its Sergeant-Majors, gets selected
+cameos read to it every morning at roll-call, laughs brokenly into the
+jaws of dawn and continues chuckling to itself all day. Now you know.
+
+Our Adjutant had a telephone call not long ago. "Army speaking," said
+a voice. "Will you send somebody over to Rataplan and see if there is
+a Town Major there?"
+
+The Adjutant said he would, and a N.C.O. was despatched forthwith. He
+returned later, reporting no symptoms of one, so the Adjutant rang
+up Exchange and asked to be hooked on to Army Headquarters. "Which
+branch?" Exchange inquired. "Why, really I don't know--forgot to ask,"
+the Adjutant confessed. "I'll have a try at 'A.'"
+
+"Hello," said "A." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," said the
+Adjutant. "You astound me, Fair Unknown," said "A."; "but what about
+it, anyway?" The Adjutant apologised and asked Exchange for "Q."
+department. "Hello," said "Q." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan,"
+said the Adjutant. "Sorry, old thing, whoever you are," said "Q.,"
+"but we don't stock 'em. Rations, iron; perspirators, box; oil, whale,
+delivered with promptitude and civility, but NOT Town Majors--sorry."
+The Adjutant sighed and consulted with Exchange as to who possibly
+could have rung him up.
+
+Exchange couldn't guess unless it was "I."--no harm in trying, anyhow.
+
+"Hello!" said "I." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," the Adjutant,
+droned somewhat wearily. "Wha-t!" "I." exclaimed, suddenly interested.
+"Say it again, clearer." "RAT-A-PLAN--NO--TOWN--MA-JOR," the Adjutant
+repeated. There was a pause; then he heard the somebody give off an
+awed "Good Lord!" and drop the receiver. Next morning in _Funny Cuts_
+(the organ of Intelligence) we learned that "Corps Headquarters
+was heavily shelled last night. The Town Major is missing. This is
+evidence that the enemy has brought long-range guns into the opposite
+sector." Followed masses of information as to the probable make of the
+guns, the size of shell they preferred, the life-story of the Battery
+Commander, his favourite flower and author.
+
+The Bosch, always on the alert to snaffle the paying devices of an
+opposition firm, now has his "I." staff and _Funny Cuts_ as well. From
+time to time we capture a copy and read this sort of thing:--
+
+"From agonised screeches heard by one of our intrepid airmen while
+patrolling over the enemy's lines yesterday, it is evident that the
+brutal and relentless British are bayonetting their prisoners."
+
+A Highland Division, whose star pipers were holding a dirge and lament
+contest on that date, are now ticking off the hours to the next
+offensive.
+
+The Antrims had a _cordon bleu_ by the name of Michael O'Callagan.
+He was a sturdy rogue, having retreated all the way from Mons, and
+subsequently advanced all the way back to the Yser with a huge
+stock-pot on his back, from which he had furnished mysterious stews
+to all comers, at all hours, under any conditions. For this, and for
+the fact that he could cook under water, and would turn out hot meals
+when other _chefs_ were committing suicide, much was forgiven him,
+but he was prone to look upon the _vin_ when it was _rouge_ and was
+habitually coated an inch thick with a varnish of soot and pot-black.
+One morning he calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of
+the earnest attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to
+collect sufficient _débris_ to boil his dixies. Next day the Bosch
+_Funny Cuts_ flared forth scareheads:--
+
+    "SAVAGES ON THE SOMME.
+
+    "The desperate and unprincipled British are employing black
+    cannibal Zulus in the defence of their system. Yesterday one of
+    them, a chief of incredibly depraved appearance, was observed
+    scouting in the open."
+
+The communiqué ended with a treatise on the Zulu, its black man-eating
+habits, and an exhortation to "our old Brandenburgers" not to be
+dismayed.
+
+PATLANDER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OWING TO PRESSURE FROM THE ALL-HIGHEST, HIS ORIENTAL
+ALLY IS FORMING A MAGIC-CARPET BOMBING SQUADRON.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MORE SEX PROBLEMS.
+
+From a stock-auction report:--
+
+    "THE BULL CALVES. THE BULL CALVES."
+    _Glasgow Herald._
+
+Notwithstanding the repetition of this statement we find great
+difficulty in believing it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "SOLDIERS' CHRISTMAS GIFTS. POSTING DATES FOR EGYPT AND SALONIKA."
+    _Times._
+
+It sounds a little like consigning coal to Newcastle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "AIR RAIDS.--Peaceful country rectory, Hampshire, well out of
+    danger zone, can receive three or four paying guests. Large
+    garden, beautiful scenery, high, bracing. Simple life. £10
+    each weekly."--_The Times._
+
+This enterprising parson seems to have borrowed his recipe for the
+simple life from GRAY'S _Elegy_:--
+
+  Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
+    They kept the noiseless tenner of their way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEASTS ROYAL.
+
+IV.
+
+KING HENRY'S STAG-HOUND. A.D. 1536.
+
+  Ten puffs upon my master's toes,
+    And twenty on his sleeves,
+  Upon his hat a Tudor rose
+    Set round with silver leaves;
+      But never a hunting-spear,
+        And never a rowel-spur;
+      Who is this that he calls his Dear?
+        I think I will bark at her.
+
+  The Windsor groves were fresh and green,
+    Dangling with Summer dew,
+  When my master rode with his Spanish queen,
+    And the huntsman cried, "Halloo!"
+      Now never a horn is heard,
+        And never the lances stir;
+      Who is this that he calls his Bird?
+        I think I will follow her.
+
+  To-night my master walks alone
+    In the pleachéd pathway dim,
+  And the thick moss reddens on the stone
+    Where she used to walk with him.
+      When will he shout for the glove
+        And the spear of the verderer?
+      Where is she gone whom he called his Love?
+        For I cannot follow her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SECOND CHILDHOOD.
+
+I must make a confession to someone. I have wasted raw material which
+is a substitute for something else indispensable for defeating the
+Hun, and probably traitor is the right name for me. Let me explain.
+
+Somewhere in Nutshire there is a place called Cotterham. It is one of
+those little villages which somehow nobody expects to meet nowadays
+outside the pages of a KATE GREENAWAY painting book. There is the
+village green, with its pond and geese and absurdly pretty cottages
+with gardens full of red bergamot and lads'-love, and a little
+school where the children are still taught to curtsey and pull their
+forelocks when the Squire goes by. And beyond the Green, at the end
+of Plough Lane and after you have crossed Leg-o'-Mutton Common, you
+come to Down Wood, and if you don't meet Little Red Riding-Hood on
+the way or come on Snow White and her seven dwarfs, that is only
+because you must have taken the wrong turning after you came through
+the kissing-gate at the bottom of Lovers' Lane. I am a native of
+Cotterham, and in my more reflective moments I wonder why such an
+idyllic place should have produced anything so unromantic as myself,
+His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector for All Sorts of
+Unexpected Explosives. Cotterham still has a large place in my
+affections, and it gave me a considerable shock the other day to get
+a letter from the Squire, who is an old friend, asking me down for a
+week-end, and adding, "You can do a little professional job for me
+too. You really will be interested to see what splendid work is being
+done here in your line of fire. The output is some of the best in the
+district. But there has been trouble lately and the leaders of the two
+biggest shifts were found to have appropriated a substantial part of
+the output to their own uses. I shall rely on you to straighten things
+out and suggest the right penalties."
+
+So they were even making munitions in Cotterham. I conjured up visions
+of interminable rows of huts, of thousands of overalled workers
+swamping Plough Lane, trampling the Green brown, scaring the geese,
+obliterating the immemorial shape of Leg-o'-Mutton Common by a
+mushroom township, laying Down Wood low, and coming to me with some
+miserable tale of petty pilfering for my adjustment. I must own I got
+out of the train at Muddlehampstead and into the station fly feeling
+distinctly low-spirited. It was some consolation to find that the
+railway still stopped seven miles short of my village, though I
+reflected gloomily that the place itself was doubtless a network of
+light railways by this time. We bowled along in stately fashion up
+Plough Lane and past Halfpenny Cross to the Manor House with its
+thatched roof and Virginia-creeper all over the porch. The Squire
+carried me off at once for the professional part of my visit, but we
+fell to talking of fishing, which had been good, and cubbing, which
+had been bad, and were on to Leg-o'-Mutton Common before I remembered
+to speak of munitions.
+
+"Not much sign of war here," I said with a relieved sigh. "I was
+afraid they'd have spoilt the dear old heath for a certainty. Only
+don't say it's Down Wood they've gone to, for that'd be more than I
+could stand. I thought there were fairies there long after I ought
+to have been a hard-headed young man of six, and if they've gone and
+desecrated that wood with factories--"
+
+The Squire smiled.
+
+"I don't think I should worry. Amongst all your Unexpected Explosives
+do you happen to condescend to have heard of the gentle horse-chestnut
+and the school-children that collect them? Here are the two
+delinquents I wrote to you about, and we've caught them in the act.
+Just look at them wasting the precious things."
+
+Two small boys were playing at conkers, two small boys with very
+earnest faces and grubby clothes which never figured in KATE
+GREENAWAY'S pictures, wasting precious material which five-and-thirty
+other scholars were diligently collecting and stuffing into sacks. I
+ought to have given them a lecture on patriotism--the army behind the
+Army. But we each of us keep one childish passion untamed, even if we
+are unromantic old bachelors, and I, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant
+Acting Inspector for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives and his very
+loyal subject, who have lived for nearly half-a-century of Octobers in
+London town--I borrowed the bigger conker and systematically and in
+deadly earnest I fought and defeated the other small boy.
+
+They say that treason never succeeds; so perhaps I can't be a traitor
+after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE UNDISMAYED.
+
+In a world of insecurity and change it is good to have one bedrock
+certainty upon which the mind can rest. Thrones totter and fall;
+Commanders-in-chief are superseded; Admirals of the High Fleet are
+displaced; in politics leaders come and go and reputations pass; in
+ordinary life a thousand mutations are visible. But amid all this flux
+there remains mercifully one resolute piece of routine that nothing
+can alter. Whatever may be happening elsewhere in the world--mutinies
+in the German Navy, revolutions in Russia, advances in France,
+advances in Flanders--Leicester Square keeps its head. Armageddon
+may be turning the world upside down, but it cannot cause those old
+antagonists, STEVENSON and REECE, to cease their perpetual contest;
+and if the War lasts another ten years you will read in _The Times_
+of October 17th, 1927, a paragraph to the effect that "at the close
+of play yesterday in the billiard match of 16,000 points up between
+Stevenson and Reece, at the Grand Hall, Leicester Square, the scores
+were: Reece (in play), 4,676; Stevenson, 2,837."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOT CANNIBALS AFTER ALL.
+
+    "The first contingent of the American troops brought food for six
+    months, and hence the fears of the peasants in France lest they
+    should be eaten up are groundless."--_Adelaide Advertiser_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "If the public continue to spend the same sum of money on bread
+    at 9d. as they did when it was 1s., it is easy to see that the
+    consumption will rise by a quarter or 25 per cent."--_Glasgow
+    Evening News_.
+
+We are always timid about questioning a Scotsman's arithmetic, but we
+make the increase a third, or 33-1/3 per cent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _He (connoisseur of wines)_. "WE STAYED SEVERAL DAYS AT
+AN INN IN A LITTLE GLOUCESTERSHIRE VILLAGE, AS WE FOUND THEY HAD SUCH
+AN EXCELLENT CELLAR."
+
+_She_. "REALLY! I HAD NO IDEA THE RAIDERS HAD GOT SO FAR WEST AS
+THAT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CROSS-TALK WITH PETHERTON.
+
+Petherton and I have just emerged from another bombardment. Certain
+correspondence in _The Surbury Gazette and North Herts Courier_ gave
+me a welcome excuse for firing what I may term a sighting shot. I
+wrote to my genial neighbour as follows:--
+
+DEAR MR. PETHERTON,--No doubt you have seen the recent letters in the
+local paper anent the remains of the old Cross, which are at once an
+ornament to Castle Street, Surbury, and a standing menace to the peace
+of mind of the local antiquarians.
+
+I am exceedingly interested in the matter myself and feel that the
+views of one who, I am sure, adds a wide knowledge of archæology
+to the long list of his accomplishments, would be both interesting
+and instructive to myself and (if you would allow your views to be
+published) to our little community in general.
+
+If therefore you will write and let me know your opinion on the
+matter I shall take it as a friendly and cousinly (_vide_ certain
+eighteenth-century documents in the Record Office) act.
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+HENRY J. FORDYCE.
+
+Petherton replied with a whizz-bang as thus:--
+
+SIR,--I have read the idiotic correspondence to which you refer, and
+am informed that you are the author of the screed which appeared in
+last Saturday's issue of the paper. If my informant is correct as to
+the authorship of the letter I can only say it is a pity that, with
+apparently no knowledge of the subject, you should venture into print.
+Anyone enjoying the least acquaintance with the rudiments of English
+history would be perfectly aware that the remains have no connection
+with QUEEN ELEANOR whatever. The whereabouts of all the crosses put
+up to her memory are quite well known to archæologists.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+FREDERICK PETHERTON.
+
+I replied with light artillery:--
+
+DEAR PETHERTON,--Yours _re_ the late Mrs. EDWARD PLANTAGENET to hand.
+
+Though not a professed archæologist I do know something of the ruin in
+question, having several times examined it and having heard, perhaps,
+most, if not all, the various theories concerning it. I have been here
+a good deal longer than you have, I believe, and cannot think that you
+know more of the subject than I.
+
+Have you read Wycherley's treatise on the Eleanor Crosses? [I invented
+this monograph for the purpose of inducing Petherton to reload.] If
+not, why not? Perhaps you would like to dispute the existence of a
+castle on the site where the Castle Farm now stands, and where such
+shameless profiteering is carried on in eggs and butter?
+
+By the way, how is your poultry? I notice that your _seizième siècle_
+rooster wants his tail remodelling. Perhaps you are not worrying about
+new plumage for him till after the War, though it seems like carrying
+patriotism to absurd lengths.
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+HENRY J. FORDYCE.
+
+I hope you will allow your letter to be published in _The Gazette_.
+
+In reply to this Petherton discharged with:--
+
+SIR,--I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may not have
+existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's monograph on
+Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have the impudence to
+rush into print on matters of which they are sublimely ignorant.
+
+Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the end
+of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries
+(1272-1307), not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of
+architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not
+earlier than the fifteenth century.
+
+Trusting you will not commit any further absurdities, though I am not
+too sanguine,
+
+I am, Yours faithfully,
+
+FREDERICK PETHERTON.
+
+My views are not for publication. I prefer not to be mixed up in such
+a symposium.
+
+It was evident that my neighbour's weapon was beginning to get heated,
+so I flicked him with some more light artillery to draw him on, and
+loosed off with:--
+
+Dear Old Man,--What a historian you are! You have JOHN RICHARD GREEN
+beaten to his knees, FROUDE and GARDINER out of sight, and even the
+authoress of the immortal _Little Arthur_ could not have placed EDDY
+I. with greater chronological exactitude. In fact there seems to be no
+subject on which you cannot write informatively, which makes me sorry
+that you will not join in the literary fray in the local paper, as it
+deprives the natives of a great treat.
+
+But--there is a but, my dear Fred--I cannot admit your claim to
+superior knowledge of the Surbury relics. Remember, I have grown up
+with them as it were. Yours ever,
+
+HARRY FORDYCE.
+
+Sir (exploded Petherton),--What senseless drivel you write on the
+least provocation! Whether you grew up with the Surbury relics or not,
+you have certainly decayed with them. Every stone that's left of that
+confounded ruin (probably only a simple market-cross) proclaims the
+date of its birth. Even the broken finial and the two crockets lying
+on the ground expose your ignorance. Eleanor Cross, bah!
+
+Yours flly., F. PETHERTON.
+
+I thought it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and let
+off a heavy howitzer; which I did, with the following:--
+
+Dear Freddy,--I am afraid you have got hold of the wrong end of the
+stick and laid an egg in a mare's nest. [These mixed metaphors were
+designed to tease him into a further barrage.] I did not write, and
+I do not remember saying that I had written, the letter to the paper
+which seems to have given you as much pleasure as it has given me.
+I had no hand in the symposium, but the way you have brought your
+Chesterfield battery into action has been so masterly that I, for one,
+can never regret that you were misinformed. I believe the particular
+letter to _The Gazette_ was written by one of the staff, a native of
+the place, who probably carved his name on the base in his youth, and
+has felt a personal interest in the Cross ever since. I hope with this
+new light on the affair you will favour me with your further views on
+history and archæology.
+
+Yours ever, Harry.
+
+How lovely the blackberries are looking after the rain!
+
+But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been
+knocked out by this direct hit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Excitable Lady (describing to wounded Tommies the
+appearance of a bomb-hole on the London Front)._ "You could have
+buried a horse in it. You never saw such a thing in your life!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUGAR CONTROL.
+
+Thanks to the new sugar regulations we now expect half a pound of
+sugar per head per week instead of half a pound of sugar per head
+per-haps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "HOGS STILL SOARING."
+    _Headline in Canadian Paper._
+
+The shortage of petrol seems to have driven them from the roads.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Sir John Hare declares that there is no truth in the statement
+    that he is saying '----' to the stage."--_Bournemouth Echo._
+
+Personally, we never believed that he would be guilty of such
+language.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The only thing which will actually bring peace is an army of
+    occupation standing on its own flat feet, either in Germany or
+    on the German frontier."--_Weekly Dispatch._
+
+But why this preference for the flat-footed? Are not the hammer-toed
+to have a chance?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE DANCE OF DEATH.
+
+THE KAISER. "STOP! STOP! I'M TIRED."
+
+DEATH. "I STARTED AT YOUR BIDDING; I STOP WHEN I CHOOSE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Officer_. "I SAY--LOOK HERE. I TOLD YOU TO GO TO
+PADDINGTON, AND YOU'RE GOING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION."
+
+_Taxi-Driver_. "ORL RIGHT--ORL RIGHT! YOU'RE LUCKY TO GET A CAB AT ALL
+INSTEAD OF GRUMBLIN' ABAHT WHERE YER WANTS TER GO TO!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM.
+
+CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LX.
+
+_Mary._ I wish, Mamma, that there were not so many shocking stories in
+history.
+
+_Mrs. M._ History is, indeed, a sad catalogue of human miseries, and
+one is glad to turn aside from the horrors of war to the amenities of
+private life. Shall I tell you something of the domestic habits of the
+English in the early twentieth century?
+
+_Mary._ Oh do, Mamma; I shall like that very much.
+
+_Mrs. M._ The nobility and the well-to-do classes no longer lived
+shut up in gloomy castles, but made a point of spending most of their
+time in public. They never took their meals at home, but habitually
+frequented large buildings called restaurants, fitted up with
+sumptuous and semi-Sultanic splendour. In these halls, while the
+guests sat at a number of tables, they were entertained by minstrels
+and singers. It was even said that they acquired the habit of eating
+and drinking in time to the music. They were waited upon for the
+most part by foreigners, who spoke broken English, and what with the
+babel of tongues, the din of the music and the constant popping of
+corks, for alcohol had not yet been prohibited, the scene beggared
+description.
+
+_Richard._ Well, I am sure I would rather dine in our neat little
+dining-room, with our silent wireless waiter, than partake of the most
+extravagant repasts in those sumptuous halls.
+
+_George._ I must just ask you, Mamma, about one thing that has all
+along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords about all this
+time that they let the House of Commons govern the country and have
+their own way in everything?
+
+_Mrs. M._ I am afraid, my dear George, that you are animated by a
+somewhat reactionary bias in favour of feudalism, which in your own
+best interests you would do well to curb. It is enough to say that
+some of the peers supported the House of Commons, and the majority
+were too timid to make any stand against the numbers and violence of
+the other House. Nowadays, thanks to the wide diffusion of peerages
+and the fact that they are conferred far more freely on persons of
+advanced political views, this lack of independence has largely been
+eliminated.
+
+_Richard._ I am sure we must all thank you for the trouble you took to
+explain about Free Trade and Protection; but if you are not too tired
+will you kindly tell us something about the learned and clever men who
+lived at this time?
+
+_Mrs. M._ You know, my dear boy, that I am always happy to impart
+information, and am pleased to have such attentive listeners. The
+authoress of your favourite poems, Mary, lived in this reign. I mean
+Mrs. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. The Rev. H.G. WELLS, the famous theologian
+who abolished the Latin and Greek grammars; the Baroness Corkscrew--to
+call her by the name under which she was ultimately elevated to the
+peerage--who wrote so many beautiful historical romances that she
+quite superseded Sir WALTER SCOTT; Sir JOHN OXENHAM, one of England's
+greatest poets; and Lord HALL-CAINE, author of _Isle of Man Power_,
+were commanding figures in this period.
+
+_Richard._ Oh, Mamma, did not Lord HALL-CAINE discover the North Pole?
+
+_Mrs. M._ Not that I am aware of, my dear boy, though it is quite
+possible. But you are probably confusing him with the Arctic explorer,
+Dr. KANE. Among the scientific men I must mention Sir WILLIAM
+ROBERTSON NICOLL, the great Scots agriculturist who first applied
+intensive culture to the kailyard; General BELLOC, the illustrious
+topographer, and HAROLD BEGBIE, who discovered and popularized Sir
+OLIVER LODGE.
+
+_Richard._ Ah, Mamma, I know enough about the Georgians to feel sure
+that you have left out a great many things. You have never told
+us about the Marquis of NORTHCLIFFE'S discovery of America, his
+introduction of the potato to that Continent, and his building of
+the Yellow House in the Yellowstone Park.
+
+_George._ And you have not fully satisfied our curiosity about Sir
+GEORGE ROBEY, Baronet, Lord LAUDER, Sir CHARLES CHAPLIN and other
+great Leaders of English Society.
+
+_Mrs. M._ True, my dear, but you must read their lives in the
+_Dictionary of National Biography_, for here is the tea, and I
+must leave off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALLIRAP ASRAS.
+
+It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian ruler,
+but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it should be
+the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S expedition,
+rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new facts.
+Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian
+kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth
+of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite
+of _The Daily Mail_) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it
+was in the early days of the War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed,
+my aunt, who has evidently an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC
+NEWTON, merely shaking her finger. But self-control among women
+must be on the increase, for in a hotel the other day I overheard a
+coffee-room conversation in which two cases were instanced of supreme
+heroism under agonising conditions--one being when a butler (an old
+and honoured butler too, who had never misconducted himself before)
+fainted while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most
+of it over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only
+disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the butler
+to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less than that.
+
+It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer
+among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur
+photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy
+cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up
+is one asking the applicant, in the interests of identification, to
+specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with a conscientiousness
+not excelled by the actor who blacked himself all over to play
+_Othello_, stated that she had only an appendicitis scar.
+
+But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing that
+great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that he was
+a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there was never
+any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have deceived you, but
+you must blame not me but a certain domestic remedy. If one bright
+cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing this medicinal beverage
+at a penny a glass, will insist upon being outside Westminster Abbey
+and another at the top of Cockspur Street every working day of the
+week for ever and ever, how can one help sooner or later spelling its
+staple product backwards and embroidering a little on the result?
+
+But what I want to know is--who drinks sarsaparilla, anyway?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Vague Tommy (writing letter)._ "WOT DAY IS IT?"
+
+_Chorus._ "THE FOURTEENTH."
+
+_Tommy._ "WOT MONTH?"
+
+_Chorus._ "OCTOBER."
+
+_Tommy._ "WOT YEAR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those bygone
+    times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and our
+    names might have been inscribed in the book of immorality."--_New
+    Ireland._
+
+We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LAMENTABLE LARCENY IN A BOARDING-HOUSE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A DECLARATION OF WAR.
+
+  This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire,
+  Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and expire--
+  A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful liar:--
+
+  "'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago
+  I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift--it was maybe thirty 'below,'
+  And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him with snow.
+
+  "He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for dead,
+  But I packed him along, as I've told you, and melted him out instead,
+  And I rolled him up in my blankets and put him to sleep in my bed.
+
+  "So he dwelt in my humble shanty while the wintry gales did roar,
+  While the blizzards howled in the passes and the timber wolves at the
+      door,
+  And he slept in my bunk at night-time while I stretched out on the floor.
+
+  "He watched me frying my bacon and he said that the smell was grand;
+  He watched me bucking the stove-wood, but he never lent me a hand,
+  And he played on my concertina the airs of his native land.
+
+  "And one month grew into two months and two months grew into three,
+  And there he was sitting and smiling like a blooming Old Man of the Sea,
+  Eating my pork and beans up and necking my whisky and tea.
+
+  "You say, 'Why didn't I shift him?' For the life o' me I dunno;
+  I suppose there's something inside me that can't tell a fellow to go
+  I hauled by the heels from a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'...
+
+  "But at last, when the snows were going and the blue Spring skies
+      were pale,
+  Out after bear in the valley I met a chap on the trail--
+  A chap coming up from the city, who stopped and told me a tale--
+
+  "A tale of a red war raging all over the land and sea,
+  And when he was through I was laughing, for the joke of it seemed to be
+  That Hank was a goldarn German--and Hank was rooming with me!
+
+  "So off I hiked to the shanty, and never a word I said,
+  I floated in like a cyclone, I yanked him out of my bed,
+  And I grabbed the concertina and smashed it over his head.
+
+  "I shook him up for a minute, I stood him down on the floor,
+  I grabbed the scruff of his trousers and ran him along to the door,
+  And I said, 'This here, if you get me, is a Declaration of War!'
+
+  "And I gave him a hoist with my gum-boot, a kind of a lift with my toe;
+  But you can't give a fellow a hiding, as anyone sure must know,
+  When you hauled him out of a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'"
+
+  C.F.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A GOOD DAY'S WORK.
+
+    "He left Flanders on leave at one o'clock yesterday morning
+    and was in London after fourteen months' fighting before
+    sundown."--_Daily News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Why can't we find machies for long-distance raids since Germans
+    can?"--_Evening News_.
+
+Personally, if distance is required, we prefer a brassie. We can only
+assume that the iron club is chosen in consequence of the number of
+bad lies there are about.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the German Naval mutiny:--
+
+    "They may be divided into two camps. One holds that it is not
+    an affair to which too much importance can be attached; the
+    other that it is an affair to which one cannot attach too much
+    importance."--_Star_.
+
+We cannot help feeling that these two factions might safely be
+accommodated in the same camp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A LONG-SIGHTED PATRIOT.
+
+_Aunt Susie (whose charity begins as far as possible from home)._
+"HAVE YOU FOUND OUT WHETHER THEY WEAR KNITTED SOCKS IN ARGENTINA?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"ONE HOUR OF LIFE."
+
+In Captain DESMOND COKE'S extravaganza a group of philanthropists
+adopt the time-honoured procedure of ROBIN HOOD and his Greenwood
+Company, robbing Dives on system to pay Lazarus. Their economics are
+sounder than their sociology, which is of the crudest. They specialize
+in jewellery--useless, barbaric and generally vulgar survivals--which
+they extract from shop and safe, and sell in Amsterdam, distributing
+the proceeds to various deserving charitable agencies. In this
+particular crowded hour of life the leader of the group, a fanatical
+prig with hypnotic eyes, abducts the beautiful _Lady Fenton_, with
+ten thousand pounds' worth of stuff upon her, from one of the least
+ambitious of Soho restaurants.
+
+How came she there, thus bedizened? Well, her husband, eccentric peer
+with a priceless collection of snuffboxes and a chronic deficiency of
+humour, had arranged the little dinner to effect a reconciliation,
+away from the prying eyes of their set. It was not a success. She felt
+that she sparkled too much, was piqued, and dismissed her lord. Enter
+the hypnotic prig, who adroitly conveys her to his headquarters,
+preaches to her and converts her to the point of surrendering her
+jewels without a pang, and offering to assist in the lifting of the
+snuffboxes. I can't say more without endangering the effect of Captain
+COKE'S ingenious shifts and spoofs.
+
+The author seemed to me to tempt Providence by placing his perfervid
+philanthropist and his serious doctrines against a background of
+burlesque. But he succeeded in entertaining his audience. Miss LILLAH
+MCCARTHY, looking her very best as _Lady Fenton_, and Mr. COWLEY
+WRIGHT, looking quite plausible as the irresistible chief of the
+General Charities Distribution Bureau, shared the chief honours of the
+evening.
+
+T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The views expressed by Mr. Roosevelt are crystallising
+    everywhere, and are bearing excellent fruit."--_Daily Paper._
+
+How does he get his sugar?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Two million troubles are now standing to Koslovsky's account
+    in Petrograd banks."--_Rangitikei Advocate (N.Z.)._
+
+We knew conditions were very trying in Russia, but had no idea any one
+man had such a burden as this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+RHYMES FOR THE TIMES.
+
+  There was a false Pasha named BOLO,
+  Who sank in iniquity so low.
+    That the dirtiest work
+    Of the Hun and the Turk
+  Never made him ejaculate _Nolo!_
+
+  There was a stout fellow called YAPP,
+  A great Red Triangular chap;
+    Now he's working still harder
+    To stock the State larder,
+  And never has time for a nap.
+
+  The manners and customs of Clare
+  Have long been admittedly "quare,"
+    But the tolerance shown
+    To sedition full-blown
+  Is enough to make CADBURY swear.
+
+  Politicians unstable and vague
+  May well take example from HAIG,
+    Who talks to the Huns
+    In the voice of his guns
+  Till they dread him far worse than the plague.
+
+  Renowned for her fine macaroni,
+  And also for Signor MARCONI,
+    Now Italy sends,
+    To enrapture her friends,
+  (And to finish these rhymes), the Caproni.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MISSING.
+
+    "He was last seen going over the parapet into the German
+    trenches."
+
+  What did you find after war's fierce alarms,
+    When the kind earth gave you a resting place,
+  And comforting night gathered you in her arms,
+    With light dew falling on your upturned face?
+
+  Did your heart beat, remembering what had been?
+    Did you still hear around you, as you lay,
+  The wings of airmen sweeping by unseen,
+    The thunder of the guns at close of day?
+
+  All nature stoops to guard your lonely bed;
+    Sunshine and rain fall with their calming breath;
+  You need no pall, so young and newly dead,
+    Where the Lost Legion triumphs over death.
+
+  When with the morrow's dawn the bugle blew,
+    For the first time it summoned you in vain;
+  The Last Post does not sound for such as you;
+    But God's Reveillé wakens you again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUGAR.
+
+"Francesca," I said, "you must be very deeply occupied; for ten
+minutes I have not heard your silvery voice."
+
+"I am attempting," she said, "to fill up our sugar form."
+
+"Is it a tremendous struggle?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "it is a regular brain-smasher."
+
+"Give me the paper, and let me have a go at it."
+
+With a haggard face, but without a word, she handed me the buff form,
+and sat silently while I read the various explanations and directions.
+
+"Francesca," I said, "you are doing wrong. It says that the form must
+be filled up and signed by a responsible member of the household. Now
+you can say that you're brilliant or amiable or handsome or powerful
+or domineering, but can you honestly say you're responsible? No, you
+can't. So I shall keep this form and fill it up myself in due time,
+and leave you to look after the hens or talk to the gardener."
+
+"Anybody," she said, "who can wring a smile from a gardener, as I have
+this morning, is entitled to be considered responsible. Infirm of
+purpose! hand me the paper."
+
+"Very well," I said, "you can have the paper; only remember that,
+if we get fined a thousand pounds for transgressing the Defence of
+the Realm Act, you mustn't ask me for the money. You must pay it
+yourself."
+
+"I'll chance that," she said, as I handed back the paper.
+
+"Now then, we shan't be long. Which of these two addresses shall we
+have?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why, they tell you to fill in the address in capital letters, and
+then they give you two to pick from. One is 1000, Upper Grosvenor
+Street, W. 1--"
+
+"It is a longer street than I had supposed."
+
+"And the other," she continued, "is 17, Church Lane, Middlewich,
+Cheshire."
+
+"Let it be Middlewich," I said. "Since boyhood's hour I have dreamt
+of living in Middlewich. As for the other, I simply couldn't live in
+a street of a thousand houses. Could you?"
+
+"No," she said, "I couldn't. We'll be Middlewichians.... There, it's
+done. Capital letters and all."
+
+"Don't slack off," I said. "Fill it all up now that you've got
+started."
+
+"I suppose I'd better begin with myself."
+
+"Yes," I said, "you may have that privilege. Put it down quick:
+Carlyon, Francesca; age blank, because they don't want ages over
+eighteen; F for female, and Married Woman for occupation. Then treat
+me in the same way, putting M for F, and 2nd Lieutenant of Volunteers
+instead of Married Woman."
+
+"Why shouldn't I put Married Man as your occupation?"
+
+"Simply because it isn't done. It's a splendid occupation, but it
+isn't recognised as such in formal documents."
+
+"Another injustice to women. I shall enter you as Married Man."
+
+"Enter me as anything you like," I said, "only let's get on with the
+job."
+
+"Very well; you're down as Married Man."
+
+"Now get on with the children. Muriel first. What about her?"
+
+"But she's away having her education finished."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but she'll be back for the holidays, and she'll want
+her sugar then, like the rest of us. And Frederick is away at _his_
+school, probably getting much better sugar than we are. He'll be
+wanting his ration in the holidays. You'd better put a note about
+that."
+
+"A note?" she said. "There's no room for notes on this form. All they
+want is a bald statement. And that's just what they can't get. They'll
+have to take it with the hair on. I'm cramming in about the holidays,
+and I hope Lord RHONDDA will be pleased with all the information he's
+getting about our family."
+
+"Keep going," I said; "you've still got the servants to do."
+
+"Yes, but the kitchenmaid's gone, and I haven't engaged another one
+yet."
+
+"Don't let that worry you," I said. "Write down--Kitchenmaid about to
+be engaged. Name will be supplied later.'"
+
+"You're quite brilliant to-day. There, that's finished, thank Heaven."
+
+"Not yet. You've got to address it to the Local Food Office."
+
+"But I haven't the remotest where the Local Food Office is. It can't
+have been there more than a short time, anyhow."
+
+"Hurrah!" I said, looking over her shoulder at the document. "It says
+if you are in doubt as to the name of the district of your Local Food
+Office you are to inquire of any policeman or special constable."
+
+"That's all very well," she said, "but how are we to find a policeman
+in this remote and peaceful place? I've never seen one. Have you?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I think I saw one last year on a bicycle."
+
+"Well, he's probably arrived somewhere else by this time. He's no good
+to us."
+
+"No, but we might find a special constable."
+
+"I'll tell you what," she said, "old Glumgold is a special constable.
+I heard him complaining bitterly of having been hauled out of bed
+during the last air-raid on London. 'No nigher to we nor forty mile,'
+he said it was. He's sure to be among the cabbages. Be a dear and dash
+out and ask him."
+
+So I found Glumgold in among the cabbages and asked him where the
+Local Food Office was, and he said he'd be gingered if he knew, he
+or his old woman either; and that was the question they was a-going
+to arst of us, because to-day was the last day for sending in. So I
+advised him to chance it with Nebsbury, which happens to be eight
+miles off and possesses a High Street; and then I went back to
+Francesca and told her that Glumgold advised Nebsbury--which was
+cowardly, but one can't spend a lifetime over a fiddle-headed document
+like that. Anyhow, we folded it up and posted it, and we've heard
+nothing since.
+
+R.C.L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ECHOES OF THE AIR-RAIDS.
+
+_First Souvenir-hunter_. "FOUND ANYFINK, 'ERB?"
+
+_Second ditto_. "NO; BUT THAT'LL BE ALL RIGHT. THEY'RE SURE TO COME
+AGAIN TERMORRER NIGHT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
+
+Not for a great while have I met a story at once so moving and so
+simply made as _Summer_ (MACMILLAN). Of course at this time the art
+of EDITH WHARTON is no new discovery; but to my thinking she has never
+done better work than this tale of a New England village, and the
+wakening to love of the girl who was drowsing away her youth there.
+It is all, as I say, so simple, and written with such apparent economy
+of effort, that only afterwards does the amazing cleverness of Mrs.
+WHARTON'S method impress itself upon the reader. _Charity Royall_ was
+a waif, of worse than ambiguous parentage, brought up in a community
+where her passionate and violently sensitive nature was stifled. Two
+men loved her--dour middle-aged Lawyer _Royall_, whose house she kept,
+and _Lucius Harney_, the young visitor from the city, the fairy-prince
+of poor _Charity's_ one great romance, through whom came tragedy. You
+see already the whole stark simplicity of the theme. What I cannot
+convey to you is that secret of Mrs. WHARTON'S that enables her by
+some exquisitely right word or phrase so to illuminate a scene that
+you see it as though by an inspiration of your own, and feel that
+thus and thus did the thing in fact happen. There are episodes in
+_Summer_--for example the Fourth of July firework evening, or the
+wildly macabre scene of the night funeral on the mountain--that seem
+to me to come as near perfection in their telling as anything I am
+ever likely to read, and when you have enjoyed them for yourself I
+fancy you will be inclined to join me in very sincere gratitude for
+work of such rare quality.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Those who admired (which is the same as saying those who read) that
+excellent book, _The Retreat from Mons_, will be glad to hear that
+its author, Major A. CORBETT-SMITH, has now continued his record in a
+further volume, called _The Marne and After_ (CASSELL). In it you will
+find all those qualities, a sane and soldier-like common-sense, an
+entire absence of gush, and a saving humour in the midst of horrors,
+which made the earlier installment memorable. Above all else I
+have been impressed by the first of these characteristics. Major
+CORBETT-SMITH writes from the viewpoint of one to whom even this
+ghastliest of wars is part of the day's work. That he sees its human
+and hideous sides by no means impairs this quiet professional outlook.
+I recall one phrase in his chapter on the secret agents of the enemy:
+"At the Aisne German spies were a regular plague"--just as one might
+speak of wasps or weather--which somehow conveyed to me very vividly
+the secret of our original little army's disproportionate influence
+in the early weeks of the War. The operations which we call the
+actual Battle of the Marne (surely fated to be the most fought-again
+engagement in history) are here very clearly described, with
+illustrative plans; while one other chapter, called suggestively
+"_Kultur_," may be commended to those super-philosophers amongst us
+who are already beginning an attempt to belittle the foul record of
+calculated crime that must for at least a generation place Germany
+outside the pale of civilization. For this grim chapter alone I should
+like to see Major CORBETT-SMITH'S otherwise cheery volume scattered
+broadcast over the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_June_ (METHUEN) is saturated with the simple sentimentality in which
+American authors excel. I do not know whether British novelists could
+write this sort of book successfully if they would, but I do know that
+they don't. Miss EDITH BARNARD DELANO, however, succeeds in getting
+considerable charm into her story, and if it leaves rather a sweeter
+taste in the mouth than some of us relish there are others who like
+their fiction to be strongly sugared. _June_, an orphan child, was
+looked after by nigger servants, and by one, _Mammy_, in particular.
+She possessed a house and a valley; and a young man prospecting in the
+latter met with an accident and was discovered by the child. Hence
+complications, and the removal of _June_ from her home to be educated
+with some cousins. Then poverty, hard times and plenty of pluck.
+But the clouds began to lift when _June_ discovered that an emerald
+cross of hers was worth four thousand dollars; and finally the sun
+burst forth when, through the agency of the accidental young man,
+her property was found to be very valuable, and she more valuable
+still--to the young man. It sounds ingenuous, doesn't it? But not
+nearly so easy to write as it seems, for to produce anything as
+artless as _June_ is an art in itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _The Book of the Happy Warrior_ (LONGMANS) a chivalrous modern
+knight holds up to our youngsters the patterns of an older chivalry
+to teach them courage, clean fighting and devoted service. Sir HENEY
+NEWBOLT claims that the tradition of the public schools is the direct
+survival of the mediæval training for knighthood, and incidentally
+defends flannelled and muddied youth from hasty aspersions. ROLAND and
+his OLIVER, RICHARD LION-HEART, EDWARD the Black Prince and CHANDOS,
+DU GUESCLIN and BAYARD, if they revisited this tortured earth, would
+be dismayed by the procedure and the chilling impersonality of modern
+war. Perhaps in the glorious single combats of the Flying Corps they
+might recognise some faint semblance of their ancient method. Sir
+HENRY, rightly from his point of view, chooses to ignore the wholesale
+horrors of to-day's warfare and to emphasize the ideal of fighting
+service as a fine discipline and proof of manly worth. He shows an
+obvious, honest, aristocratic bias, but he does not forget another
+side of the matter, as a fragment of an imaginary conversation
+between a young lord and a squire present at the great tourney at St.
+Inglebert's between the Gentlemen of England and of France pleasantly
+shows. The Englishmen were worsted and took their defeat in a fine
+sporting spirit. "How is it we're beaten? We always win the battles,
+don't we?" asks the boy. "The archers win them for us," says the
+Squire. Quite a characteristic little touch of subaltern modesty! One
+thought occurs to me especially. It is unthinkable that a book like
+this should appear in the Germany of to-day. It will be worth your
+while giving it to your boy to find out why.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since the practice of writing first novels is becoming increasingly
+popular with young authors it was inevitable that a "First Novel
+Library" should find its way on to the market. Whether the
+classification is to be construed as an appeal for forbearance for
+the shortcomings of the neophyte, or as a warning which a considerate
+publisher feels is due to the public, is not for me to say. But the
+policy of charging six shillings for these maiden efforts--all that
+is required of us for the mature masterpieces of our MAURICE HEWLETTS
+and ARNOLD BENNETTS--is open to question. _The Puppet_, by JANE
+HARDING (UNWIN), is not without merit, but the faults of the beginner
+are present in manifold. The heroine tells her story in the first
+person--a difficult method of handling fiction at the best--and in the
+result we find a young lady of no particular education or apparent
+attainments holding forth in the stilted diction of a rather prosy
+early-Victorian Archbishop. The effect of unreality produced goes far
+to spoil a plot which is wound and unwound with considerable skill.
+Miss HARDING will write a good novel yet, but she must learn to make
+her characters act the parts she assigns to them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We all must be writing books about the War. It is natural enough to
+suppose one's own share of war-work is worthy of record, and indeed,
+when we come to think of it, the historian of the future will get his
+complete picture of the time only when he realises how every scrap
+of the national energy was absorbed in the one master purpose. That
+being so it is arguable that Mr. WARD MUIR was thinking far ahead in
+compiling his hospital reminiscences, _Observations of an Orderly_
+(SIMPKIN). One hastens to make it clear that the last thing intended
+or desired is to disparage the usefulness or the stark self-sacrifice
+of the men who are serving in menial capacities in our war hospitals,
+but to tell the truth this account of sculleries and laundry-baskets,
+polishing paste and nigger minstrels, bathrooms and pillow-slips, has
+not much intrinsic interest about it, nor are the author's general
+reflections very different from what one could supply oneself without
+much effort. His notes on war slang are about the best thing in
+the volume, and I liked the story of the blinded soldiers--feeling
+anything in the world but mournful or pathetic--who played pranks on
+the Tube escalator; but on the whole this is a book which will be of
+considerable interest only to the writer's fellow-labourers. They,
+beyond any doubt, will be glad to read this history of their familiar
+rounds and common tasks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Wanted, a Tortoise-Shell_ (LANE) would have made an excellent short
+story, but to pursue its farcical developments through three hundred
+pages requires a considerable amount of perseverance. The scene of Mr.
+PETER BLUNDER'S book is laid in tropical Jallagar, where the British
+Resident was keener on cats than on his duties. A male tortoise-shell
+was what he fanatically and almost ferociously desired, and to obtain
+it he was ready to barter his daughter to one _Kamp_, who is tersely
+described as "a fat Swede." I conceived a strong distaste for this
+large and perspiring man, and can congratulate Mr. BLUNDELL on having
+created a character odious enough to linger in the memory. For the
+rest there are some gleams of real fun where a beach-comber tries to
+palm off a dyed cat as the long-deferred tortoise-shell, and the exit
+of this animal from a world too covetous to hold it is thoroughly
+sound farce. But on the whole I failed to get many of those quiet
+gurgles of delight which are the best tribute one can pay to a funny
+man's work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Chairman at Farmers' Ordinary._ "NOW, GENTLEMEN, FILL
+UP YOUR MATCHBOXES TO THE VERY GOOD HEALTH OF THE CATERER."]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10903 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10903 ***</div>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153,
+Oct. 17, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen</h1>
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Punch, or the London Charivari, William Flis,<br />
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center>
+<br />
+<hr class="full" />
+<h1>PUNCH,<br />
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+<h2>Vol. 153.</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>October 17, 1917.</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>[pg
+263]</span>
+<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+<p>The mutiny of the German sailors at Kiel is now explained. They
+preferred death to another speech from the KAISER.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A Constantinople poet has translated the plays of SHAKSPEARE
+into Turkish. The rendering is said to be faithful to the text, and
+it is assumed that a keen appreciation of Turkey's military
+necessities alone accounts for his reference to the "Swan of Avon"
+as the "Bulbul of Potsdam."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The use of flour as an ingredient of sausages is now forbidden.
+Young sausages which have hitherto been fed on bread and milk must
+either be broken to bones or killed for the table.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>An optimist writes to express the hope that by this elimination
+of flour the dreadful secret of the sausage may be at last
+revealed.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The German Government has created a Pulp Commission. We have
+always said they would be reduced to it in time.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The King of SIAM'S royal yacht has been turned into a cargo
+boat. Reports that the Sacred White Elephant has been commandeered
+for use as a floating dock are still unconfirmed.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>For giving corn to pheasants a fine of ten pounds has been
+inflicted on a merchant of New York (Lincs.) The removal <i>en
+bloc</i> of this village from the mouth of the Hudson river to its
+present site should finally convince the sceptics of the magnitude
+of America's war effort.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The Vacant Land Cultivation Society offers a prize of ten
+shillings for the heaviest potato. Some of our most notorious
+potato-tellers are expected to compete.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The provision of steel helmets for the Metropolitan Police is
+all right so far as it goes, but the Force is still asking why it
+cannot be furnished with some protection for its other
+extremities.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>From China it is reported that an aboriginal priest now claiming
+the Throne has been accustomed to eat the flesh of tigers, wolves,
+leopards, &amp;c., also the human heart. It is, however, only fair
+to our own restaurateurs to state that, though China is alleged to
+be on the eve of war, there is as yet no food-control in that
+country.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>An unusual scarcity of wasps is reported from various parts of
+the country. Nothing is being done about it.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A calf has been sold for two thousand seven hundred guineas in
+Aberdeenshire. The plucky purchaser is understood to have had for
+some time past a craving for a veal cutlet.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A new form of frightfulness is evidently being practised upon
+their guards by our interned Huns. "Some of them," says a
+contemporary, "purchase a hundred cigars with a portion of the one
+pound a day which is the miserable maximum they may spend on
+luxuries."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"People who speak of suicide seldom do anything desperate," says
+a well-known mental expert. So that the KAISER'S threat to fight
+England to the death may be taken for what it is worth.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>An extraordinary meeting of German Reichstag Members has arrived
+at the decision that the Germans cannot hope for victory in the
+field. We see nothing extraordinary in this.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Professor BERGEN was once described as "the well-known inventor
+and philanthropist." He still invents (his latest is a gas-thrower,
+reported by the <i>Berliner Tageblatt</i> to be "a veritable
+monster of destruction"), but has dropped the other job.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A swallow-tail butterfly which escaped from the Zoo has been
+re-captured at Eastbourne. When caught it gave the policeman to
+understand that it would go quietly.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Two men, we read, took twenty-two hours to chisel a hole through
+the three-foot flint concrete roof of the London Opera House. The
+report that they did this to avoid the Entertainment Tax has now
+been contradicted.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"The American Winston Churchill," says <i>The Daily Express</i>,
+"has to plod through life without a middle name." We all have our
+little cross to bear. Even the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS has to plod
+through life with the knowledge that there is another Winston
+Churchill loose about the world.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>It is proposed that Parliament shall sit from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.,
+instead of from 3 to 11 P.M. We do not care for this crude attempt
+to mix business with politics.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The Boundary Commission Report advocates the creation of
+thirty-one new M.P.'s. It will be a bitter disappointment for those
+who were sanguine enough to hope that Redistribution would spell
+Reform.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The Government has commandeered all stocks of rum. The rigours
+of war, it seems, must be suffered even by our little tots.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href=
+"images/263.png"><img width="100%" src="images/263.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>The Wit.</i> "AH, NOW YOU'RE FOR IT, ALBERT?"</p>
+<p><i>Tractor-Driver.</i> "WOT'S THE MATTER?"</p>
+<p><i>The Wit.</i> "WHY, YOU'VE BEEN AND GONE AND COME ON PARADE
+WITHOUT YOUR SPURS."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The bridegroom, 6 ft. 35 ins. in height, was wearing the
+full-dress uniform of a captain in the Army."&mdash;<i>Great
+Yarmouth Independent</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>He would need it all.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Headline to a description of a recent push:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"VONDERFUL RESULTS."&mdash;<i>Evening Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The "Hidden Hand" in the composing-room?</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264"></a>[pg
+264]</span>
+<h2>THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.</h2>
+<blockquote class="note">
+<p>["Stedfastness and righteousness are the qualities which the
+German people value in the highest degree, and which have brought
+it a good and honourable reputation in the whole world. When we
+make experiments in lies and deception, intrigue and low cunning,
+we suffer hopeless and brutal failure. Our lies are coarse and
+improbable, our ambiguity is pitiful simplicity. The history of the
+War proves this by a hundred examples. When our enemies poured all
+these things upon us like a hailstorm, and we convinced ourselves
+of the effectiveness of such tactics, we tried to imitate them. But
+these tactics will not fit the German. We are rough but moral, we
+are credulous but honest."&mdash;<i>Herr DERNBURG, in "Deutsche
+Politik."</i>]</p>
+</blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>In Eden bowers, so fair to see,</p>
+<p>There dwelt, when sin was yet to be,</p>
+<p>A guileless Serpent up a tree,</p>
+<p class="i2">Sniffing the virgin breezes;</p>
+<p>Till EVE (the huzzy!), one fine day,</p>
+<p>With evil purpose came his way,</p>
+<p>And led that simple worm astray</p>
+<p class="i2">By low and wicked wheezes.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>A Wolf there was, quite sweet and good,</p>
+<p>Till in his path Red Riding-Hood</p>
+<p>Went camouflaging through the wood&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">A brazen little terror;</p>
+<p>Large teeth she had and bulgy eyes</p>
+<p>And told the most amazing lies,</p>
+<p>And taught him, in a flowery guise,</p>
+<p class="i2">The downward route to error.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Of Fritz's nature, fresh as morn,</p>
+<p>Pure as a babe that's just been born,</p>
+<p>Clean as a poodle lately-shorn,</p>
+<p class="i2">These are symbolic samples;</p>
+<p>The Wolf unversed in specious vice,</p>
+<p>The Serpent with a taste as nice</p>
+<p>As anything in Paradise&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Debauched by bad examples.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>England seduced us. 'Neath her spell,</p>
+<p>Mistress of lies, we fell and fell</p>
+<p>Into the poisoned sink, or well,</p>
+<p class="i2">Of faked and fabulous rumour;</p>
+<p>And there, as we were bound to do,</p>
+<p>We failed, because we loved the True,</p>
+<p>And loathed the False as alien to</p>
+<p class="i2">Our artless German humour.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>I speak as one who ought to know;</p>
+<p>Myself I tried a trick or so</p>
+<p>In U.S.A. and had to go,</p>
+<p class="i2">Looking absurdly silly;</p>
+<p>And now against us, big with fate,</p>
+<p>That Hemisphere has thrown its weight,</p>
+<p>Both North and South (though up to date</p>
+<p class="i2">We haven't heard from Chili).</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Laughter we've earned&mdash;a noble shame!</p>
+<p>Built to achieve a higher aim,</p>
+<p>We honest Huns can't play the game</p>
+<p class="i2">Of shifty propaganders;</p>
+<p>Henceforth we'd better all get back</p>
+<p>On to the straight and righteous track</p>
+<p>And help our HINDENBURG to hack</p>
+<p class="i2">(If not too late) through Flanders.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>O.S.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Red heels were much in evidence, both Lady D&mdash;&mdash; and
+Lady C&mdash;&mdash; affected them, and they were to be seen in
+other unexpected places."&mdash;<i>Observer</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Certainly their use as ornaments in the small of the back
+surprised us a good deal.</p>
+<hr />
+<h2>THE CARP AT MIRAMEL.</h2>
+<blockquote class="note">
+<p>[In the following article all actual names, personal,
+geographical and regimental, have been duly camouflaged.]</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The carp that live in the moat of the Ch&acirc;teau de Miramel
+(in the zone of the armies in France) are of an age and ugliness
+incredible and of a superlative cynicism. One of them&mdash;local
+tradition pointed to a one-eyed old reprobate with a yellow
+face&mdash;is the richer these hundred years past by an English
+peeress's diamond ring.</p>
+<p>From the bottom of the moat one world-war is like another, and
+none of them very different from peace. It is but a row of grinning
+red healthy faces over the coping and a shower of bread and
+biscuit.</p>
+<p>When the nightmare of BONAPARTE was ended in the Autumn of 1815,
+the 22nd K.R. Lancers, commanded by an English peer, billeted
+themselves in and around the Ch&acirc;teau de Miramel. The English
+peer, finding time hang heavy on his hands, or my lady's letters
+proving insistent, sent for her to come out to him at Miramel. You
+could do that sort of homely thing in 1815.</p>
+<p>So my lady comes to Miramel, and the very first day, as she
+leans out of window in the round tower, mishandles her diamond ring
+(gift of my lord) and drops it into the moat. Her host, the good
+Comte de Miramel, dredged and drained, but no trace of the diamond
+ring was ever found. But old Cyclops, the carp, grinned
+horribly.</p>
+<p>In due course my lord and lady went home to the Isle of Fogs,
+and thence they sent their portraits to their host as a souvenir of
+their stay. Here indeed the portraits still hang, very graceful in
+the style of the period. And to the appreciative visitor Madame de
+Miramel (of to-day) shows a missive of thanks, written in
+indifferent bad French, in which my lady refers sorrowfully to
+"<i>ma bague diamant&eacute;e</i>."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Once again the 22nd K.R. Lancers are billeted in Miramel. The
+other day I noticed on a worn stone pillar at the great door the
+following half-obliterated words:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"ED. WYNN, pikeman of the dashing 22nd King's Ryol ridgemet of
+lanciers. Sept. 1815";</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>and freshly scratched above the inscription:&mdash;</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"Better at piking than at speling.</p>
+<p class="i4">22nd K.R. Lancers. JAS. BARNET. Sept. 1917."</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like
+another. There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd
+King's Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium
+for self-expression.</p>
+<p>Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or
+so. There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring
+of red grinning faces above the coping. Yesterday I threw a disused
+safety-razor blade over the old scoundrel's nose. And "Bless my
+soul!" he said, as he lazily bolted it, "there hasn't been such a
+year for minnows since 1815."</p>
+<p>But Armageddon 1917 holds surprises even for those who live at
+the bottom of a moat. For very early this morning a bauble fell
+into the moat that Cyclops himself couldn't digest. The old cynic
+was found floating, scarred belly upwards, on the surface of the
+water.</p>
+<p>The mess-waiter took charge of the <i>post-mortem</i>. Like the
+<i>Duke of Plaza Toro</i>, he "likes an interment" and rarely
+misses a last rite. A keen fisherman, he had little difficulty in
+extracting an exhibit for the Court's inspection, which he
+unhesitatingly pronounced to be a diamond ring in an advanced state
+of decomposition.</p>
+<p>The mess-cook, on the other hand, identified the relic as the
+stopping, recently mislaid, from one of his back teeth.</p>
+<p>In any case there seems little room for doubt that a Hun airman
+has avenged the long-dead lady.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>[pg
+265]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/265.png"><img width="100%" src="images/265.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>ENIGMA.</h3>
+<p>POLICEMAN (<i>on duty at St. Stephen's</i>). "STAND ASIDE,
+PLEASE."</p>
+<p>MR. PUNCH. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"</p>
+<p>POLICEMAN. "PARLIAMENT REASSEMBLING."</p>
+<p>MR. PUNCH. "WHY?"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>[pg
+266]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/266.png"><img width="100%" src="images/266.png" alt=
+"" /></a><i>Ex-Bus-driver (in difficulties in the roadless
+zone).</i> "'ERE'S OLE PICCADILLY UP AGIN&mdash;FAIR IN THE
+'IGHTH OF THE SEASON."
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>THE MUD LARKS.</h2>
+<p>All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour"
+of old Atkins. Every distinguished tripper who comes Cook's-touring
+to the Front for a couple of days devotes at least a chapter of his
+resultant book to it. "How in thunder does Thomas do it?" they ask.
+"What the mischief does he find to laugh at?" Listen.</p>
+<p>Years ago, when the well-known War was young, a great man sat in
+his sanctum exercising his grey matter. Ho said to himself, "There
+is a War on. Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from
+comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the
+term of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined
+and bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and
+scared silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum
+diluted, reliefs late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them
+for diamond-studded munitioneers. Their wives will write saying,
+'Little Jimmie has the mumps; and what about the rent? You aren't
+spending all of five bob a week on yourself, are you?' This is but
+a tithe (or else a tittle) of the things that will occur to them,
+and their sunny natures will sour and sicken if something isn't
+done about it."</p>
+<p>The great man sat up all night chewing penholders and pondering
+on the problem. The BIG IDEA came with the end of the eighth
+penholder.</p>
+<p>He sprang to his feet, fires of inspiration flashing from his
+eyes, and boomed, "Let there be <i>Funny Cuts</i>!"&mdash;then went
+to bed. Next morning he created "I." (which stands for
+Intelligence), carefully selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs
+of appropriate hue, and told them to go the limit. And they have
+been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the
+Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the
+yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and
+offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the
+story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot
+and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin,
+we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see
+what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will make of it.
+A hint is as good as a wink to them, a nudge ample. Under the
+genius of these imaginative artists the most trivial incident
+burgeons forth into a LE QUEUX spell-binder, and the whole British
+Army, mustering about its Sergeant-Majors, gets selected cameos
+read to it every morning at roll-call, laughs brokenly into the
+jaws of dawn and continues chuckling to itself all day. Now you
+know.</p>
+<p>Our Adjutant had a telephone call not long ago. "Army speaking,"
+said a voice. "Will you send somebody over to Rataplan and see if
+there is a Town Major there?"</p>
+<p>The Adjutant said he would, and a N.C.O. was despatched
+forthwith. He returned later, reporting no symptoms of one, so the
+Adjutant rang up Exchange and asked to be hooked on to Army
+Headquarters. "Which branch?" Exchange inquired. "Why, really I
+don't know&mdash;forgot to ask," the Adjutant confessed. "I'll have
+a try at 'A.'"</p>
+<p>"Hello," said "A." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," said
+the Adjutant. "You astound me, Fair Unknown," said "A."; "but what
+about it, anyway?" The Adjutant apologised and asked Exchange for
+"Q." department. "Hello," said "Q." "There is no Town Major at
+Rataplan," said the Adjutant. "Sorry, old thing, whoever you are,"
+said "Q.," "but we don't stock 'em. Rations, iron; perspirators,
+box; oil, whale, delivered with promptitude and civility, but NOT
+Town Majors&mdash;sorry." The Adjutant sighed and consulted with
+Exchange as to who possibly could have rung him up.</p>
+<p>Exchange couldn't guess unless it was "I."&mdash;no harm in
+trying, anyhow.</p>
+<p>"Hello!" said "I." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," the
+Adjutant, droned somewhat wearily. "Wha-t!" "I." exclaimed,
+suddenly interested. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id=
+"page267"></a>[pg 267]</span> "Say it again, clearer."
+"RAT-A-PLAN&mdash;NO&mdash;TOWN&mdash;MA-JOR," the Adjutant
+repeated. There was a pause; then he heard the somebody give off an
+awed "Good Lord!" and drop the receiver. Next morning in <i>Funny
+Cuts</i> (the organ of Intelligence) we learned that "Corps
+Headquarters was heavily shelled last night. The Town Major is
+missing. This is evidence that the enemy has brought long-range
+guns into the opposite sector." Followed masses of information as
+to the probable make of the guns, the size of shell they preferred,
+the life-story of the Battery Commander, his favourite flower and
+author.</p>
+<p>The Bosch, always on the alert to snaffle the paying devices of
+an opposition firm, now has his "I." staff and <i>Funny Cuts</i> as
+well. From time to time we capture a copy and read this sort of
+thing:&mdash;</p>
+<p>"From agonised screeches heard by one of our intrepid airmen
+while patrolling over the enemy's lines yesterday, it is evident
+that the brutal and relentless British are bayonetting their
+prisoners."</p>
+<p>A Highland Division, whose star pipers were holding a dirge and
+lament contest on that date, are now ticking off the hours to the
+next offensive.</p>
+<p>The Antrims had a <i>cordon bleu</i> by the name of Michael
+O'Callagan. He was a sturdy rogue, having retreated all the way
+from Mons, and subsequently advanced all the way back to the Yser
+with a huge stock-pot on his back, from which he had furnished
+mysterious stews to all comers, at all hours, under any conditions.
+For this, and for the fact that he could cook under water, and
+would turn out hot meals when other <i>chefs</i> were committing
+suicide, much was forgiven him, but he was prone to look upon the
+<i>vin</i> when it was <i>rouge</i> and was habitually coated an
+inch thick with a varnish of soot and pot-black. One morning he
+calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of the earnest
+attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to collect
+sufficient <i>d&eacute;bris</i> to boil his dixies. Next day the
+Bosch <i>Funny Cuts</i> flared forth scareheads:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"SAVAGES ON THE SOMME.</p>
+<p>"The desperate and unprincipled British are employing black
+cannibal Zulus in the defence of their system. Yesterday one of
+them, a chief of incredibly depraved appearance, was observed
+scouting in the open."</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The communiqu&eacute; ended with a treatise on the Zulu, its
+black man-eating habits, and an exhortation to "our old
+Brandenburgers" not to be dismayed.</p>
+<p>PATLANDER.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/267.png"><img width="100%" src="images/267.png" alt=
+"" /></a>OWING TO PRESSURE FROM THE ALL-HIGHEST, HIS ORIENTAL ALLY IS
+FORMING A MAGIC-CARPET BOMBING SQUADRON.
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h3>MORE SEX PROBLEMS.</h3>
+<p>From a stock-auction report:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"THE BULL CALVES. THE BULL CALVES."</p>
+<p><i>Glasgow Herald.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Notwithstanding the repetition of this statement we find great
+difficulty in believing it.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"SOLDIERS' CHRISTMAS GIFTS. POSTING DATES FOR EGYPT AND
+SALONIKA."</p>
+<p><i>Times.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It sounds a little like consigning coal to Newcastle.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"AIR RAIDS.&mdash;Peaceful country rectory, Hampshire, well out
+of danger zone, can receive three or four paying guests. Large
+garden, beautiful scenery, high, bracing. Simple life. &pound;10
+each weekly."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>This enterprising parson seems to have borrowed his recipe for
+the simple life from GRAY'S <i>Elegy</i>:&mdash;</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Along the cool sequester'd vale of life</p>
+<p class="i2">They kept the noiseless tenner of their way.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>[pg
+268]</span>
+<h2>BEASTS ROYAL.</h2>
+<h3>IV.</h3>
+<h3>KING HENRY'S STAG-HOUND. A.D. 1536.</h3>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Ten puffs upon my master's toes,</p>
+<p class="i2">And twenty on his sleeves,</p>
+<p>Upon his hat a Tudor rose</p>
+<p class="i2">Set round with silver leaves;</p>
+<p class="i4">But never a hunting-spear,</p>
+<p class="i6">And never a rowel-spur;</p>
+<p class="i4">Who is this that he calls his Dear?</p>
+<p class="i6">I think I will bark at her.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>The Windsor groves were fresh and green,</p>
+<p class="i2">Dangling with Summer dew,</p>
+<p>When my master rode with his Spanish queen,</p>
+<p class="i2">And the huntsman cried, "Halloo!"</p>
+<p class="i4">Now never a horn is heard,</p>
+<p class="i6">And never the lances stir;</p>
+<p class="i4">Who is this that he calls his Bird?</p>
+<p class="i6">I think I will follow her.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>To-night my master walks alone</p>
+<p class="i2">In the pleach&eacute;d pathway dim,</p>
+<p>And the thick moss reddens on the stone</p>
+<p class="i2">Where she used to walk with him.</p>
+<p class="i4">When will he shout for the glove</p>
+<p class="i6">And the spear of the verderer?</p>
+<p class="i4">Where is she gone whom he called his Love?</p>
+<p class="i6">For I cannot follow her.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>SECOND CHILDHOOD.</h2>
+<p>I must make a confession to someone. I have wasted raw material
+which is a substitute for something else indispensable for
+defeating the Hun, and probably traitor is the right name for me.
+Let me explain.</p>
+<p>Somewhere in Nutshire there is a place called Cotterham. It is
+one of those little villages which somehow nobody expects to meet
+nowadays outside the pages of a KATE GREENAWAY painting book. There
+is the village green, with its pond and geese and absurdly pretty
+cottages with gardens full of red bergamot and lads'-love, and a
+little school where the children are still taught to curtsey and
+pull their forelocks when the Squire goes by. And beyond the Green,
+at the end of Plough Lane and after you have crossed Leg-o'-Mutton
+Common, you come to Down Wood, and if you don't meet Little Red
+Riding-Hood on the way or come on Snow White and her seven dwarfs,
+that is only because you must have taken the wrong turning after
+you came through the kissing-gate at the bottom of Lovers' Lane. I
+am a native of Cotterham, and in my more reflective moments I
+wonder why such an idyllic place should have produced anything so
+unromantic as myself, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting
+Inspector for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives. Cotterham still
+has a large place in my affections, and it gave me a considerable
+shock the other day to get a letter from the Squire, who is an old
+friend, asking me down for a week-end, and adding, "You can do a
+little professional job for me too. You really will be interested
+to see what splendid work is being done here in your line of fire.
+The output is some of the best in the district. But there has been
+trouble lately and the leaders of the two biggest shifts were found
+to have appropriated a substantial part of the output to their own
+uses. I shall rely on you to straighten things out and suggest the
+right penalties."</p>
+<p>So they were even making munitions in Cotterham. I conjured up
+visions of interminable rows of huts, of thousands of overalled
+workers swamping Plough Lane, trampling the Green brown, scaring
+the geese, obliterating the immemorial shape of Leg-o'-Mutton
+Common by a mushroom township, laying Down Wood low, and coming to
+me with some miserable tale of petty pilfering for my adjustment. I
+must own I got out of the train at Muddlehampstead and into the
+station fly feeling distinctly low-spirited. It was some
+consolation to find that the railway still stopped seven miles
+short of my village, though I reflected gloomily that the place
+itself was doubtless a network of light railways by this time. We
+bowled along in stately fashion up Plough Lane and past Halfpenny
+Cross to the Manor House with its thatched roof and
+Virginia-creeper all over the porch. The Squire carried me off at
+once for the professional part of my visit, but we fell to talking
+of fishing, which had been good, and cubbing, which had been bad,
+and were on to Leg-o'-Mutton Common before I remembered to speak of
+munitions.</p>
+<p>"Not much sign of war here," I said with a relieved sigh. "I was
+afraid they'd have spoilt the dear old heath for a certainty. Only
+don't say it's Down Wood they've gone to, for that'd be more than I
+could stand. I thought there were fairies there long after I ought
+to have been a hard-headed young man of six, and if they've gone
+and desecrated that wood with factories&mdash;"</p>
+<p>The Squire smiled.</p>
+<p>"I don't think I should worry. Amongst all your Unexpected
+Explosives do you happen to condescend to have heard of the gentle
+horse-chestnut and the school-children that collect them? Here are
+the two delinquents I wrote to you about, and we've caught them in
+the act. Just look at them wasting the precious things."</p>
+<p>Two small boys were playing at conkers, two small boys with very
+earnest faces and grubby clothes which never figured in KATE
+GREENAWAY'S pictures, wasting precious material which
+five-and-thirty other scholars were diligently collecting and
+stuffing into sacks. I ought to have given them a lecture on
+patriotism&mdash;the army behind the Army. But we each of us keep
+one childish passion untamed, even if we are unromantic old
+bachelors, and I, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector
+for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives and his very loyal subject,
+who have lived for nearly half-a-century of Octobers in London
+town&mdash;I borrowed the bigger conker and systematically and in
+deadly earnest I fought and defeated the other small boy.</p>
+<p>They say that treason never succeeds; so perhaps I can't be a
+traitor after all.</p>
+<hr />
+<h3>THE UNDISMAYED.</h3>
+<p>In a world of insecurity and change it is good to have one
+bedrock certainty upon which the mind can rest. Thrones totter and
+fall; Commanders-in-chief are superseded; Admirals of the High
+Fleet are displaced; in politics leaders come and go and
+reputations pass; in ordinary life a thousand mutations are
+visible. But amid all this flux there remains mercifully one
+resolute piece of routine that nothing can alter. Whatever may be
+happening elsewhere in the world&mdash;mutinies in the German Navy,
+revolutions in Russia, advances in France, advances in
+Flanders&mdash;Leicester Square keeps its head. Armageddon may be
+turning the world upside down, but it cannot cause those old
+antagonists, STEVENSON and REECE, to cease their perpetual contest;
+and if the War lasts another ten years you will read in <i>The
+Times</i> of October 17th, 1927, a paragraph to the effect that "at
+the close of play yesterday in the billiard match of 16,000 points
+up between Stevenson and Reece, at the Grand Hall, Leicester
+Square, the scores were: Reece (in play), 4,676; Stevenson,
+2,837."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h3>NOT CANNIBALS AFTER ALL.</h3>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The first contingent of the American troops brought food for
+six months, and hence the fears of the peasants in France lest they
+should be eaten up are groundless."&mdash;<i>Adelaide
+Advertiser</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"If the public continue to spend the same sum of money on bread
+at 9d. as they did when it was 1s., it is easy to see that the
+consumption will rise by a quarter or 25 per
+cent."&mdash;<i>Glasgow Evening News</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We are always timid about questioning a Scotsman's arithmetic,
+but we make the increase a third, or 33-1/3 per cent.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>[pg
+269]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;"><a href=
+"images/269.png"><img width="100%" src="images/269.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>He (connoisseur of wines)</i>. "WE STAYED SEVERAL DAYS AT AN
+INN IN A LITTLE GLOUCESTERSHIRE VILLAGE, AS WE FOUND THEY HAD SUCH
+AN EXCELLENT CELLAR."</p>
+<p><i>She</i>. "REALLY! I HAD NO IDEA THE RAIDERS HAD GOT SO FAR
+WEST AS THAT."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>CROSS-TALK WITH PETHERTON.</h2>
+<p>Petherton and I have just emerged from another bombardment.
+Certain correspondence in <i>The Surbury Gazette and North Herts
+Courier</i> gave me a welcome excuse for firing what I may term a
+sighting shot. I wrote to my genial neighbour as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+<p>DEAR MR. PETHERTON,&mdash;No doubt you have seen the recent
+letters in the local paper anent the remains of the old Cross,
+which are at once an ornament to Castle Street, Surbury, and a
+standing menace to the peace of mind of the local antiquarians.</p>
+<p>I am exceedingly interested in the matter myself and feel that
+the views of one who, I am sure, adds a wide knowledge of
+arch&aelig;ology to the long list of his accomplishments, would be
+both interesting and instructive to myself and (if you would allow
+your views to be published) to our little community in general.</p>
+<p>If therefore you will write and let me know your opinion on the
+matter I shall take it as a friendly and cousinly (<i>vide</i>
+certain eighteenth-century documents in the Record Office) act.</p>
+<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
+<p>HENRY J. FORDYCE.</p>
+<p>Petherton replied with a whizz-bang as thus:&mdash;</p>
+<p>SIR,&mdash;I have read the idiotic correspondence to which you
+refer, and am informed that you are the author of the screed which
+appeared in last Saturday's issue of the paper. If my informant is
+correct as to the authorship of the letter I can only say it is a
+pity that, with apparently no knowledge of the subject, you should
+venture into print. Anyone enjoying the least acquaintance with the
+rudiments of English history would be perfectly aware that the
+remains have no connection with QUEEN ELEANOR whatever. The
+whereabouts of all the crosses put up to her memory are quite well
+known to arch&aelig;ologists.</p>
+<p>Yours faithfully,</p>
+<p>FREDERICK PETHERTON.</p>
+<p>I replied with light artillery:&mdash;</p>
+<p>DEAR PETHERTON,&mdash;Yours <i>re</i> the late Mrs. EDWARD
+PLANTAGENET to hand.</p>
+<p>Though not a professed arch&aelig;ologist I do know something of
+the ruin in question, having several times examined it and having
+heard, perhaps, most, if not all, the various theories concerning
+it. I have been here a good deal longer than you have, I believe,
+and cannot think that you know more of the subject than I.</p>
+<p>Have you read Wycherley's treatise on the Eleanor Crosses? [I
+invented this monograph for the purpose of inducing Petherton to
+reload.] If not, why not? Perhaps you would like to dispute the
+existence of a castle on the site where the Castle Farm now stands,
+and where such shameless profiteering is carried on in eggs and
+butter?</p>
+<p>By the way, how is your poultry? I notice that your
+<i>seizi&egrave;me si&egrave;cle</i> rooster wants his tail
+remodelling. Perhaps you are not worrying about new plumage for him
+till after the War, though it seems like carrying patriotism to
+absurd lengths.</p>
+<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
+<p>HENRY J. FORDYCE.</p>
+<p>I hope you will allow your letter to be published in <i>The
+Gazette</i>.</p>
+<p>In reply to this Petherton discharged with:&mdash;</p>
+<p>SIR,&mdash;I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may
+not have existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's
+monograph on Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have
+the impudence to rush into print on matters of which they are
+sublimely ignorant.</p>
+<p>Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the
+end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries
+(1272-1307), not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of
+architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not
+earlier than the fifteenth century.</p>
+<p>Trusting you will not commit any further absurdities, though I
+am not too sanguine,</p>
+<p>I am, Yours faithfully,</p>
+<p>FREDERICK PETHERTON.</p>
+<p>My views are not for publication. I <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>[pg 270]</span> prefer
+not to be mixed up in such a symposium.</p>
+<p>It was evident that my neighbour's weapon was beginning to get
+heated, so I flicked him with some more light artillery to draw him
+on, and loosed off with:&mdash;</p>
+<p>Dear Old Man,&mdash;What a historian you are! You have JOHN
+RICHARD GREEN beaten to his knees, FROUDE and GARDINER out of
+sight, and even the authoress of the immortal <i>Little Arthur</i>
+could not have placed EDDY I. with greater chronological
+exactitude. In fact there seems to be no subject on which you
+cannot write informatively, which makes me sorry that you will not
+join in the literary fray in the local paper, as it deprives the
+natives of a great treat.</p>
+<p>But&mdash;there is a but, my dear Fred&mdash;I cannot admit your
+claim to superior knowledge of the Surbury relics. Remember, I have
+grown up with them as it were. Yours ever,</p>
+<p>HARRY FORDYCE.</p>
+<p>Sir (exploded Petherton),&mdash;What senseless drivel you write
+on the least provocation! Whether you grew up with the Surbury
+relics or not, you have certainly decayed with them. Every stone
+that's left of that confounded ruin (probably only a simple
+market-cross) proclaims the date of its birth. Even the broken
+finial and the two crockets lying on the ground expose your
+ignorance. Eleanor Cross, bah!</p>
+<p>Yours flly., F. PETHERTON.</p>
+<p>I thought it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and
+let off a heavy howitzer; which I did, with the
+following:&mdash;</p>
+<p>Dear Freddy,&mdash;I am afraid you have got hold of the wrong
+end of the stick and laid an egg in a mare's nest. [These mixed
+metaphors were designed to tease him into a further barrage.] I did
+not write, and I do not remember saying that I had written, the
+letter to the paper which seems to have given you as much pleasure
+as it has given me. I had no hand in the symposium, but the way you
+have brought your Chesterfield battery into action has been so
+masterly that I, for one, can never regret that you were
+misinformed. I believe the particular letter to <i>The Gazette</i>
+was written by one of the staff, a native of the place, who
+probably carved his name on the base in his youth, and has felt a
+personal interest in the Cross ever since. I hope with this new
+light on the affair you will favour me with your further views on
+history and arch&aelig;ology.</p>
+<p>Yours ever, Harry.</p>
+<p>How lovely the blackberries are looking after the rain!</p>
+<p>But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been
+knocked out by this direct hit.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/270.png"><img width="100%" src="images/270.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<i>Excitable Lady (describing to wounded Tommies the appearance
+of a bomb-hole on the London Front).</i> "You could have buried a
+horse in it. You never saw such a thing in your life!"
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h3>Sugar Control</h3>
+.
+<p>Thanks to the new sugar regulations we now expect half a pound
+of sugar per head per week instead of half a pound of sugar per
+head per-haps.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"HOGS STILL SOARING."</p>
+<p><i>Headline in Canadian Paper.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The shortage of petrol seems to have driven them from the
+roads.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Sir John Hare declares that there is no truth in the statement
+that he is saying '&mdash;&mdash;' to the
+stage."&mdash;<i>Bournemouth Echo.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Personally, we never believed that he would be guilty of such
+language.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The only thing which will actually bring peace is an army of
+occupation standing on its own flat feet, either in Germany or on
+the German frontier."&mdash;<i>Weekly Dispatch.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But why this preference for the flat-footed? Are not the
+hammer-toed to have a chance?</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>[pg
+271]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/271.png"><img width="100%" src="images/271.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>THE DANCE OF DEATH.</h3>
+<p>THE KAISER. "STOP! STOP! I'M TIRED."</p>
+<p>DEATH. "I STARTED AT YOUR BIDDING; I STOP WHEN I CHOOSE."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>[pg
+272]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/272.png"><img width="100%" src="images/272.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Officer</i>. "I SAY&mdash;LOOK HERE. I TOLD YOU TO GO TO
+PADDINGTON, AND YOU'RE GOING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION."</p>
+<p><i>Taxi-Driver</i>. "ORL RIGHT&mdash;ORL RIGHT! YOU'RE LUCKY TO
+GET A CAB AT ALL INSTEAD OF GRUMBLIN' ABAHT WHERE YER WANTS TER GO
+TO!"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM.</h2>
+<h3>CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LX.</h3>
+<p><i>Mary.</i> I wish, Mamma, that there were not so many shocking
+stories in history.</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> History is, indeed, a sad catalogue of human
+miseries, and one is glad to turn aside from the horrors of war to
+the amenities of private life. Shall I tell you something of the
+domestic habits of the English in the early twentieth century?</p>
+<p><i>Mary.</i> Oh do, Mamma; I shall like that very much.</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> The nobility and the well-to-do classes no longer
+lived shut up in gloomy castles, but made a point of spending most
+of their time in public. They never took their meals at home, but
+habitually frequented large buildings called restaurants, fitted up
+with sumptuous and semi-Sultanic splendour. In these halls, while
+the guests sat at a number of tables, they were entertained by
+minstrels and singers. It was even said that they acquired the
+habit of eating and drinking in time to the music. They were waited
+upon for the most part by foreigners, who spoke broken English, and
+what with the babel of tongues, the din of the music and the
+constant popping of corks, for alcohol had not yet been prohibited,
+the scene beggared description.</p>
+<p><i>Richard.</i> Well, I am sure I would rather dine in our neat
+little dining-room, with our silent wireless waiter, than partake
+of the most extravagant repasts in those sumptuous halls.</p>
+<p><i>George.</i> I must just ask you, Mamma, about one thing that
+has all along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords
+about all this time that they let the House of Commons govern the
+country and have their own way in everything?</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> I am afraid, my dear George, that you are
+animated by a somewhat reactionary bias in favour of feudalism,
+which in your own best interests you would do well to curb. It is
+enough to say that some of the peers supported the House of
+Commons, and the majority were too timid to make any stand against
+the numbers and violence of the other House. Nowadays, thanks to
+the wide diffusion of peerages and the fact that they are conferred
+far more freely on persons of advanced political views, this lack
+of independence has largely been eliminated.</p>
+<p><i>Richard.</i> I am sure we must all thank you for the trouble
+you took to explain about Free Trade and Protection; but if you are
+not too tired will you kindly tell us something about the learned
+and clever men who lived at this time?</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> You know, my dear boy, that I am always happy to
+impart information, and am pleased to have such attentive
+listeners. The authoress of your favourite poems, Mary, lived in
+this reign. I mean Mrs. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. The Rev. H.G. WELLS,
+the famous theologian who abolished the Latin and Greek grammars;
+the Baroness Corkscrew&mdash;to call her by the name under which
+she was ultimately elevated to the peerage&mdash;who wrote so many
+beautiful historical romances that she quite superseded Sir WALTER
+SCOTT; Sir JOHN OXENHAM, one of England's greatest poets; and Lord
+HALL-CAINE, author of <i>Isle of Man Power</i>, were commanding
+figures in this period.</p>
+<p><i>Richard.</i> Oh, Mamma, did not Lord HALL-CAINE discover the
+North Pole?</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> Not that I am aware of, my dear boy, though it is
+quite possible. But you are probably confusing him with the Arctic
+explorer, Dr. KANE. Among the scientific men I must mention Sir
+WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page273"
+id="page273"></a>[pg 273]</span> the great Scots agriculturist who
+first applied intensive culture to the kailyard; General BELLOC,
+the illustrious topographer, and HAROLD BEGBIE, who discovered and
+popularized Sir OLIVER LODGE.</p>
+<p><i>Richard.</i> Ah, Mamma, I know enough about the Georgians to
+feel sure that you have left out a great many things. You have
+never told us about the Marquis of NORTHCLIFFE'S discovery of
+America, his introduction of the potato to that Continent, and his
+building of the Yellow House in the Yellowstone Park.</p>
+<p><i>George.</i> And you have not fully satisfied our curiosity
+about Sir GEORGE ROBEY, Baronet, Lord LAUDER, Sir CHARLES CHAPLIN
+and other great Leaders of English Society.</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> True, my dear, but you must read their lives in
+the <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>, for here is the tea,
+and I must leave off.</p>
+<hr />
+<h2>ALLIRAP ASRAS.</h2>
+<p>It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian
+ruler, but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it
+should be the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S
+expedition, rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new
+facts. Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a
+Persian kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several
+shillings'-worth of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I
+believe, called, in spite of <i>The Daily Mail</i>) into sheer
+scrap. Knitting however is not what it was in the early days of the
+War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed, my aunt, who has evidently
+an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC NEWTON, merely shaking her
+finger. But self-control among women must be on the increase, for
+in a hotel the other day I overheard a coffee-room conversation in
+which two cases were instanced of supreme heroism under agonising
+conditions&mdash;one being when a butler (an old and honoured
+butler too, who had never misconducted himself before) fainted
+while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most of it
+over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only
+disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the
+butler to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less
+than that.</p>
+<p>It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval
+officer among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits
+to amateur photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish
+for enemy cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to
+be filled up is one asking the applicant, in the interests of
+identification, to specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with
+a conscientiousness not excelled by the actor who blacked himself
+all over to play <i>Othello</i>, stated that she had only an
+appendicitis scar.</p>
+<p>But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing
+that great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that
+he was a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there
+was never any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have
+deceived you, but you must blame not me but a certain domestic
+remedy. If one bright cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing
+this medicinal beverage at a penny a glass, will insist upon being
+outside Westminster Abbey and another at the top of Cockspur Street
+every working day of the week for ever and ever, how can one help
+sooner or later spelling its staple product backwards and
+embroidering a little on the result?</p>
+<p>But what I want to know is&mdash;who drinks sarsaparilla,
+anyway?</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;"><a href=
+"images/273.png"><img width="100%" src="images/273.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Vague Tommy (writing letter).</i> "WOT DAY IS IT?"</p>
+<p><i>Chorus.</i> "THE FOURTEENTH."</p>
+<p><i>Tommy.</i> "WOT MONTH?"</p>
+<p><i>Chorus.</i> "OCTOBER."</p>
+<p><i>Tommy.</i> "WOT YEAR?"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those
+bygone times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and
+our names might have been inscribed in the book of
+immorality."&mdash;<i>New Ireland.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg
+274]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/274.png"><img width="100%" src="images/274.png" alt=
+"" /></a>LAMENTABLE LARCENY IN A BOARDING-HOUSE.
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>A DECLARATION OF WAR.</h2>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire,</p>
+<p>Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and
+expire&mdash;</p>
+<p>A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful
+liar:&mdash;</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago</p>
+<p>I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift&mdash;it was maybe thirty
+'below,'</p>
+<p>And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him
+with snow.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for
+dead,</p>
+<p>But I packed him along, as I've told you, and melted him out
+instead,</p>
+<p>And I rolled him up in my blankets and put him to sleep in my
+bed.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"So he dwelt in my humble shanty while the wintry gales did
+roar,</p>
+<p>While the blizzards howled in the passes and the timber wolves
+at the</p>
+<p class="i4">door,</p>
+<p>And he slept in my bunk at night-time while I stretched out on
+the floor.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"He watched me frying my bacon and he said that the smell was
+grand;</p>
+<p>He watched me bucking the stove-wood, but he never lent me a
+hand,</p>
+<p>And he played on my concertina the airs of his native land.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"And one month grew into two months and two months grew into
+three,</p>
+<p>And there he was sitting and smiling like a blooming Old Man of
+the Sea,</p>
+<p>Eating my pork and beans up and necking my whisky and tea.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"You say, 'Why didn't I shift him?' For the life o' me I
+dunno;</p>
+<p>I suppose there's something inside me that can't tell a fellow
+to go</p>
+<p>I hauled by the heels from a snowdrift at maybe thirty
+'below.'...</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"But at last, when the snows were going and the blue Spring
+skies</p>
+<p class="i4">were pale,</p>
+<p>Out after bear in the valley I met a chap on the
+trail&mdash;</p>
+<p>A chap coming up from the city, who stopped and told me a
+tale&mdash;</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"A tale of a red war raging all over the land and sea,</p>
+<p>And when he was through I was laughing, for the joke of it
+seemed to be</p>
+<p>That Hank was a goldarn German&mdash;and Hank was rooming with
+me!</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"So off I hiked to the shanty, and never a word I said,</p>
+<p>I floated in like a cyclone, I yanked him out of my bed,</p>
+<p>And I grabbed the concertina and smashed it over his head.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"I shook him up for a minute, I stood him down on the floor,</p>
+<p>I grabbed the scruff of his trousers and ran him along to the
+door,</p>
+<p>And I said, 'This here, if you get me, is a Declaration of
+War!'</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"And I gave him a hoist with my gum-boot, a kind of a lift with
+my toe;</p>
+<p>But you can't give a fellow a hiding, as anyone sure must
+know,</p>
+<p>When you hauled him out of a snowdrift at maybe thirty
+'below.'"</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>C.F.S.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h3>A Good Day's Work.</h3>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"He left Flanders on leave at one o'clock yesterday morning and
+was in London after fourteen months' fighting before
+sundown."&mdash;<i>Daily News</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Why can't we find machies for long-distance raids since Germans
+can?"&mdash;<i>Evening News</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Personally, if distance is required, we prefer a brassie. We can
+only assume that the iron club is chosen in consequence of the
+number of bad lies there are about.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>On the German Naval mutiny:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"They may be divided into two camps. One holds that it is not an
+affair to which too much importance can be attached; the other that
+it is an affair to which one cannot attach too much
+importance."&mdash;<i>Star</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We cannot help feeling that these two factions might safely be
+accommodated in the same camp.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>[pg
+275]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/275.png"><img width="100%" src="images/275.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>A LONG-SIGHTED PATRIOT.</h3>
+<i>Aunt Susie (whose charity begins as far as possible from
+home).</i> "HAVE YOU FOUND OUT WHETHER THEY WEAR KNITTED SOCKS IN
+ARGENTINA?"
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>AT THE PLAY.</h2>
+<h3>"ONE HOUR OF LIFE."</h3>
+<p>In Captain DESMOND COKE'S extravaganza a group of
+philanthropists adopt the time-honoured procedure of ROBIN HOOD and
+his Greenwood Company, robbing Dives on system to pay Lazarus.
+Their economics are sounder than their sociology, which is of the
+crudest. They specialize in jewellery&mdash;useless, barbaric and
+generally vulgar survivals&mdash;which they extract from shop and
+safe, and sell in Amsterdam, distributing the proceeds to various
+deserving charitable agencies. In this particular crowded hour of
+life the leader of the group, a fanatical prig with hypnotic eyes,
+abducts the beautiful <i>Lady Fenton</i>, with ten thousand pounds'
+worth of stuff upon her, from one of the least ambitious of Soho
+restaurants.</p>
+<p>How came she there, thus bedizened? Well, her husband, eccentric
+peer with a priceless collection of snuffboxes and a chronic
+deficiency of humour, had arranged the little dinner to effect a
+reconciliation, away from the prying eyes of their set. It was not
+a success. She felt that she sparkled too much, was piqued, and
+dismissed her lord. Enter the hypnotic prig, who adroitly conveys
+her to his headquarters, preaches to her and converts her to the
+point of surrendering her jewels without a pang, and offering to
+assist in the lifting of the snuffboxes. I can't say more without
+endangering the effect of Captain COKE'S ingenious shifts and
+spoofs.</p>
+<p>The author seemed to me to tempt Providence by placing his
+perfervid philanthropist and his serious doctrines against a
+background of burlesque. But he succeeded in entertaining his
+audience. Miss LILLAH MCCARTHY, looking her very best as <i>Lady
+Fenton</i>, and Mr. COWLEY WRIGHT, looking quite plausible as the
+irresistible chief of the General Charities Distribution Bureau,
+shared the chief honours of the evening.</p>
+<p>T.</p>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The views expressed by Mr. Roosevelt are crystallising
+everywhere, and are bearing excellent fruit."&mdash;<i>Daily
+Paper.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>How does he get his sugar?</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Two million troubles are now standing to Koslovsky's account in
+Petrograd banks."&mdash;<i>Rangitikei Advocate (N.Z.).</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We knew conditions were very trying in Russia, but had no idea
+any one man had such a burden as this.</p>
+<hr />
+<h2>RHYMES FOR THE TIMES.</h2>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>There was a false Pasha named BOLO,</p>
+<p>Who sank in iniquity so low.</p>
+<p class="i2">That the dirtiest work</p>
+<p class="i2">Of the Hun and the Turk</p>
+<p>Never made him ejaculate <i>Nolo!</i></p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>There was a stout fellow called YAPP,</p>
+<p>A great Red Triangular chap;</p>
+<p class="i2">Now he's working still harder</p>
+<p class="i2">To stock the State larder,</p>
+<p>And never has time for a nap.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>The manners and customs of Clare</p>
+<p>Have long been admittedly "quare,"</p>
+<p class="i2">But the tolerance shown</p>
+<p class="i2">To sedition full-blown</p>
+<p>Is enough to make CADBURY swear.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Politicians unstable and vague</p>
+<p>May well take example from HAIG,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who talks to the Huns</p>
+<p class="i2">In the voice of his guns</p>
+<p>Till they dread him far worse than the plague.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Renowned for her fine macaroni,</p>
+<p>And also for Signor MARCONI,</p>
+<p class="i2">Now Italy sends,</p>
+<p class="i2">To enrapture her friends,</p>
+<p>(And to finish these rhymes), the Caproni.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>[pg
+276]</span>
+<h2>MISSING.</h2>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"He was last seen going over the parapet into the German
+trenches."</p>
+</blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>What did you find after war's fierce alarms,</p>
+<p class="i2">When the kind earth gave you a resting place,</p>
+<p>And comforting night gathered you in her arms,</p>
+<p class="i2">With light dew falling on your upturned face?</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Did your heart beat, remembering what had been?</p>
+<p class="i2">Did you still hear around you, as you lay,</p>
+<p>The wings of airmen sweeping by unseen,</p>
+<p class="i2">The thunder of the guns at close of day?</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>All nature stoops to guard your lonely bed;</p>
+<p class="i2">Sunshine and rain fall with their calming breath;</p>
+<p>You need no pall, so young and newly dead,</p>
+<p class="i2">Where the Lost Legion triumphs over death.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>When with the morrow's dawn the bugle blew,</p>
+<p class="i2">For the first time it summoned you in vain;</p>
+<p>The Last Post does not sound for such as you;</p>
+<p class="i2">But God's Reveill&eacute; wakens you again.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>SUGAR.</h2>
+<p>"Francesca," I said, "you must be very deeply occupied; for ten
+minutes I have not heard your silvery voice."</p>
+<p>"I am attempting," she said, "to fill up our sugar form."</p>
+<p>"Is it a tremendous struggle?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," she said, "it is a regular brain-smasher."</p>
+<p>"Give me the paper, and let me have a go at it."</p>
+<p>With a haggard face, but without a word, she handed me the buff
+form, and sat silently while I read the various explanations and
+directions.</p>
+<p>"Francesca," I said, "you are doing wrong. It says that the form
+must be filled up and signed by a responsible member of the
+household. Now you can say that you're brilliant or amiable or
+handsome or powerful or domineering, but can you honestly say
+you're responsible? No, you can't. So I shall keep this form and
+fill it up myself in due time, and leave you to look after the hens
+or talk to the gardener."</p>
+<p>"Anybody," she said, "who can wring a smile from a gardener, as
+I have this morning, is entitled to be considered responsible.
+Infirm of purpose! hand me the paper."</p>
+<p>"Very well," I said, "you can have the paper; only remember
+that, if we get fined a thousand pounds for transgressing the
+Defence of the Realm Act, you mustn't ask me for the money. You
+must pay it yourself."</p>
+<p>"I'll chance that," she said, as I handed back the paper.</p>
+<p>"Now then, we shan't be long. Which of these two addresses shall
+we have?"</p>
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+<p>"Why, they tell you to fill in the address in capital letters,
+and then they give you two to pick from. One is 1000, Upper
+Grosvenor Street, W. 1&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"It is a longer street than I had supposed."</p>
+<p>"And the other," she continued, "is 17, Church Lane, Middlewich,
+Cheshire."</p>
+<p>"Let it be Middlewich," I said. "Since boyhood's hour I have
+dreamt of living in Middlewich. As for the other, I simply couldn't
+live in a street of a thousand houses. Could you?"</p>
+<p>"No," she said, "I couldn't. We'll be Middlewichians.... There,
+it's done. Capital letters and all."</p>
+<p>"Don't slack off," I said. "Fill it all up now that you've got
+started."</p>
+<p>"I suppose I'd better begin with myself."</p>
+<p>"Yes," I said, "you may have that privilege. Put it down quick:
+Carlyon, Francesca; age blank, because they don't want ages over
+eighteen; F for female, and Married Woman for occupation. Then
+treat me in the same way, putting M for F, and 2nd Lieutenant of
+Volunteers instead of Married Woman."</p>
+<p>"Why shouldn't I put Married Man as your occupation?"</p>
+<p>"Simply because it isn't done. It's a splendid occupation, but
+it isn't recognised as such in formal documents."</p>
+<p>"Another injustice to women. I shall enter you as Married
+Man."</p>
+<p>"Enter me as anything you like," I said, "only let's get on with
+the job."</p>
+<p>"Very well; you're down as Married Man."</p>
+<p>"Now get on with the children. Muriel first. What about
+her?"</p>
+<p>"But she's away having her education finished."</p>
+<p>"Yes," I said, "but she'll be back for the holidays, and she'll
+want her sugar then, like the rest of us. And Frederick is away at
+<i>his</i> school, probably getting much better sugar than we are.
+He'll be wanting his ration in the holidays. You'd better put a
+note about that."</p>
+<p>"A note?" she said. "There's no room for notes on this form. All
+they want is a bald statement. And that's just what they can't get.
+They'll have to take it with the hair on. I'm cramming in about the
+holidays, and I hope Lord RHONDDA will be pleased with all the
+information he's getting about our family."</p>
+<p>"Keep going," I said; "you've still got the servants to do."</p>
+<p>"Yes, but the kitchenmaid's gone, and I haven't engaged another
+one yet."</p>
+<p>"Don't let that worry you," I said. "Write
+down&mdash;Kitchenmaid about to be engaged. Name will be supplied
+later.'"</p>
+<p>"You're quite brilliant to-day. There, that's finished, thank
+Heaven."</p>
+<p>"Not yet. You've got to address it to the Local Food
+Office."</p>
+<p>"But I haven't the remotest where the Local Food Office is. It
+can't have been there more than a short time, anyhow."</p>
+<p>"Hurrah!" I said, looking over her shoulder at the document. "It
+says if you are in doubt as to the name of the district of your
+Local Food Office you are to inquire of any policeman or special
+constable."</p>
+<p>"That's all very well," she said, "but how are we to find a
+policeman in this remote and peaceful place? I've never seen one.
+Have you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I said, "I think I saw one last year on a bicycle."</p>
+<p>"Well, he's probably arrived somewhere else by this time. He's
+no good to us."</p>
+<p>"No, but we might find a special constable."</p>
+<p>"I'll tell you what," she said, "old Glumgold is a special
+constable. I heard him complaining bitterly of having been hauled
+out of bed during the last air-raid on London. 'No nigher to we nor
+forty mile,' he said it was. He's sure to be among the cabbages. Be
+a dear and dash out and ask him."</p>
+<p>So I found Glumgold in among the cabbages and asked him where
+the Local Food Office was, and he said he'd be gingered if he knew,
+he or his old woman either; and that was the question they was
+a-going to arst of us, because to-day was the last day for sending
+in. So I advised him to chance it with Nebsbury, which happens to
+be eight miles off and possesses a High Street; and then I went
+back to Francesca and told her that Glumgold advised
+Nebsbury&mdash;which was cowardly, but one can't spend a lifetime
+over a fiddle-headed document like that. Anyhow, we folded it up
+and posted it, and we've heard nothing since.</p>
+<p>R.C.L.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>[pg
+277]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/277.png"><img width="100%" src="images/277.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>ECHOES OF THE AIR-RAIDS.</h3>
+<p><i>First Souvenir-hunter</i>. "FOUND ANYFINK, 'ERB?"</p>
+<p><i>Second ditto</i>. "NO; BUT THAT'LL BE ALL RIGHT. THEY'RE SURE
+TO COME AGAIN TERMORRER NIGHT."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+<h4>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</h4>
+<p>Not for a great while have I met a story at once so moving and
+so simply made as <i>Summer</i> (MACMILLAN). Of course at this time
+the art of EDITH WHARTON is no new discovery; but to my thinking
+she has never done better work than this tale of a New England
+village, and the wakening to love of the girl who was drowsing away
+her youth there. It is all, as I say, so simple, and written with
+such apparent economy of effort, that only afterwards does the
+amazing cleverness of Mrs. WHARTON'S method impress itself upon the
+reader. <i>Charity Royall</i> was a waif, of worse than ambiguous
+parentage, brought up in a community where her passionate and
+violently sensitive nature was stifled. Two men loved
+her&mdash;dour middle-aged Lawyer <i>Royall</i>, whose house she
+kept, and <i>Lucius Harney</i>, the young visitor from the city,
+the fairy-prince of poor <i>Charity's</i> one great romance,
+through whom came tragedy. You see already the whole stark
+simplicity of the theme. What I cannot convey to you is that secret
+of Mrs. WHARTON'S that enables her by some exquisitely right word
+or phrase so to illuminate a scene that you see it as though by an
+inspiration of your own, and feel that thus and thus did the thing
+in fact happen. There are episodes in <i>Summer</i>&mdash;for
+example the Fourth of July firework evening, or the wildly macabre
+scene of the night funeral on the mountain&mdash;that seem to me to
+come as near perfection in their telling as anything I am ever
+likely to read, and when you have enjoyed them for yourself I fancy
+you will be inclined to join me in very sincere gratitude for work
+of such rare quality.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Those who admired (which is the same as saying those who read)
+that excellent book, <i>The Retreat from Mons</i>, will be glad to
+hear that its author, Major A. CORBETT-SMITH, has now continued his
+record in a further volume, called <i>The Marne and After</i>
+(CASSELL). In it you will find all those qualities, a sane and
+soldier-like common-sense, an entire absence of gush, and a saving
+humour in the midst of horrors, which made the earlier installment
+memorable. Above all else I have been impressed by the first of
+these characteristics. Major CORBETT-SMITH writes from the
+viewpoint of one to whom even this ghastliest of wars is part of
+the day's work. That he sees its human and hideous sides by no
+means impairs this quiet professional outlook. I recall one phrase
+in his chapter on the secret agents of the enemy: "At the Aisne
+German spies were a regular plague"&mdash;just as one might speak
+of wasps or weather&mdash;which somehow conveyed to me very vividly
+the secret of our original little army's disproportionate influence
+in the early weeks of the War. The operations which we call the
+actual Battle of the Marne (surely fated to be the most
+fought-again engagement in history) are here very clearly
+described, with illustrative plans; while one other chapter, called
+suggestively "<i>Kultur</i>," may be commended to those
+super-philosophers amongst us who are already beginning an attempt
+to belittle the foul record of calculated crime that must for at
+least a generation place Germany outside the pale of civilization.
+For this grim chapter alone I should like to see Major
+CORBETT-SMITH'S otherwise cheery volume scattered broadcast over
+the country.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><i>June</i> (METHUEN) is saturated with the simple
+sentimentality in which American authors excel. I do not know
+whether British novelists could write this sort of book
+successfully if they would, but I do know that they don't. Miss
+EDITH BARNARD DELANO, however, succeeds in getting considerable
+charm into her story, and if it leaves rather a sweeter taste in
+the mouth than some of us relish there are others who like their
+fiction to be strongly sugared. <i>June</i>, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>[pg 278]</span> an
+orphan child, was looked after by nigger servants, and by one,
+<i>Mammy</i>, in particular. She possessed a house and a valley;
+and a young man prospecting in the latter met with an accident and
+was discovered by the child. Hence complications, and the removal
+of <i>June</i> from her home to be educated with some cousins. Then
+poverty, hard times and plenty of pluck. But the clouds began to
+lift when <i>June</i> discovered that an emerald cross of hers was
+worth four thousand dollars; and finally the sun burst forth when,
+through the agency of the accidental young man, her property was
+found to be very valuable, and she more valuable still&mdash;to the
+young man. It sounds ingenuous, doesn't it? But not nearly so easy
+to write as it seems, for to produce anything as artless as
+<i>June</i> is an art in itself.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>In <i>The Book of the Happy Warrior</i> (LONGMANS) a chivalrous
+modern knight holds up to our youngsters the patterns of an older
+chivalry to teach them courage, clean fighting and devoted service.
+Sir HENEY NEWBOLT claims that the tradition of the public schools
+is the direct survival of the medi&aelig;val training for
+knighthood, and incidentally defends flannelled and muddied youth
+from hasty aspersions. ROLAND and his OLIVER, RICHARD LION-HEART,
+EDWARD the Black Prince and CHANDOS, DU GUESCLIN and BAYARD, if
+they revisited this tortured earth, would be dismayed by the
+procedure and the chilling impersonality of modern war. Perhaps in
+the glorious single combats of the Flying Corps they might
+recognise some faint semblance of their ancient method. Sir HENRY,
+rightly from his point of view, chooses to ignore the wholesale
+horrors of to-day's warfare and to emphasize the ideal of fighting
+service as a fine discipline and proof of manly worth. He shows an
+obvious, honest, aristocratic bias, but he does not forget another
+side of the matter, as a fragment of an imaginary conversation
+between a young lord and a squire present at the great tourney at
+St. Inglebert's between the Gentlemen of England and of France
+pleasantly shows. The Englishmen were worsted and took their defeat
+in a fine sporting spirit. "How is it we're beaten? We always win
+the battles, don't we?" asks the boy. "The archers win them for
+us," says the Squire. Quite a characteristic little touch of
+subaltern modesty! One thought occurs to me especially. It is
+unthinkable that a book like this should appear in the Germany of
+to-day. It will be worth your while giving it to your boy to find
+out why.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Since the practice of writing first novels is becoming
+increasingly popular with young authors it was inevitable that a
+"First Novel Library" should find its way on to the market. Whether
+the classification is to be construed as an appeal for forbearance
+for the shortcomings of the neophyte, or as a warning which a
+considerate publisher feels is due to the public, is not for me to
+say. But the policy of charging six shillings for these maiden
+efforts&mdash;all that is required of us for the mature
+masterpieces of our MAURICE HEWLETTS and ARNOLD BENNETTS&mdash;is
+open to question. <i>The Puppet</i>, by JANE HARDING (UNWIN), is
+not without merit, but the faults of the beginner are present in
+manifold. The heroine tells her story in the first person&mdash;a
+difficult method of handling fiction at the best&mdash;and in the
+result we find a young lady of no particular education or apparent
+attainments holding forth in the stilted diction of a rather prosy
+early-Victorian Archbishop. The effect of unreality produced goes
+far to spoil a plot which is wound and unwound with considerable
+skill. Miss HARDING will write a good novel yet, but she must learn
+to make her characters act the parts she assigns to them.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>We all must be writing books about the War. It is natural enough
+to suppose one's own share of war-work is worthy of record, and
+indeed, when we come to think of it, the historian of the future
+will get his complete picture of the time only when he realises how
+every scrap of the national energy was absorbed in the one master
+purpose. That being so it is arguable that Mr. WARD MUIR was
+thinking far ahead in compiling his hospital reminiscences,
+<i>Observations of an Orderly</i> (SIMPKIN). One hastens to make it
+clear that the last thing intended or desired is to disparage the
+usefulness or the stark self-sacrifice of the men who are serving
+in menial capacities in our war hospitals, but to tell the truth
+this account of sculleries and laundry-baskets, polishing paste and
+nigger minstrels, bathrooms and pillow-slips, has not much
+intrinsic interest about it, nor are the author's general
+reflections very different from what one could supply oneself
+without much effort. His notes on war slang are about the best
+thing in the volume, and I liked the story of the blinded
+soldiers&mdash;feeling anything in the world but mournful or
+pathetic&mdash;who played pranks on the Tube escalator; but on the
+whole this is a book which will be of considerable interest only to
+the writer's fellow-labourers. They, beyond any doubt, will be glad
+to read this history of their familiar rounds and common tasks.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><i>Wanted, a Tortoise-Shell</i> (LANE) would have made an
+excellent short story, but to pursue its farcical developments
+through three hundred pages requires a considerable amount of
+perseverance. The scene of Mr. PETER BLUNDER'S book is laid in
+tropical Jallagar, where the British Resident was keener on cats
+than on his duties. A male tortoise-shell was what he fanatically
+and almost ferociously desired, and to obtain it he was ready to
+barter his daughter to one <i>Kamp</i>, who is tersely described as
+"a fat Swede." I conceived a strong distaste for this large and
+perspiring man, and can congratulate Mr. BLUNDELL on having created
+a character odious enough to linger in the memory. For the rest
+there are some gleams of real fun where a beach-comber tries to
+palm off a dyed cat as the long-deferred tortoise-shell, and the
+exit of this animal from a world too covetous to hold it is
+thoroughly sound farce. But on the whole I failed to get many of
+those quiet gurgles of delight which are the best tribute one can
+pay to a funny man's work.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;"><a href=
+"images/278.png"><img width="100%" src="images/278.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<i>Chairman at Farmers' Ordinary.</i> "NOW, GENTLEMEN, FILL UP
+YOUR MATCHBOXES TO THE VERY GOOD HEALTH OF THE CATERER."
+</div>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10903 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
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+
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10903 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10903)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153,
+Oct. 17, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2004  [eBook #10903]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 153, OCT. 17, 1917***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Punch, or the London Charivari,
+William Flis, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 10903-h.htm or 10903-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/0/9/0/10903/10903-h/10903-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/0/9/0/10903/10903-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 153.
+
+OCTOBER 17, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The mutiny of the German sailors at Kiel is now explained. They
+preferred death to another speech from the KAISER.
+
+       ***
+
+A Constantinople poet has translated the plays of SHAKSPEARE into
+Turkish. The rendering is said to be faithful to the text, and it is
+assumed that a keen appreciation of Turkey's military necessities
+alone accounts for his reference to the "Swan of Avon" as the "Bulbul
+of Potsdam."
+
+       ***
+
+The use of flour as an ingredient of sausages is now forbidden. Young
+sausages which have hitherto been fed on bread and milk must either be
+broken to bones or killed for the table.
+
+       ***
+
+An optimist writes to express the hope that by this elimination of
+flour the dreadful secret of the sausage may be at last revealed.
+
+       ***
+
+The German Government has created a Pulp Commission. We have always
+said they would be reduced to it in time.
+
+       ***
+
+The King of SIAM'S royal yacht has been turned into a cargo boat.
+Reports that the Sacred White Elephant has been commandeered for use
+as a floating dock are still unconfirmed.
+
+       ***
+
+For giving corn to pheasants a fine of ten pounds has been inflicted
+on a merchant of New York (Lincs.) The removal _en bloc_ of this
+village from the mouth of the Hudson river to its present site should
+finally convince the sceptics of the magnitude of America's war
+effort.
+
+       ***
+
+The Vacant Land Cultivation Society offers a prize of ten shillings
+for the heaviest potato. Some of our most notorious potato-tellers are
+expected to compete.
+
+       ***
+
+The provision of steel helmets for the Metropolitan Police is all
+right so far as it goes, but the Force is still asking why it cannot
+be furnished with some protection for its other extremities.
+
+       ***
+
+From China it is reported that an aboriginal priest now claiming
+the Throne has been accustomed to eat the flesh of tigers, wolves,
+leopards, &c., also the human heart. It is, however, only fair to our
+own restaurateurs to state that, though China is alleged to be on the
+eve of war, there is as yet no food-control in that country.
+
+       ***
+
+An unusual scarcity of wasps is reported from various parts of the
+country. Nothing is being done about it.
+
+       ***
+
+A calf has been sold for two thousand seven hundred guineas in
+Aberdeenshire. The plucky purchaser is understood to have had for some
+time past a craving for a veal cutlet.
+
+       ***
+
+A new form of frightfulness is evidently being practised upon their
+guards by our interned Huns. "Some of them," says a contemporary,
+"purchase a hundred cigars with a portion of the one pound a day which
+is the miserable maximum they may spend on luxuries."
+
+       ***
+
+"People who speak of suicide seldom do anything desperate," says a
+well-known mental expert. So that the KAISER'S threat to fight England
+to the death may be taken for what it is worth.
+
+       ***
+
+An extraordinary meeting of German Reichstag Members has arrived at
+the decision that the Germans cannot hope for victory in the field. We
+see nothing extraordinary in this.
+
+       ***
+
+Professor BERGEN was once described as "the well-known inventor and
+philanthropist." He still invents (his latest is a gas-thrower,
+reported by the _Berliner Tageblatt_ to be "a veritable monster of
+destruction"), but has dropped the other job.
+
+       ***
+
+A swallow-tail butterfly which escaped from the Zoo has been
+re-captured at Eastbourne. When caught it gave the policeman to
+understand that it would go quietly.
+
+       ***
+
+Two men, we read, took twenty-two hours to chisel a hole through the
+three-foot flint concrete roof of the London Opera House. The report
+that they did this to avoid the Entertainment Tax has now been
+contradicted.
+
+       ***
+
+"The American Winston Churchill," says _The Daily Express_, "has to
+plod through life without a middle name." We all have our little cross
+to bear. Even the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS has to plod through life with
+the knowledge that there is another Winston Churchill loose about the
+world.
+
+       ***
+
+It is proposed that Parliament shall sit from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.,
+instead of from 3 to 11 P.M. We do not care for this crude attempt to
+mix business with politics.
+
+       ***
+
+The Boundary Commission Report advocates the creation of thirty-one
+new M.P.'s. It will be a bitter disappointment for those who were
+sanguine enough to hope that Redistribution would spell Reform.
+
+       ***
+
+The Government has commandeered all stocks of rum. The rigours of war,
+it seems, must be suffered even by our little tots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Wit._ "AH, NOW YOU'RE FOR IT, ALBERT?"
+
+_Tractor-Driver._ "WOT'S THE MATTER?"
+
+_The Wit._ "WHY, YOU'VE BEEN AND GONE AND COME ON PARADE WITHOUT
+YOUR SPURS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The bridegroom, 6 ft. 35 ins. in height, was wearing the
+    full-dress uniform of a captain in the Army."--_Great
+    Yarmouth Independent_.
+
+He would need it all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Headline to a description of a recent push:--
+
+    "VONDERFUL RESULTS."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+The "Hidden Hand" in the composing-room?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.
+
+    ["Stedfastness and righteousness are the qualities which the
+    German people value in the highest degree, and which have brought
+    it a good and honourable reputation in the whole world. When we
+    make experiments in lies and deception, intrigue and low cunning,
+    we suffer hopeless and brutal failure. Our lies are coarse and
+    improbable, our ambiguity is pitiful simplicity. The history
+    of the War proves this by a hundred examples. When our enemies
+    poured all these things upon us like a hailstorm, and we convinced
+    ourselves of the effectiveness of such tactics, we tried to
+    imitate them. But these tactics will not fit the German. We are
+    rough but moral, we are credulous but honest."--_Herr DERNBURG, in
+    "Deutsche Politik."_]
+
+  In Eden bowers, so fair to see,
+  There dwelt, when sin was yet to be,
+  A guileless Serpent up a tree,
+    Sniffing the virgin breezes;
+  Till EVE (the huzzy!), one fine day,
+  With evil purpose came his way,
+  And led that simple worm astray
+    By low and wicked wheezes.
+
+  A Wolf there was, quite sweet and good,
+  Till in his path Red Riding-Hood
+  Went camouflaging through the wood--
+    A brazen little terror;
+  Large teeth she had and bulgy eyes
+  And told the most amazing lies,
+  And taught him, in a flowery guise,
+    The downward route to error.
+
+  Of Fritz's nature, fresh as morn,
+  Pure as a babe that's just been born,
+  Clean as a poodle lately-shorn,
+    These are symbolic samples;
+  The Wolf unversed in specious vice,
+  The Serpent with a taste as nice
+  As anything in Paradise--
+    Debauched by bad examples.
+
+  England seduced us. 'Neath her spell,
+  Mistress of lies, we fell and fell
+  Into the poisoned sink, or well,
+    Of faked and fabulous rumour;
+  And there, as we were bound to do,
+  We failed, because we loved the True,
+  And loathed the False as alien to
+    Our artless German humour.
+
+  I speak as one who ought to know;
+  Myself I tried a trick or so
+  In U.S.A. and had to go,
+    Looking absurdly silly;
+  And now against us, big with fate,
+  That Hemisphere has thrown its weight,
+  Both North and South (though up to date
+    We haven't heard from Chili).
+
+  Laughter we've earned--a noble shame!
+  Built to achieve a higher aim,
+  We honest Huns can't play the game
+    Of shifty propaganders;
+  Henceforth we'd better all get back
+  On to the straight and righteous track
+  And help our HINDENBURG to hack
+    (If not too late) through Flanders.
+
+  O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Red heels were much in evidence, both Lady D---- and Lady C----
+    affected them, and they were to be seen in other unexpected
+    places."--_Observer_.
+
+Certainly their use as ornaments in the small of the back surprised us
+a good deal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CARP AT MIRAMEL.
+
+    [In the following article all actual names, personal, geographical
+    and regimental, have been duly camouflaged.]
+
+The carp that live in the moat of the Château de Miramel (in the zone
+of the armies in France) are of an age and ugliness incredible and
+of a superlative cynicism. One of them--local tradition pointed to a
+one-eyed old reprobate with a yellow face--is the richer these hundred
+years past by an English peeress's diamond ring.
+
+From the bottom of the moat one world-war is like another, and none
+of them very different from peace. It is but a row of grinning red
+healthy faces over the coping and a shower of bread and biscuit.
+
+When the nightmare of BONAPARTE was ended in the Autumn of 1815, the
+22nd K.R. Lancers, commanded by an English peer, billeted themselves
+in and around the Château de Miramel. The English peer, finding time
+hang heavy on his hands, or my lady's letters proving insistent, sent
+for her to come out to him at Miramel. You could do that sort of
+homely thing in 1815.
+
+So my lady comes to Miramel, and the very first day, as she leans out
+of window in the round tower, mishandles her diamond ring (gift of my
+lord) and drops it into the moat. Her host, the good Comte de Miramel,
+dredged and drained, but no trace of the diamond ring was ever found.
+But old Cyclops, the carp, grinned horribly.
+
+In due course my lord and lady went home to the Isle of Fogs, and
+thence they sent their portraits to their host as a souvenir of their
+stay. Here indeed the portraits still hang, very graceful in the style
+of the period. And to the appreciative visitor Madame de Miramel (of
+to-day) shows a missive of thanks, written in indifferent bad French,
+in which my lady refers sorrowfully to "_ma bague diamantée_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once again the 22nd K.R. Lancers are billeted in Miramel. The other
+day I noticed on a worn stone pillar at the great door the following
+half-obliterated words:--
+
+    "ED. WYNN, pikeman of the dashing 22nd King's Ryol ridgemet of
+    lanciers. Sept. 1815";
+
+and freshly scratched above the inscription:--
+
+  "Better at piking than at speling.
+      22nd K.R. Lancers. JAS. BARNET. Sept. 1917."
+
+The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like another.
+There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd King's
+Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium for
+self-expression.
+
+Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or so.
+There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring of
+red grinning faces above the coping. Yesterday I threw a disused
+safety-razor blade over the old scoundrel's nose. And "Bless my soul!"
+he said, as he lazily bolted it, "there hasn't been such a year for
+minnows since 1815."
+
+But Armageddon 1917 holds surprises even for those who live at the
+bottom of a moat. For very early this morning a bauble fell into the
+moat that Cyclops himself couldn't digest. The old cynic was found
+floating, scarred belly upwards, on the surface of the water.
+
+The mess-waiter took charge of the _post-mortem_. Like the _Duke of
+Plaza Toro_, he "likes an interment" and rarely misses a last rite.
+A keen fisherman, he had little difficulty in extracting an exhibit
+for the Court's inspection, which he unhesitatingly pronounced to be
+a diamond ring in an advanced state of decomposition.
+
+The mess-cook, on the other hand, identified the relic as the
+stopping, recently mislaid, from one of his back teeth.
+
+In any case there seems little room for doubt that a Hun airman has
+avenged the long-dead lady.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ENIGMA.
+
+POLICEMAN (_on duty at St. Stephen's_). "STAND ASIDE, PLEASE."
+
+MR. PUNCH. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"
+
+POLICEMAN. "PARLIAMENT REASSEMBLING."
+
+MR. PUNCH. "WHY?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Ex-Bus-driver (in difficulties in the roadless zone)._
+"'ERE'S OLE PICCADILLY UP AGIN--FAIR IN THE 'IGHTH OF THE SEASON."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MUD LARKS.
+
+All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour" of old
+Atkins. Every distinguished tripper who comes Cook's-touring to the
+Front for a couple of days devotes at least a chapter of his resultant
+book to it. "How in thunder does Thomas do it?" they ask. "What the
+mischief does he find to laugh at?" Listen.
+
+Years ago, when the well-known War was young, a great man sat in
+his sanctum exercising his grey matter. Ho said to himself, "There
+is a War on. Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from
+comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the term
+of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined and
+bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and scared
+silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum diluted, reliefs
+late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them for diamond-studded
+munitioneers. Their wives will write saying, 'Little Jimmie has the
+mumps; and what about the rent? You aren't spending all of five bob a
+week on yourself, are you?' This is but a tithe (or else a tittle) of
+the things that will occur to them, and their sunny natures will sour
+and sicken if something isn't done about it."
+
+The great man sat up all night chewing penholders and pondering on the
+problem. The BIG IDEA came with the end of the eighth penholder.
+
+He sprang to his feet, fires of inspiration flashing from his eyes,
+and boomed, "Let there be _Funny Cuts_!"--then went to bed. Next
+morning he created "I." (which stands for Intelligence), carefully
+selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs of appropriate hue, and told
+them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever
+since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us.
+Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG
+accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon
+cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with
+rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen
+climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to
+'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of
+the green tabs will make of it. A hint is as good as a wink to them,
+a nudge ample. Under the genius of these imaginative artists the most
+trivial incident burgeons forth into a LE QUEUX spell-binder, and the
+whole British Army, mustering about its Sergeant-Majors, gets selected
+cameos read to it every morning at roll-call, laughs brokenly into the
+jaws of dawn and continues chuckling to itself all day. Now you know.
+
+Our Adjutant had a telephone call not long ago. "Army speaking," said
+a voice. "Will you send somebody over to Rataplan and see if there is
+a Town Major there?"
+
+The Adjutant said he would, and a N.C.O. was despatched forthwith. He
+returned later, reporting no symptoms of one, so the Adjutant rang
+up Exchange and asked to be hooked on to Army Headquarters. "Which
+branch?" Exchange inquired. "Why, really I don't know--forgot to ask,"
+the Adjutant confessed. "I'll have a try at 'A.'"
+
+"Hello," said "A." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," said the
+Adjutant. "You astound me, Fair Unknown," said "A."; "but what about
+it, anyway?" The Adjutant apologised and asked Exchange for "Q."
+department. "Hello," said "Q." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan,"
+said the Adjutant. "Sorry, old thing, whoever you are," said "Q.,"
+"but we don't stock 'em. Rations, iron; perspirators, box; oil, whale,
+delivered with promptitude and civility, but NOT Town Majors--sorry."
+The Adjutant sighed and consulted with Exchange as to who possibly
+could have rung him up.
+
+Exchange couldn't guess unless it was "I."--no harm in trying, anyhow.
+
+"Hello!" said "I." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," the Adjutant,
+droned somewhat wearily. "Wha-t!" "I." exclaimed, suddenly interested.
+"Say it again, clearer." "RAT-A-PLAN--NO--TOWN--MA-JOR," the Adjutant
+repeated. There was a pause; then he heard the somebody give off an
+awed "Good Lord!" and drop the receiver. Next morning in _Funny Cuts_
+(the organ of Intelligence) we learned that "Corps Headquarters
+was heavily shelled last night. The Town Major is missing. This is
+evidence that the enemy has brought long-range guns into the opposite
+sector." Followed masses of information as to the probable make of the
+guns, the size of shell they preferred, the life-story of the Battery
+Commander, his favourite flower and author.
+
+The Bosch, always on the alert to snaffle the paying devices of an
+opposition firm, now has his "I." staff and _Funny Cuts_ as well. From
+time to time we capture a copy and read this sort of thing:--
+
+"From agonised screeches heard by one of our intrepid airmen while
+patrolling over the enemy's lines yesterday, it is evident that the
+brutal and relentless British are bayonetting their prisoners."
+
+A Highland Division, whose star pipers were holding a dirge and lament
+contest on that date, are now ticking off the hours to the next
+offensive.
+
+The Antrims had a _cordon bleu_ by the name of Michael O'Callagan.
+He was a sturdy rogue, having retreated all the way from Mons, and
+subsequently advanced all the way back to the Yser with a huge
+stock-pot on his back, from which he had furnished mysterious stews
+to all comers, at all hours, under any conditions. For this, and for
+the fact that he could cook under water, and would turn out hot meals
+when other _chefs_ were committing suicide, much was forgiven him,
+but he was prone to look upon the _vin_ when it was _rouge_ and was
+habitually coated an inch thick with a varnish of soot and pot-black.
+One morning he calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of
+the earnest attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to
+collect sufficient _débris_ to boil his dixies. Next day the Bosch
+_Funny Cuts_ flared forth scareheads:--
+
+    "SAVAGES ON THE SOMME.
+
+    "The desperate and unprincipled British are employing black
+    cannibal Zulus in the defence of their system. Yesterday one of
+    them, a chief of incredibly depraved appearance, was observed
+    scouting in the open."
+
+The communiqué ended with a treatise on the Zulu, its black man-eating
+habits, and an exhortation to "our old Brandenburgers" not to be
+dismayed.
+
+PATLANDER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OWING TO PRESSURE FROM THE ALL-HIGHEST, HIS ORIENTAL
+ALLY IS FORMING A MAGIC-CARPET BOMBING SQUADRON.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MORE SEX PROBLEMS.
+
+From a stock-auction report:--
+
+    "THE BULL CALVES. THE BULL CALVES."
+    _Glasgow Herald._
+
+Notwithstanding the repetition of this statement we find great
+difficulty in believing it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "SOLDIERS' CHRISTMAS GIFTS. POSTING DATES FOR EGYPT AND SALONIKA."
+    _Times._
+
+It sounds a little like consigning coal to Newcastle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "AIR RAIDS.--Peaceful country rectory, Hampshire, well out of
+    danger zone, can receive three or four paying guests. Large
+    garden, beautiful scenery, high, bracing. Simple life. £10
+    each weekly."--_The Times._
+
+This enterprising parson seems to have borrowed his recipe for the
+simple life from GRAY'S _Elegy_:--
+
+  Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
+    They kept the noiseless tenner of their way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEASTS ROYAL.
+
+IV.
+
+KING HENRY'S STAG-HOUND. A.D. 1536.
+
+  Ten puffs upon my master's toes,
+    And twenty on his sleeves,
+  Upon his hat a Tudor rose
+    Set round with silver leaves;
+      But never a hunting-spear,
+        And never a rowel-spur;
+      Who is this that he calls his Dear?
+        I think I will bark at her.
+
+  The Windsor groves were fresh and green,
+    Dangling with Summer dew,
+  When my master rode with his Spanish queen,
+    And the huntsman cried, "Halloo!"
+      Now never a horn is heard,
+        And never the lances stir;
+      Who is this that he calls his Bird?
+        I think I will follow her.
+
+  To-night my master walks alone
+    In the pleachéd pathway dim,
+  And the thick moss reddens on the stone
+    Where she used to walk with him.
+      When will he shout for the glove
+        And the spear of the verderer?
+      Where is she gone whom he called his Love?
+        For I cannot follow her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SECOND CHILDHOOD.
+
+I must make a confession to someone. I have wasted raw material which
+is a substitute for something else indispensable for defeating the
+Hun, and probably traitor is the right name for me. Let me explain.
+
+Somewhere in Nutshire there is a place called Cotterham. It is one of
+those little villages which somehow nobody expects to meet nowadays
+outside the pages of a KATE GREENAWAY painting book. There is the
+village green, with its pond and geese and absurdly pretty cottages
+with gardens full of red bergamot and lads'-love, and a little
+school where the children are still taught to curtsey and pull their
+forelocks when the Squire goes by. And beyond the Green, at the end
+of Plough Lane and after you have crossed Leg-o'-Mutton Common, you
+come to Down Wood, and if you don't meet Little Red Riding-Hood on
+the way or come on Snow White and her seven dwarfs, that is only
+because you must have taken the wrong turning after you came through
+the kissing-gate at the bottom of Lovers' Lane. I am a native of
+Cotterham, and in my more reflective moments I wonder why such an
+idyllic place should have produced anything so unromantic as myself,
+His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector for All Sorts of
+Unexpected Explosives. Cotterham still has a large place in my
+affections, and it gave me a considerable shock the other day to get
+a letter from the Squire, who is an old friend, asking me down for a
+week-end, and adding, "You can do a little professional job for me
+too. You really will be interested to see what splendid work is being
+done here in your line of fire. The output is some of the best in the
+district. But there has been trouble lately and the leaders of the two
+biggest shifts were found to have appropriated a substantial part of
+the output to their own uses. I shall rely on you to straighten things
+out and suggest the right penalties."
+
+So they were even making munitions in Cotterham. I conjured up visions
+of interminable rows of huts, of thousands of overalled workers
+swamping Plough Lane, trampling the Green brown, scaring the geese,
+obliterating the immemorial shape of Leg-o'-Mutton Common by a
+mushroom township, laying Down Wood low, and coming to me with some
+miserable tale of petty pilfering for my adjustment. I must own I got
+out of the train at Muddlehampstead and into the station fly feeling
+distinctly low-spirited. It was some consolation to find that the
+railway still stopped seven miles short of my village, though I
+reflected gloomily that the place itself was doubtless a network of
+light railways by this time. We bowled along in stately fashion up
+Plough Lane and past Halfpenny Cross to the Manor House with its
+thatched roof and Virginia-creeper all over the porch. The Squire
+carried me off at once for the professional part of my visit, but we
+fell to talking of fishing, which had been good, and cubbing, which
+had been bad, and were on to Leg-o'-Mutton Common before I remembered
+to speak of munitions.
+
+"Not much sign of war here," I said with a relieved sigh. "I was
+afraid they'd have spoilt the dear old heath for a certainty. Only
+don't say it's Down Wood they've gone to, for that'd be more than I
+could stand. I thought there were fairies there long after I ought
+to have been a hard-headed young man of six, and if they've gone and
+desecrated that wood with factories--"
+
+The Squire smiled.
+
+"I don't think I should worry. Amongst all your Unexpected Explosives
+do you happen to condescend to have heard of the gentle horse-chestnut
+and the school-children that collect them? Here are the two
+delinquents I wrote to you about, and we've caught them in the act.
+Just look at them wasting the precious things."
+
+Two small boys were playing at conkers, two small boys with very
+earnest faces and grubby clothes which never figured in KATE
+GREENAWAY'S pictures, wasting precious material which five-and-thirty
+other scholars were diligently collecting and stuffing into sacks. I
+ought to have given them a lecture on patriotism--the army behind the
+Army. But we each of us keep one childish passion untamed, even if we
+are unromantic old bachelors, and I, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant
+Acting Inspector for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives and his very
+loyal subject, who have lived for nearly half-a-century of Octobers in
+London town--I borrowed the bigger conker and systematically and in
+deadly earnest I fought and defeated the other small boy.
+
+They say that treason never succeeds; so perhaps I can't be a traitor
+after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE UNDISMAYED.
+
+In a world of insecurity and change it is good to have one bedrock
+certainty upon which the mind can rest. Thrones totter and fall;
+Commanders-in-chief are superseded; Admirals of the High Fleet are
+displaced; in politics leaders come and go and reputations pass; in
+ordinary life a thousand mutations are visible. But amid all this flux
+there remains mercifully one resolute piece of routine that nothing
+can alter. Whatever may be happening elsewhere in the world--mutinies
+in the German Navy, revolutions in Russia, advances in France,
+advances in Flanders--Leicester Square keeps its head. Armageddon
+may be turning the world upside down, but it cannot cause those old
+antagonists, STEVENSON and REECE, to cease their perpetual contest;
+and if the War lasts another ten years you will read in _The Times_
+of October 17th, 1927, a paragraph to the effect that "at the close
+of play yesterday in the billiard match of 16,000 points up between
+Stevenson and Reece, at the Grand Hall, Leicester Square, the scores
+were: Reece (in play), 4,676; Stevenson, 2,837."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOT CANNIBALS AFTER ALL.
+
+    "The first contingent of the American troops brought food for six
+    months, and hence the fears of the peasants in France lest they
+    should be eaten up are groundless."--_Adelaide Advertiser_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "If the public continue to spend the same sum of money on bread
+    at 9d. as they did when it was 1s., it is easy to see that the
+    consumption will rise by a quarter or 25 per cent."--_Glasgow
+    Evening News_.
+
+We are always timid about questioning a Scotsman's arithmetic, but we
+make the increase a third, or 33-1/3 per cent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _He (connoisseur of wines)_. "WE STAYED SEVERAL DAYS AT
+AN INN IN A LITTLE GLOUCESTERSHIRE VILLAGE, AS WE FOUND THEY HAD SUCH
+AN EXCELLENT CELLAR."
+
+_She_. "REALLY! I HAD NO IDEA THE RAIDERS HAD GOT SO FAR WEST AS
+THAT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CROSS-TALK WITH PETHERTON.
+
+Petherton and I have just emerged from another bombardment. Certain
+correspondence in _The Surbury Gazette and North Herts Courier_ gave
+me a welcome excuse for firing what I may term a sighting shot. I
+wrote to my genial neighbour as follows:--
+
+DEAR MR. PETHERTON,--No doubt you have seen the recent letters in the
+local paper anent the remains of the old Cross, which are at once an
+ornament to Castle Street, Surbury, and a standing menace to the peace
+of mind of the local antiquarians.
+
+I am exceedingly interested in the matter myself and feel that the
+views of one who, I am sure, adds a wide knowledge of archæology
+to the long list of his accomplishments, would be both interesting
+and instructive to myself and (if you would allow your views to be
+published) to our little community in general.
+
+If therefore you will write and let me know your opinion on the
+matter I shall take it as a friendly and cousinly (_vide_ certain
+eighteenth-century documents in the Record Office) act.
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+HENRY J. FORDYCE.
+
+Petherton replied with a whizz-bang as thus:--
+
+SIR,--I have read the idiotic correspondence to which you refer, and
+am informed that you are the author of the screed which appeared in
+last Saturday's issue of the paper. If my informant is correct as to
+the authorship of the letter I can only say it is a pity that, with
+apparently no knowledge of the subject, you should venture into print.
+Anyone enjoying the least acquaintance with the rudiments of English
+history would be perfectly aware that the remains have no connection
+with QUEEN ELEANOR whatever. The whereabouts of all the crosses put
+up to her memory are quite well known to archæologists.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+FREDERICK PETHERTON.
+
+I replied with light artillery:--
+
+DEAR PETHERTON,--Yours _re_ the late Mrs. EDWARD PLANTAGENET to hand.
+
+Though not a professed archæologist I do know something of the ruin in
+question, having several times examined it and having heard, perhaps,
+most, if not all, the various theories concerning it. I have been here
+a good deal longer than you have, I believe, and cannot think that you
+know more of the subject than I.
+
+Have you read Wycherley's treatise on the Eleanor Crosses? [I invented
+this monograph for the purpose of inducing Petherton to reload.] If
+not, why not? Perhaps you would like to dispute the existence of a
+castle on the site where the Castle Farm now stands, and where such
+shameless profiteering is carried on in eggs and butter?
+
+By the way, how is your poultry? I notice that your _seizième siècle_
+rooster wants his tail remodelling. Perhaps you are not worrying about
+new plumage for him till after the War, though it seems like carrying
+patriotism to absurd lengths.
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+HENRY J. FORDYCE.
+
+I hope you will allow your letter to be published in _The Gazette_.
+
+In reply to this Petherton discharged with:--
+
+SIR,--I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may not have
+existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's monograph on
+Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have the impudence to
+rush into print on matters of which they are sublimely ignorant.
+
+Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the end
+of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries
+(1272-1307), not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of
+architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not
+earlier than the fifteenth century.
+
+Trusting you will not commit any further absurdities, though I am not
+too sanguine,
+
+I am, Yours faithfully,
+
+FREDERICK PETHERTON.
+
+My views are not for publication. I prefer not to be mixed up in such
+a symposium.
+
+It was evident that my neighbour's weapon was beginning to get heated,
+so I flicked him with some more light artillery to draw him on, and
+loosed off with:--
+
+Dear Old Man,--What a historian you are! You have JOHN RICHARD GREEN
+beaten to his knees, FROUDE and GARDINER out of sight, and even the
+authoress of the immortal _Little Arthur_ could not have placed EDDY
+I. with greater chronological exactitude. In fact there seems to be no
+subject on which you cannot write informatively, which makes me sorry
+that you will not join in the literary fray in the local paper, as it
+deprives the natives of a great treat.
+
+But--there is a but, my dear Fred--I cannot admit your claim to
+superior knowledge of the Surbury relics. Remember, I have grown up
+with them as it were. Yours ever,
+
+HARRY FORDYCE.
+
+Sir (exploded Petherton),--What senseless drivel you write on the
+least provocation! Whether you grew up with the Surbury relics or not,
+you have certainly decayed with them. Every stone that's left of that
+confounded ruin (probably only a simple market-cross) proclaims the
+date of its birth. Even the broken finial and the two crockets lying
+on the ground expose your ignorance. Eleanor Cross, bah!
+
+Yours flly., F. PETHERTON.
+
+I thought it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and let
+off a heavy howitzer; which I did, with the following:--
+
+Dear Freddy,--I am afraid you have got hold of the wrong end of the
+stick and laid an egg in a mare's nest. [These mixed metaphors were
+designed to tease him into a further barrage.] I did not write, and
+I do not remember saying that I had written, the letter to the paper
+which seems to have given you as much pleasure as it has given me.
+I had no hand in the symposium, but the way you have brought your
+Chesterfield battery into action has been so masterly that I, for one,
+can never regret that you were misinformed. I believe the particular
+letter to _The Gazette_ was written by one of the staff, a native of
+the place, who probably carved his name on the base in his youth, and
+has felt a personal interest in the Cross ever since. I hope with this
+new light on the affair you will favour me with your further views on
+history and archæology.
+
+Yours ever, Harry.
+
+How lovely the blackberries are looking after the rain!
+
+But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been
+knocked out by this direct hit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Excitable Lady (describing to wounded Tommies the
+appearance of a bomb-hole on the London Front)._ "You could have
+buried a horse in it. You never saw such a thing in your life!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUGAR CONTROL.
+
+Thanks to the new sugar regulations we now expect half a pound of
+sugar per head per week instead of half a pound of sugar per head
+per-haps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "HOGS STILL SOARING."
+    _Headline in Canadian Paper._
+
+The shortage of petrol seems to have driven them from the roads.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Sir John Hare declares that there is no truth in the statement
+    that he is saying '----' to the stage."--_Bournemouth Echo._
+
+Personally, we never believed that he would be guilty of such
+language.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The only thing which will actually bring peace is an army of
+    occupation standing on its own flat feet, either in Germany or
+    on the German frontier."--_Weekly Dispatch._
+
+But why this preference for the flat-footed? Are not the hammer-toed
+to have a chance?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE DANCE OF DEATH.
+
+THE KAISER. "STOP! STOP! I'M TIRED."
+
+DEATH. "I STARTED AT YOUR BIDDING; I STOP WHEN I CHOOSE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Officer_. "I SAY--LOOK HERE. I TOLD YOU TO GO TO
+PADDINGTON, AND YOU'RE GOING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION."
+
+_Taxi-Driver_. "ORL RIGHT--ORL RIGHT! YOU'RE LUCKY TO GET A CAB AT ALL
+INSTEAD OF GRUMBLIN' ABAHT WHERE YER WANTS TER GO TO!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM.
+
+CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LX.
+
+_Mary._ I wish, Mamma, that there were not so many shocking stories in
+history.
+
+_Mrs. M._ History is, indeed, a sad catalogue of human miseries, and
+one is glad to turn aside from the horrors of war to the amenities of
+private life. Shall I tell you something of the domestic habits of the
+English in the early twentieth century?
+
+_Mary._ Oh do, Mamma; I shall like that very much.
+
+_Mrs. M._ The nobility and the well-to-do classes no longer lived
+shut up in gloomy castles, but made a point of spending most of their
+time in public. They never took their meals at home, but habitually
+frequented large buildings called restaurants, fitted up with
+sumptuous and semi-Sultanic splendour. In these halls, while the
+guests sat at a number of tables, they were entertained by minstrels
+and singers. It was even said that they acquired the habit of eating
+and drinking in time to the music. They were waited upon for the
+most part by foreigners, who spoke broken English, and what with the
+babel of tongues, the din of the music and the constant popping of
+corks, for alcohol had not yet been prohibited, the scene beggared
+description.
+
+_Richard._ Well, I am sure I would rather dine in our neat little
+dining-room, with our silent wireless waiter, than partake of the most
+extravagant repasts in those sumptuous halls.
+
+_George._ I must just ask you, Mamma, about one thing that has all
+along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords about all this
+time that they let the House of Commons govern the country and have
+their own way in everything?
+
+_Mrs. M._ I am afraid, my dear George, that you are animated by a
+somewhat reactionary bias in favour of feudalism, which in your own
+best interests you would do well to curb. It is enough to say that
+some of the peers supported the House of Commons, and the majority
+were too timid to make any stand against the numbers and violence of
+the other House. Nowadays, thanks to the wide diffusion of peerages
+and the fact that they are conferred far more freely on persons of
+advanced political views, this lack of independence has largely been
+eliminated.
+
+_Richard._ I am sure we must all thank you for the trouble you took to
+explain about Free Trade and Protection; but if you are not too tired
+will you kindly tell us something about the learned and clever men who
+lived at this time?
+
+_Mrs. M._ You know, my dear boy, that I am always happy to impart
+information, and am pleased to have such attentive listeners. The
+authoress of your favourite poems, Mary, lived in this reign. I mean
+Mrs. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. The Rev. H.G. WELLS, the famous theologian
+who abolished the Latin and Greek grammars; the Baroness Corkscrew--to
+call her by the name under which she was ultimately elevated to the
+peerage--who wrote so many beautiful historical romances that she
+quite superseded Sir WALTER SCOTT; Sir JOHN OXENHAM, one of England's
+greatest poets; and Lord HALL-CAINE, author of _Isle of Man Power_,
+were commanding figures in this period.
+
+_Richard._ Oh, Mamma, did not Lord HALL-CAINE discover the North Pole?
+
+_Mrs. M._ Not that I am aware of, my dear boy, though it is quite
+possible. But you are probably confusing him with the Arctic explorer,
+Dr. KANE. Among the scientific men I must mention Sir WILLIAM
+ROBERTSON NICOLL, the great Scots agriculturist who first applied
+intensive culture to the kailyard; General BELLOC, the illustrious
+topographer, and HAROLD BEGBIE, who discovered and popularized Sir
+OLIVER LODGE.
+
+_Richard._ Ah, Mamma, I know enough about the Georgians to feel sure
+that you have left out a great many things. You have never told
+us about the Marquis of NORTHCLIFFE'S discovery of America, his
+introduction of the potato to that Continent, and his building of
+the Yellow House in the Yellowstone Park.
+
+_George._ And you have not fully satisfied our curiosity about Sir
+GEORGE ROBEY, Baronet, Lord LAUDER, Sir CHARLES CHAPLIN and other
+great Leaders of English Society.
+
+_Mrs. M._ True, my dear, but you must read their lives in the
+_Dictionary of National Biography_, for here is the tea, and I
+must leave off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALLIRAP ASRAS.
+
+It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian ruler,
+but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it should be
+the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S expedition,
+rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new facts.
+Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian
+kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth
+of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite
+of _The Daily Mail_) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it
+was in the early days of the War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed,
+my aunt, who has evidently an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC
+NEWTON, merely shaking her finger. But self-control among women
+must be on the increase, for in a hotel the other day I overheard a
+coffee-room conversation in which two cases were instanced of supreme
+heroism under agonising conditions--one being when a butler (an old
+and honoured butler too, who had never misconducted himself before)
+fainted while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most
+of it over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only
+disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the butler
+to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less than that.
+
+It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer
+among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur
+photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy
+cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up
+is one asking the applicant, in the interests of identification, to
+specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with a conscientiousness
+not excelled by the actor who blacked himself all over to play
+_Othello_, stated that she had only an appendicitis scar.
+
+But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing that
+great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that he was
+a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there was never
+any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have deceived you, but
+you must blame not me but a certain domestic remedy. If one bright
+cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing this medicinal beverage
+at a penny a glass, will insist upon being outside Westminster Abbey
+and another at the top of Cockspur Street every working day of the
+week for ever and ever, how can one help sooner or later spelling its
+staple product backwards and embroidering a little on the result?
+
+But what I want to know is--who drinks sarsaparilla, anyway?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Vague Tommy (writing letter)._ "WOT DAY IS IT?"
+
+_Chorus._ "THE FOURTEENTH."
+
+_Tommy._ "WOT MONTH?"
+
+_Chorus._ "OCTOBER."
+
+_Tommy._ "WOT YEAR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those bygone
+    times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and our
+    names might have been inscribed in the book of immorality."--_New
+    Ireland._
+
+We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LAMENTABLE LARCENY IN A BOARDING-HOUSE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A DECLARATION OF WAR.
+
+  This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire,
+  Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and expire--
+  A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful liar:--
+
+  "'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago
+  I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift--it was maybe thirty 'below,'
+  And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him with snow.
+
+  "He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for dead,
+  But I packed him along, as I've told you, and melted him out instead,
+  And I rolled him up in my blankets and put him to sleep in my bed.
+
+  "So he dwelt in my humble shanty while the wintry gales did roar,
+  While the blizzards howled in the passes and the timber wolves at the
+      door,
+  And he slept in my bunk at night-time while I stretched out on the floor.
+
+  "He watched me frying my bacon and he said that the smell was grand;
+  He watched me bucking the stove-wood, but he never lent me a hand,
+  And he played on my concertina the airs of his native land.
+
+  "And one month grew into two months and two months grew into three,
+  And there he was sitting and smiling like a blooming Old Man of the Sea,
+  Eating my pork and beans up and necking my whisky and tea.
+
+  "You say, 'Why didn't I shift him?' For the life o' me I dunno;
+  I suppose there's something inside me that can't tell a fellow to go
+  I hauled by the heels from a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'...
+
+  "But at last, when the snows were going and the blue Spring skies
+      were pale,
+  Out after bear in the valley I met a chap on the trail--
+  A chap coming up from the city, who stopped and told me a tale--
+
+  "A tale of a red war raging all over the land and sea,
+  And when he was through I was laughing, for the joke of it seemed to be
+  That Hank was a goldarn German--and Hank was rooming with me!
+
+  "So off I hiked to the shanty, and never a word I said,
+  I floated in like a cyclone, I yanked him out of my bed,
+  And I grabbed the concertina and smashed it over his head.
+
+  "I shook him up for a minute, I stood him down on the floor,
+  I grabbed the scruff of his trousers and ran him along to the door,
+  And I said, 'This here, if you get me, is a Declaration of War!'
+
+  "And I gave him a hoist with my gum-boot, a kind of a lift with my toe;
+  But you can't give a fellow a hiding, as anyone sure must know,
+  When you hauled him out of a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'"
+
+  C.F.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A GOOD DAY'S WORK.
+
+    "He left Flanders on leave at one o'clock yesterday morning
+    and was in London after fourteen months' fighting before
+    sundown."--_Daily News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Why can't we find machies for long-distance raids since Germans
+    can?"--_Evening News_.
+
+Personally, if distance is required, we prefer a brassie. We can only
+assume that the iron club is chosen in consequence of the number of
+bad lies there are about.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the German Naval mutiny:--
+
+    "They may be divided into two camps. One holds that it is not
+    an affair to which too much importance can be attached; the
+    other that it is an affair to which one cannot attach too much
+    importance."--_Star_.
+
+We cannot help feeling that these two factions might safely be
+accommodated in the same camp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A LONG-SIGHTED PATRIOT.
+
+_Aunt Susie (whose charity begins as far as possible from home)._
+"HAVE YOU FOUND OUT WHETHER THEY WEAR KNITTED SOCKS IN ARGENTINA?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"ONE HOUR OF LIFE."
+
+In Captain DESMOND COKE'S extravaganza a group of philanthropists
+adopt the time-honoured procedure of ROBIN HOOD and his Greenwood
+Company, robbing Dives on system to pay Lazarus. Their economics are
+sounder than their sociology, which is of the crudest. They specialize
+in jewellery--useless, barbaric and generally vulgar survivals--which
+they extract from shop and safe, and sell in Amsterdam, distributing
+the proceeds to various deserving charitable agencies. In this
+particular crowded hour of life the leader of the group, a fanatical
+prig with hypnotic eyes, abducts the beautiful _Lady Fenton_, with
+ten thousand pounds' worth of stuff upon her, from one of the least
+ambitious of Soho restaurants.
+
+How came she there, thus bedizened? Well, her husband, eccentric peer
+with a priceless collection of snuffboxes and a chronic deficiency of
+humour, had arranged the little dinner to effect a reconciliation,
+away from the prying eyes of their set. It was not a success. She felt
+that she sparkled too much, was piqued, and dismissed her lord. Enter
+the hypnotic prig, who adroitly conveys her to his headquarters,
+preaches to her and converts her to the point of surrendering her
+jewels without a pang, and offering to assist in the lifting of the
+snuffboxes. I can't say more without endangering the effect of Captain
+COKE'S ingenious shifts and spoofs.
+
+The author seemed to me to tempt Providence by placing his perfervid
+philanthropist and his serious doctrines against a background of
+burlesque. But he succeeded in entertaining his audience. Miss LILLAH
+MCCARTHY, looking her very best as _Lady Fenton_, and Mr. COWLEY
+WRIGHT, looking quite plausible as the irresistible chief of the
+General Charities Distribution Bureau, shared the chief honours of the
+evening.
+
+T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The views expressed by Mr. Roosevelt are crystallising
+    everywhere, and are bearing excellent fruit."--_Daily Paper._
+
+How does he get his sugar?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Two million troubles are now standing to Koslovsky's account
+    in Petrograd banks."--_Rangitikei Advocate (N.Z.)._
+
+We knew conditions were very trying in Russia, but had no idea any one
+man had such a burden as this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+RHYMES FOR THE TIMES.
+
+  There was a false Pasha named BOLO,
+  Who sank in iniquity so low.
+    That the dirtiest work
+    Of the Hun and the Turk
+  Never made him ejaculate _Nolo!_
+
+  There was a stout fellow called YAPP,
+  A great Red Triangular chap;
+    Now he's working still harder
+    To stock the State larder,
+  And never has time for a nap.
+
+  The manners and customs of Clare
+  Have long been admittedly "quare,"
+    But the tolerance shown
+    To sedition full-blown
+  Is enough to make CADBURY swear.
+
+  Politicians unstable and vague
+  May well take example from HAIG,
+    Who talks to the Huns
+    In the voice of his guns
+  Till they dread him far worse than the plague.
+
+  Renowned for her fine macaroni,
+  And also for Signor MARCONI,
+    Now Italy sends,
+    To enrapture her friends,
+  (And to finish these rhymes), the Caproni.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MISSING.
+
+    "He was last seen going over the parapet into the German
+    trenches."
+
+  What did you find after war's fierce alarms,
+    When the kind earth gave you a resting place,
+  And comforting night gathered you in her arms,
+    With light dew falling on your upturned face?
+
+  Did your heart beat, remembering what had been?
+    Did you still hear around you, as you lay,
+  The wings of airmen sweeping by unseen,
+    The thunder of the guns at close of day?
+
+  All nature stoops to guard your lonely bed;
+    Sunshine and rain fall with their calming breath;
+  You need no pall, so young and newly dead,
+    Where the Lost Legion triumphs over death.
+
+  When with the morrow's dawn the bugle blew,
+    For the first time it summoned you in vain;
+  The Last Post does not sound for such as you;
+    But God's Reveillé wakens you again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUGAR.
+
+"Francesca," I said, "you must be very deeply occupied; for ten
+minutes I have not heard your silvery voice."
+
+"I am attempting," she said, "to fill up our sugar form."
+
+"Is it a tremendous struggle?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "it is a regular brain-smasher."
+
+"Give me the paper, and let me have a go at it."
+
+With a haggard face, but without a word, she handed me the buff form,
+and sat silently while I read the various explanations and directions.
+
+"Francesca," I said, "you are doing wrong. It says that the form must
+be filled up and signed by a responsible member of the household. Now
+you can say that you're brilliant or amiable or handsome or powerful
+or domineering, but can you honestly say you're responsible? No, you
+can't. So I shall keep this form and fill it up myself in due time,
+and leave you to look after the hens or talk to the gardener."
+
+"Anybody," she said, "who can wring a smile from a gardener, as I have
+this morning, is entitled to be considered responsible. Infirm of
+purpose! hand me the paper."
+
+"Very well," I said, "you can have the paper; only remember that,
+if we get fined a thousand pounds for transgressing the Defence of
+the Realm Act, you mustn't ask me for the money. You must pay it
+yourself."
+
+"I'll chance that," she said, as I handed back the paper.
+
+"Now then, we shan't be long. Which of these two addresses shall we
+have?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why, they tell you to fill in the address in capital letters, and
+then they give you two to pick from. One is 1000, Upper Grosvenor
+Street, W. 1--"
+
+"It is a longer street than I had supposed."
+
+"And the other," she continued, "is 17, Church Lane, Middlewich,
+Cheshire."
+
+"Let it be Middlewich," I said. "Since boyhood's hour I have dreamt
+of living in Middlewich. As for the other, I simply couldn't live in
+a street of a thousand houses. Could you?"
+
+"No," she said, "I couldn't. We'll be Middlewichians.... There, it's
+done. Capital letters and all."
+
+"Don't slack off," I said. "Fill it all up now that you've got
+started."
+
+"I suppose I'd better begin with myself."
+
+"Yes," I said, "you may have that privilege. Put it down quick:
+Carlyon, Francesca; age blank, because they don't want ages over
+eighteen; F for female, and Married Woman for occupation. Then treat
+me in the same way, putting M for F, and 2nd Lieutenant of Volunteers
+instead of Married Woman."
+
+"Why shouldn't I put Married Man as your occupation?"
+
+"Simply because it isn't done. It's a splendid occupation, but it
+isn't recognised as such in formal documents."
+
+"Another injustice to women. I shall enter you as Married Man."
+
+"Enter me as anything you like," I said, "only let's get on with the
+job."
+
+"Very well; you're down as Married Man."
+
+"Now get on with the children. Muriel first. What about her?"
+
+"But she's away having her education finished."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but she'll be back for the holidays, and she'll want
+her sugar then, like the rest of us. And Frederick is away at _his_
+school, probably getting much better sugar than we are. He'll be
+wanting his ration in the holidays. You'd better put a note about
+that."
+
+"A note?" she said. "There's no room for notes on this form. All they
+want is a bald statement. And that's just what they can't get. They'll
+have to take it with the hair on. I'm cramming in about the holidays,
+and I hope Lord RHONDDA will be pleased with all the information he's
+getting about our family."
+
+"Keep going," I said; "you've still got the servants to do."
+
+"Yes, but the kitchenmaid's gone, and I haven't engaged another one
+yet."
+
+"Don't let that worry you," I said. "Write down--Kitchenmaid about to
+be engaged. Name will be supplied later.'"
+
+"You're quite brilliant to-day. There, that's finished, thank Heaven."
+
+"Not yet. You've got to address it to the Local Food Office."
+
+"But I haven't the remotest where the Local Food Office is. It can't
+have been there more than a short time, anyhow."
+
+"Hurrah!" I said, looking over her shoulder at the document. "It says
+if you are in doubt as to the name of the district of your Local Food
+Office you are to inquire of any policeman or special constable."
+
+"That's all very well," she said, "but how are we to find a policeman
+in this remote and peaceful place? I've never seen one. Have you?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I think I saw one last year on a bicycle."
+
+"Well, he's probably arrived somewhere else by this time. He's no good
+to us."
+
+"No, but we might find a special constable."
+
+"I'll tell you what," she said, "old Glumgold is a special constable.
+I heard him complaining bitterly of having been hauled out of bed
+during the last air-raid on London. 'No nigher to we nor forty mile,'
+he said it was. He's sure to be among the cabbages. Be a dear and dash
+out and ask him."
+
+So I found Glumgold in among the cabbages and asked him where the
+Local Food Office was, and he said he'd be gingered if he knew, he
+or his old woman either; and that was the question they was a-going
+to arst of us, because to-day was the last day for sending in. So I
+advised him to chance it with Nebsbury, which happens to be eight
+miles off and possesses a High Street; and then I went back to
+Francesca and told her that Glumgold advised Nebsbury--which was
+cowardly, but one can't spend a lifetime over a fiddle-headed document
+like that. Anyhow, we folded it up and posted it, and we've heard
+nothing since.
+
+R.C.L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ECHOES OF THE AIR-RAIDS.
+
+_First Souvenir-hunter_. "FOUND ANYFINK, 'ERB?"
+
+_Second ditto_. "NO; BUT THAT'LL BE ALL RIGHT. THEY'RE SURE TO COME
+AGAIN TERMORRER NIGHT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
+
+Not for a great while have I met a story at once so moving and so
+simply made as _Summer_ (MACMILLAN). Of course at this time the art
+of EDITH WHARTON is no new discovery; but to my thinking she has never
+done better work than this tale of a New England village, and the
+wakening to love of the girl who was drowsing away her youth there.
+It is all, as I say, so simple, and written with such apparent economy
+of effort, that only afterwards does the amazing cleverness of Mrs.
+WHARTON'S method impress itself upon the reader. _Charity Royall_ was
+a waif, of worse than ambiguous parentage, brought up in a community
+where her passionate and violently sensitive nature was stifled. Two
+men loved her--dour middle-aged Lawyer _Royall_, whose house she kept,
+and _Lucius Harney_, the young visitor from the city, the fairy-prince
+of poor _Charity's_ one great romance, through whom came tragedy. You
+see already the whole stark simplicity of the theme. What I cannot
+convey to you is that secret of Mrs. WHARTON'S that enables her by
+some exquisitely right word or phrase so to illuminate a scene that
+you see it as though by an inspiration of your own, and feel that
+thus and thus did the thing in fact happen. There are episodes in
+_Summer_--for example the Fourth of July firework evening, or the
+wildly macabre scene of the night funeral on the mountain--that seem
+to me to come as near perfection in their telling as anything I am
+ever likely to read, and when you have enjoyed them for yourself I
+fancy you will be inclined to join me in very sincere gratitude for
+work of such rare quality.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Those who admired (which is the same as saying those who read) that
+excellent book, _The Retreat from Mons_, will be glad to hear that
+its author, Major A. CORBETT-SMITH, has now continued his record in a
+further volume, called _The Marne and After_ (CASSELL). In it you will
+find all those qualities, a sane and soldier-like common-sense, an
+entire absence of gush, and a saving humour in the midst of horrors,
+which made the earlier installment memorable. Above all else I
+have been impressed by the first of these characteristics. Major
+CORBETT-SMITH writes from the viewpoint of one to whom even this
+ghastliest of wars is part of the day's work. That he sees its human
+and hideous sides by no means impairs this quiet professional outlook.
+I recall one phrase in his chapter on the secret agents of the enemy:
+"At the Aisne German spies were a regular plague"--just as one might
+speak of wasps or weather--which somehow conveyed to me very vividly
+the secret of our original little army's disproportionate influence
+in the early weeks of the War. The operations which we call the
+actual Battle of the Marne (surely fated to be the most fought-again
+engagement in history) are here very clearly described, with
+illustrative plans; while one other chapter, called suggestively
+"_Kultur_," may be commended to those super-philosophers amongst us
+who are already beginning an attempt to belittle the foul record of
+calculated crime that must for at least a generation place Germany
+outside the pale of civilization. For this grim chapter alone I should
+like to see Major CORBETT-SMITH'S otherwise cheery volume scattered
+broadcast over the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_June_ (METHUEN) is saturated with the simple sentimentality in which
+American authors excel. I do not know whether British novelists could
+write this sort of book successfully if they would, but I do know that
+they don't. Miss EDITH BARNARD DELANO, however, succeeds in getting
+considerable charm into her story, and if it leaves rather a sweeter
+taste in the mouth than some of us relish there are others who like
+their fiction to be strongly sugared. _June_, an orphan child, was
+looked after by nigger servants, and by one, _Mammy_, in particular.
+She possessed a house and a valley; and a young man prospecting in the
+latter met with an accident and was discovered by the child. Hence
+complications, and the removal of _June_ from her home to be educated
+with some cousins. Then poverty, hard times and plenty of pluck.
+But the clouds began to lift when _June_ discovered that an emerald
+cross of hers was worth four thousand dollars; and finally the sun
+burst forth when, through the agency of the accidental young man,
+her property was found to be very valuable, and she more valuable
+still--to the young man. It sounds ingenuous, doesn't it? But not
+nearly so easy to write as it seems, for to produce anything as
+artless as _June_ is an art in itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _The Book of the Happy Warrior_ (LONGMANS) a chivalrous modern
+knight holds up to our youngsters the patterns of an older chivalry
+to teach them courage, clean fighting and devoted service. Sir HENEY
+NEWBOLT claims that the tradition of the public schools is the direct
+survival of the mediæval training for knighthood, and incidentally
+defends flannelled and muddied youth from hasty aspersions. ROLAND and
+his OLIVER, RICHARD LION-HEART, EDWARD the Black Prince and CHANDOS,
+DU GUESCLIN and BAYARD, if they revisited this tortured earth, would
+be dismayed by the procedure and the chilling impersonality of modern
+war. Perhaps in the glorious single combats of the Flying Corps they
+might recognise some faint semblance of their ancient method. Sir
+HENRY, rightly from his point of view, chooses to ignore the wholesale
+horrors of to-day's warfare and to emphasize the ideal of fighting
+service as a fine discipline and proof of manly worth. He shows an
+obvious, honest, aristocratic bias, but he does not forget another
+side of the matter, as a fragment of an imaginary conversation
+between a young lord and a squire present at the great tourney at St.
+Inglebert's between the Gentlemen of England and of France pleasantly
+shows. The Englishmen were worsted and took their defeat in a fine
+sporting spirit. "How is it we're beaten? We always win the battles,
+don't we?" asks the boy. "The archers win them for us," says the
+Squire. Quite a characteristic little touch of subaltern modesty! One
+thought occurs to me especially. It is unthinkable that a book like
+this should appear in the Germany of to-day. It will be worth your
+while giving it to your boy to find out why.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since the practice of writing first novels is becoming increasingly
+popular with young authors it was inevitable that a "First Novel
+Library" should find its way on to the market. Whether the
+classification is to be construed as an appeal for forbearance for
+the shortcomings of the neophyte, or as a warning which a considerate
+publisher feels is due to the public, is not for me to say. But the
+policy of charging six shillings for these maiden efforts--all that
+is required of us for the mature masterpieces of our MAURICE HEWLETTS
+and ARNOLD BENNETTS--is open to question. _The Puppet_, by JANE
+HARDING (UNWIN), is not without merit, but the faults of the beginner
+are present in manifold. The heroine tells her story in the first
+person--a difficult method of handling fiction at the best--and in the
+result we find a young lady of no particular education or apparent
+attainments holding forth in the stilted diction of a rather prosy
+early-Victorian Archbishop. The effect of unreality produced goes far
+to spoil a plot which is wound and unwound with considerable skill.
+Miss HARDING will write a good novel yet, but she must learn to make
+her characters act the parts she assigns to them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We all must be writing books about the War. It is natural enough to
+suppose one's own share of war-work is worthy of record, and indeed,
+when we come to think of it, the historian of the future will get his
+complete picture of the time only when he realises how every scrap
+of the national energy was absorbed in the one master purpose. That
+being so it is arguable that Mr. WARD MUIR was thinking far ahead in
+compiling his hospital reminiscences, _Observations of an Orderly_
+(SIMPKIN). One hastens to make it clear that the last thing intended
+or desired is to disparage the usefulness or the stark self-sacrifice
+of the men who are serving in menial capacities in our war hospitals,
+but to tell the truth this account of sculleries and laundry-baskets,
+polishing paste and nigger minstrels, bathrooms and pillow-slips, has
+not much intrinsic interest about it, nor are the author's general
+reflections very different from what one could supply oneself without
+much effort. His notes on war slang are about the best thing in
+the volume, and I liked the story of the blinded soldiers--feeling
+anything in the world but mournful or pathetic--who played pranks on
+the Tube escalator; but on the whole this is a book which will be of
+considerable interest only to the writer's fellow-labourers. They,
+beyond any doubt, will be glad to read this history of their familiar
+rounds and common tasks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Wanted, a Tortoise-Shell_ (LANE) would have made an excellent short
+story, but to pursue its farcical developments through three hundred
+pages requires a considerable amount of perseverance. The scene of Mr.
+PETER BLUNDER'S book is laid in tropical Jallagar, where the British
+Resident was keener on cats than on his duties. A male tortoise-shell
+was what he fanatically and almost ferociously desired, and to obtain
+it he was ready to barter his daughter to one _Kamp_, who is tersely
+described as "a fat Swede." I conceived a strong distaste for this
+large and perspiring man, and can congratulate Mr. BLUNDELL on having
+created a character odious enough to linger in the memory. For the
+rest there are some gleams of real fun where a beach-comber tries to
+palm off a dyed cat as the long-deferred tortoise-shell, and the exit
+of this animal from a world too covetous to hold it is thoroughly
+sound farce. But on the whole I failed to get many of those quiet
+gurgles of delight which are the best tribute one can pay to a funny
+man's work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Chairman at Farmers' Ordinary._ "NOW, GENTLEMEN, FILL
+UP YOUR MATCHBOXES TO THE VERY GOOD HEALTH OF THE CATERER."]
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+153, OCT. 17, 1917***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 10903-8.txt or 10903-8.zip *******
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917, by Various</title>
+<style type="text/css">
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153,
+Oct. 17, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917</p>
+<p>Author: Various</p>
+<p>Release Date: February 1, 2004  [eBook #10903]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: iso-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 153, OCT. 17, 1917***</p>
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Punch, or the London Charivari, William Flis,<br />
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center>
+<br />
+<hr class="full" />
+<h1>PUNCH,<br />
+OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+<h2>Vol. 153.</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>October 17, 1917.</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>[pg
+263]</span>
+<h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+<p>The mutiny of the German sailors at Kiel is now explained. They
+preferred death to another speech from the KAISER.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A Constantinople poet has translated the plays of SHAKSPEARE
+into Turkish. The rendering is said to be faithful to the text, and
+it is assumed that a keen appreciation of Turkey's military
+necessities alone accounts for his reference to the "Swan of Avon"
+as the "Bulbul of Potsdam."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The use of flour as an ingredient of sausages is now forbidden.
+Young sausages which have hitherto been fed on bread and milk must
+either be broken to bones or killed for the table.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>An optimist writes to express the hope that by this elimination
+of flour the dreadful secret of the sausage may be at last
+revealed.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The German Government has created a Pulp Commission. We have
+always said they would be reduced to it in time.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The King of SIAM'S royal yacht has been turned into a cargo
+boat. Reports that the Sacred White Elephant has been commandeered
+for use as a floating dock are still unconfirmed.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>For giving corn to pheasants a fine of ten pounds has been
+inflicted on a merchant of New York (Lincs.) The removal <i>en
+bloc</i> of this village from the mouth of the Hudson river to its
+present site should finally convince the sceptics of the magnitude
+of America's war effort.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The Vacant Land Cultivation Society offers a prize of ten
+shillings for the heaviest potato. Some of our most notorious
+potato-tellers are expected to compete.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The provision of steel helmets for the Metropolitan Police is
+all right so far as it goes, but the Force is still asking why it
+cannot be furnished with some protection for its other
+extremities.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>From China it is reported that an aboriginal priest now claiming
+the Throne has been accustomed to eat the flesh of tigers, wolves,
+leopards, &amp;c., also the human heart. It is, however, only fair
+to our own restaurateurs to state that, though China is alleged to
+be on the eve of war, there is as yet no food-control in that
+country.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>An unusual scarcity of wasps is reported from various parts of
+the country. Nothing is being done about it.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A calf has been sold for two thousand seven hundred guineas in
+Aberdeenshire. The plucky purchaser is understood to have had for
+some time past a craving for a veal cutlet.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A new form of frightfulness is evidently being practised upon
+their guards by our interned Huns. "Some of them," says a
+contemporary, "purchase a hundred cigars with a portion of the one
+pound a day which is the miserable maximum they may spend on
+luxuries."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"People who speak of suicide seldom do anything desperate," says
+a well-known mental expert. So that the KAISER'S threat to fight
+England to the death may be taken for what it is worth.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>An extraordinary meeting of German Reichstag Members has arrived
+at the decision that the Germans cannot hope for victory in the
+field. We see nothing extraordinary in this.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Professor BERGEN was once described as "the well-known inventor
+and philanthropist." He still invents (his latest is a gas-thrower,
+reported by the <i>Berliner Tageblatt</i> to be "a veritable
+monster of destruction"), but has dropped the other job.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>A swallow-tail butterfly which escaped from the Zoo has been
+re-captured at Eastbourne. When caught it gave the policeman to
+understand that it would go quietly.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Two men, we read, took twenty-two hours to chisel a hole through
+the three-foot flint concrete roof of the London Opera House. The
+report that they did this to avoid the Entertainment Tax has now
+been contradicted.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>"The American Winston Churchill," says <i>The Daily Express</i>,
+"has to plod through life without a middle name." We all have our
+little cross to bear. Even the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS has to plod
+through life with the knowledge that there is another Winston
+Churchill loose about the world.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>It is proposed that Parliament shall sit from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.,
+instead of from 3 to 11 P.M. We do not care for this crude attempt
+to mix business with politics.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The Boundary Commission Report advocates the creation of
+thirty-one new M.P.'s. It will be a bitter disappointment for those
+who were sanguine enough to hope that Redistribution would spell
+Reform.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>The Government has commandeered all stocks of rum. The rigours
+of war, it seems, must be suffered even by our little tots.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href=
+"images/263.png"><img width="100%" src="images/263.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>The Wit.</i> "AH, NOW YOU'RE FOR IT, ALBERT?"</p>
+<p><i>Tractor-Driver.</i> "WOT'S THE MATTER?"</p>
+<p><i>The Wit.</i> "WHY, YOU'VE BEEN AND GONE AND COME ON PARADE
+WITHOUT YOUR SPURS."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The bridegroom, 6 ft. 35 ins. in height, was wearing the
+full-dress uniform of a captain in the Army."&mdash;<i>Great
+Yarmouth Independent</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>He would need it all.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Headline to a description of a recent push:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"VONDERFUL RESULTS."&mdash;<i>Evening Paper</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The "Hidden Hand" in the composing-room?</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264"></a>[pg
+264]</span>
+<h2>THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.</h2>
+<blockquote class="note">
+<p>["Stedfastness and righteousness are the qualities which the
+German people value in the highest degree, and which have brought
+it a good and honourable reputation in the whole world. When we
+make experiments in lies and deception, intrigue and low cunning,
+we suffer hopeless and brutal failure. Our lies are coarse and
+improbable, our ambiguity is pitiful simplicity. The history of the
+War proves this by a hundred examples. When our enemies poured all
+these things upon us like a hailstorm, and we convinced ourselves
+of the effectiveness of such tactics, we tried to imitate them. But
+these tactics will not fit the German. We are rough but moral, we
+are credulous but honest."&mdash;<i>Herr DERNBURG, in "Deutsche
+Politik."</i>]</p>
+</blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>In Eden bowers, so fair to see,</p>
+<p>There dwelt, when sin was yet to be,</p>
+<p>A guileless Serpent up a tree,</p>
+<p class="i2">Sniffing the virgin breezes;</p>
+<p>Till EVE (the huzzy!), one fine day,</p>
+<p>With evil purpose came his way,</p>
+<p>And led that simple worm astray</p>
+<p class="i2">By low and wicked wheezes.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>A Wolf there was, quite sweet and good,</p>
+<p>Till in his path Red Riding-Hood</p>
+<p>Went camouflaging through the wood&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">A brazen little terror;</p>
+<p>Large teeth she had and bulgy eyes</p>
+<p>And told the most amazing lies,</p>
+<p>And taught him, in a flowery guise,</p>
+<p class="i2">The downward route to error.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Of Fritz's nature, fresh as morn,</p>
+<p>Pure as a babe that's just been born,</p>
+<p>Clean as a poodle lately-shorn,</p>
+<p class="i2">These are symbolic samples;</p>
+<p>The Wolf unversed in specious vice,</p>
+<p>The Serpent with a taste as nice</p>
+<p>As anything in Paradise&mdash;</p>
+<p class="i2">Debauched by bad examples.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>England seduced us. 'Neath her spell,</p>
+<p>Mistress of lies, we fell and fell</p>
+<p>Into the poisoned sink, or well,</p>
+<p class="i2">Of faked and fabulous rumour;</p>
+<p>And there, as we were bound to do,</p>
+<p>We failed, because we loved the True,</p>
+<p>And loathed the False as alien to</p>
+<p class="i2">Our artless German humour.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>I speak as one who ought to know;</p>
+<p>Myself I tried a trick or so</p>
+<p>In U.S.A. and had to go,</p>
+<p class="i2">Looking absurdly silly;</p>
+<p>And now against us, big with fate,</p>
+<p>That Hemisphere has thrown its weight,</p>
+<p>Both North and South (though up to date</p>
+<p class="i2">We haven't heard from Chili).</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Laughter we've earned&mdash;a noble shame!</p>
+<p>Built to achieve a higher aim,</p>
+<p>We honest Huns can't play the game</p>
+<p class="i2">Of shifty propaganders;</p>
+<p>Henceforth we'd better all get back</p>
+<p>On to the straight and righteous track</p>
+<p>And help our HINDENBURG to hack</p>
+<p class="i2">(If not too late) through Flanders.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>O.S.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Red heels were much in evidence, both Lady D&mdash;&mdash; and
+Lady C&mdash;&mdash; affected them, and they were to be seen in
+other unexpected places."&mdash;<i>Observer</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Certainly their use as ornaments in the small of the back
+surprised us a good deal.</p>
+<hr />
+<h2>THE CARP AT MIRAMEL.</h2>
+<blockquote class="note">
+<p>[In the following article all actual names, personal,
+geographical and regimental, have been duly camouflaged.]</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The carp that live in the moat of the Ch&acirc;teau de Miramel
+(in the zone of the armies in France) are of an age and ugliness
+incredible and of a superlative cynicism. One of them&mdash;local
+tradition pointed to a one-eyed old reprobate with a yellow
+face&mdash;is the richer these hundred years past by an English
+peeress's diamond ring.</p>
+<p>From the bottom of the moat one world-war is like another, and
+none of them very different from peace. It is but a row of grinning
+red healthy faces over the coping and a shower of bread and
+biscuit.</p>
+<p>When the nightmare of BONAPARTE was ended in the Autumn of 1815,
+the 22nd K.R. Lancers, commanded by an English peer, billeted
+themselves in and around the Ch&acirc;teau de Miramel. The English
+peer, finding time hang heavy on his hands, or my lady's letters
+proving insistent, sent for her to come out to him at Miramel. You
+could do that sort of homely thing in 1815.</p>
+<p>So my lady comes to Miramel, and the very first day, as she
+leans out of window in the round tower, mishandles her diamond ring
+(gift of my lord) and drops it into the moat. Her host, the good
+Comte de Miramel, dredged and drained, but no trace of the diamond
+ring was ever found. But old Cyclops, the carp, grinned
+horribly.</p>
+<p>In due course my lord and lady went home to the Isle of Fogs,
+and thence they sent their portraits to their host as a souvenir of
+their stay. Here indeed the portraits still hang, very graceful in
+the style of the period. And to the appreciative visitor Madame de
+Miramel (of to-day) shows a missive of thanks, written in
+indifferent bad French, in which my lady refers sorrowfully to
+"<i>ma bague diamant&eacute;e</i>."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Once again the 22nd K.R. Lancers are billeted in Miramel. The
+other day I noticed on a worn stone pillar at the great door the
+following half-obliterated words:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"ED. WYNN, pikeman of the dashing 22nd King's Ryol ridgemet of
+lanciers. Sept. 1815";</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>and freshly scratched above the inscription:&mdash;</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"Better at piking than at speling.</p>
+<p class="i4">22nd K.R. Lancers. JAS. BARNET. Sept. 1917."</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like
+another. There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd
+King's Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium
+for self-expression.</p>
+<p>Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or
+so. There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring
+of red grinning faces above the coping. Yesterday I threw a disused
+safety-razor blade over the old scoundrel's nose. And "Bless my
+soul!" he said, as he lazily bolted it, "there hasn't been such a
+year for minnows since 1815."</p>
+<p>But Armageddon 1917 holds surprises even for those who live at
+the bottom of a moat. For very early this morning a bauble fell
+into the moat that Cyclops himself couldn't digest. The old cynic
+was found floating, scarred belly upwards, on the surface of the
+water.</p>
+<p>The mess-waiter took charge of the <i>post-mortem</i>. Like the
+<i>Duke of Plaza Toro</i>, he "likes an interment" and rarely
+misses a last rite. A keen fisherman, he had little difficulty in
+extracting an exhibit for the Court's inspection, which he
+unhesitatingly pronounced to be a diamond ring in an advanced state
+of decomposition.</p>
+<p>The mess-cook, on the other hand, identified the relic as the
+stopping, recently mislaid, from one of his back teeth.</p>
+<p>In any case there seems little room for doubt that a Hun airman
+has avenged the long-dead lady.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>[pg
+265]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/265.png"><img width="100%" src="images/265.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>ENIGMA.</h3>
+<p>POLICEMAN (<i>on duty at St. Stephen's</i>). "STAND ASIDE,
+PLEASE."</p>
+<p>MR. PUNCH. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"</p>
+<p>POLICEMAN. "PARLIAMENT REASSEMBLING."</p>
+<p>MR. PUNCH. "WHY?"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>[pg
+266]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/266.png"><img width="100%" src="images/266.png" alt=
+"" /></a><i>Ex-Bus-driver (in difficulties in the roadless
+zone).</i> "'ERE'S OLE PICCADILLY UP AGIN&mdash;FAIR IN THE
+'IGHTH OF THE SEASON."
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>THE MUD LARKS.</h2>
+<p>All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour"
+of old Atkins. Every distinguished tripper who comes Cook's-touring
+to the Front for a couple of days devotes at least a chapter of his
+resultant book to it. "How in thunder does Thomas do it?" they ask.
+"What the mischief does he find to laugh at?" Listen.</p>
+<p>Years ago, when the well-known War was young, a great man sat in
+his sanctum exercising his grey matter. Ho said to himself, "There
+is a War on. Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from
+comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the
+term of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined
+and bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and
+scared silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum
+diluted, reliefs late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them
+for diamond-studded munitioneers. Their wives will write saying,
+'Little Jimmie has the mumps; and what about the rent? You aren't
+spending all of five bob a week on yourself, are you?' This is but
+a tithe (or else a tittle) of the things that will occur to them,
+and their sunny natures will sour and sicken if something isn't
+done about it."</p>
+<p>The great man sat up all night chewing penholders and pondering
+on the problem. The BIG IDEA came with the end of the eighth
+penholder.</p>
+<p>He sprang to his feet, fires of inspiration flashing from his
+eyes, and boomed, "Let there be <i>Funny Cuts</i>!"&mdash;then went
+to bed. Next morning he created "I." (which stands for
+Intelligence), carefully selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs
+of appropriate hue, and told them to go the limit. And they have
+been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the
+Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the
+yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and
+offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the
+story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot
+and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin,
+we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see
+what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will make of it.
+A hint is as good as a wink to them, a nudge ample. Under the
+genius of these imaginative artists the most trivial incident
+burgeons forth into a LE QUEUX spell-binder, and the whole British
+Army, mustering about its Sergeant-Majors, gets selected cameos
+read to it every morning at roll-call, laughs brokenly into the
+jaws of dawn and continues chuckling to itself all day. Now you
+know.</p>
+<p>Our Adjutant had a telephone call not long ago. "Army speaking,"
+said a voice. "Will you send somebody over to Rataplan and see if
+there is a Town Major there?"</p>
+<p>The Adjutant said he would, and a N.C.O. was despatched
+forthwith. He returned later, reporting no symptoms of one, so the
+Adjutant rang up Exchange and asked to be hooked on to Army
+Headquarters. "Which branch?" Exchange inquired. "Why, really I
+don't know&mdash;forgot to ask," the Adjutant confessed. "I'll have
+a try at 'A.'"</p>
+<p>"Hello," said "A." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," said
+the Adjutant. "You astound me, Fair Unknown," said "A."; "but what
+about it, anyway?" The Adjutant apologised and asked Exchange for
+"Q." department. "Hello," said "Q." "There is no Town Major at
+Rataplan," said the Adjutant. "Sorry, old thing, whoever you are,"
+said "Q.," "but we don't stock 'em. Rations, iron; perspirators,
+box; oil, whale, delivered with promptitude and civility, but NOT
+Town Majors&mdash;sorry." The Adjutant sighed and consulted with
+Exchange as to who possibly could have rung him up.</p>
+<p>Exchange couldn't guess unless it was "I."&mdash;no harm in
+trying, anyhow.</p>
+<p>"Hello!" said "I." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," the
+Adjutant, droned somewhat wearily. "Wha-t!" "I." exclaimed,
+suddenly interested. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id=
+"page267"></a>[pg 267]</span> "Say it again, clearer."
+"RAT-A-PLAN&mdash;NO&mdash;TOWN&mdash;MA-JOR," the Adjutant
+repeated. There was a pause; then he heard the somebody give off an
+awed "Good Lord!" and drop the receiver. Next morning in <i>Funny
+Cuts</i> (the organ of Intelligence) we learned that "Corps
+Headquarters was heavily shelled last night. The Town Major is
+missing. This is evidence that the enemy has brought long-range
+guns into the opposite sector." Followed masses of information as
+to the probable make of the guns, the size of shell they preferred,
+the life-story of the Battery Commander, his favourite flower and
+author.</p>
+<p>The Bosch, always on the alert to snaffle the paying devices of
+an opposition firm, now has his "I." staff and <i>Funny Cuts</i> as
+well. From time to time we capture a copy and read this sort of
+thing:&mdash;</p>
+<p>"From agonised screeches heard by one of our intrepid airmen
+while patrolling over the enemy's lines yesterday, it is evident
+that the brutal and relentless British are bayonetting their
+prisoners."</p>
+<p>A Highland Division, whose star pipers were holding a dirge and
+lament contest on that date, are now ticking off the hours to the
+next offensive.</p>
+<p>The Antrims had a <i>cordon bleu</i> by the name of Michael
+O'Callagan. He was a sturdy rogue, having retreated all the way
+from Mons, and subsequently advanced all the way back to the Yser
+with a huge stock-pot on his back, from which he had furnished
+mysterious stews to all comers, at all hours, under any conditions.
+For this, and for the fact that he could cook under water, and
+would turn out hot meals when other <i>chefs</i> were committing
+suicide, much was forgiven him, but he was prone to look upon the
+<i>vin</i> when it was <i>rouge</i> and was habitually coated an
+inch thick with a varnish of soot and pot-black. One morning he
+calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of the earnest
+attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to collect
+sufficient <i>d&eacute;bris</i> to boil his dixies. Next day the
+Bosch <i>Funny Cuts</i> flared forth scareheads:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"SAVAGES ON THE SOMME.</p>
+<p>"The desperate and unprincipled British are employing black
+cannibal Zulus in the defence of their system. Yesterday one of
+them, a chief of incredibly depraved appearance, was observed
+scouting in the open."</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The communiqu&eacute; ended with a treatise on the Zulu, its
+black man-eating habits, and an exhortation to "our old
+Brandenburgers" not to be dismayed.</p>
+<p>PATLANDER.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/267.png"><img width="100%" src="images/267.png" alt=
+"" /></a>OWING TO PRESSURE FROM THE ALL-HIGHEST, HIS ORIENTAL ALLY IS
+FORMING A MAGIC-CARPET BOMBING SQUADRON.
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h3>MORE SEX PROBLEMS.</h3>
+<p>From a stock-auction report:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"THE BULL CALVES. THE BULL CALVES."</p>
+<p><i>Glasgow Herald.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Notwithstanding the repetition of this statement we find great
+difficulty in believing it.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"SOLDIERS' CHRISTMAS GIFTS. POSTING DATES FOR EGYPT AND
+SALONIKA."</p>
+<p><i>Times.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It sounds a little like consigning coal to Newcastle.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"AIR RAIDS.&mdash;Peaceful country rectory, Hampshire, well out
+of danger zone, can receive three or four paying guests. Large
+garden, beautiful scenery, high, bracing. Simple life. &pound;10
+each weekly."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>This enterprising parson seems to have borrowed his recipe for
+the simple life from GRAY'S <i>Elegy</i>:&mdash;</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Along the cool sequester'd vale of life</p>
+<p class="i2">They kept the noiseless tenner of their way.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>[pg
+268]</span>
+<h2>BEASTS ROYAL.</h2>
+<h3>IV.</h3>
+<h3>KING HENRY'S STAG-HOUND. A.D. 1536.</h3>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Ten puffs upon my master's toes,</p>
+<p class="i2">And twenty on his sleeves,</p>
+<p>Upon his hat a Tudor rose</p>
+<p class="i2">Set round with silver leaves;</p>
+<p class="i4">But never a hunting-spear,</p>
+<p class="i6">And never a rowel-spur;</p>
+<p class="i4">Who is this that he calls his Dear?</p>
+<p class="i6">I think I will bark at her.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>The Windsor groves were fresh and green,</p>
+<p class="i2">Dangling with Summer dew,</p>
+<p>When my master rode with his Spanish queen,</p>
+<p class="i2">And the huntsman cried, "Halloo!"</p>
+<p class="i4">Now never a horn is heard,</p>
+<p class="i6">And never the lances stir;</p>
+<p class="i4">Who is this that he calls his Bird?</p>
+<p class="i6">I think I will follow her.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>To-night my master walks alone</p>
+<p class="i2">In the pleach&eacute;d pathway dim,</p>
+<p>And the thick moss reddens on the stone</p>
+<p class="i2">Where she used to walk with him.</p>
+<p class="i4">When will he shout for the glove</p>
+<p class="i6">And the spear of the verderer?</p>
+<p class="i4">Where is she gone whom he called his Love?</p>
+<p class="i6">For I cannot follow her.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>SECOND CHILDHOOD.</h2>
+<p>I must make a confession to someone. I have wasted raw material
+which is a substitute for something else indispensable for
+defeating the Hun, and probably traitor is the right name for me.
+Let me explain.</p>
+<p>Somewhere in Nutshire there is a place called Cotterham. It is
+one of those little villages which somehow nobody expects to meet
+nowadays outside the pages of a KATE GREENAWAY painting book. There
+is the village green, with its pond and geese and absurdly pretty
+cottages with gardens full of red bergamot and lads'-love, and a
+little school where the children are still taught to curtsey and
+pull their forelocks when the Squire goes by. And beyond the Green,
+at the end of Plough Lane and after you have crossed Leg-o'-Mutton
+Common, you come to Down Wood, and if you don't meet Little Red
+Riding-Hood on the way or come on Snow White and her seven dwarfs,
+that is only because you must have taken the wrong turning after
+you came through the kissing-gate at the bottom of Lovers' Lane. I
+am a native of Cotterham, and in my more reflective moments I
+wonder why such an idyllic place should have produced anything so
+unromantic as myself, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting
+Inspector for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives. Cotterham still
+has a large place in my affections, and it gave me a considerable
+shock the other day to get a letter from the Squire, who is an old
+friend, asking me down for a week-end, and adding, "You can do a
+little professional job for me too. You really will be interested
+to see what splendid work is being done here in your line of fire.
+The output is some of the best in the district. But there has been
+trouble lately and the leaders of the two biggest shifts were found
+to have appropriated a substantial part of the output to their own
+uses. I shall rely on you to straighten things out and suggest the
+right penalties."</p>
+<p>So they were even making munitions in Cotterham. I conjured up
+visions of interminable rows of huts, of thousands of overalled
+workers swamping Plough Lane, trampling the Green brown, scaring
+the geese, obliterating the immemorial shape of Leg-o'-Mutton
+Common by a mushroom township, laying Down Wood low, and coming to
+me with some miserable tale of petty pilfering for my adjustment. I
+must own I got out of the train at Muddlehampstead and into the
+station fly feeling distinctly low-spirited. It was some
+consolation to find that the railway still stopped seven miles
+short of my village, though I reflected gloomily that the place
+itself was doubtless a network of light railways by this time. We
+bowled along in stately fashion up Plough Lane and past Halfpenny
+Cross to the Manor House with its thatched roof and
+Virginia-creeper all over the porch. The Squire carried me off at
+once for the professional part of my visit, but we fell to talking
+of fishing, which had been good, and cubbing, which had been bad,
+and were on to Leg-o'-Mutton Common before I remembered to speak of
+munitions.</p>
+<p>"Not much sign of war here," I said with a relieved sigh. "I was
+afraid they'd have spoilt the dear old heath for a certainty. Only
+don't say it's Down Wood they've gone to, for that'd be more than I
+could stand. I thought there were fairies there long after I ought
+to have been a hard-headed young man of six, and if they've gone
+and desecrated that wood with factories&mdash;"</p>
+<p>The Squire smiled.</p>
+<p>"I don't think I should worry. Amongst all your Unexpected
+Explosives do you happen to condescend to have heard of the gentle
+horse-chestnut and the school-children that collect them? Here are
+the two delinquents I wrote to you about, and we've caught them in
+the act. Just look at them wasting the precious things."</p>
+<p>Two small boys were playing at conkers, two small boys with very
+earnest faces and grubby clothes which never figured in KATE
+GREENAWAY'S pictures, wasting precious material which
+five-and-thirty other scholars were diligently collecting and
+stuffing into sacks. I ought to have given them a lecture on
+patriotism&mdash;the army behind the Army. But we each of us keep
+one childish passion untamed, even if we are unromantic old
+bachelors, and I, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector
+for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives and his very loyal subject,
+who have lived for nearly half-a-century of Octobers in London
+town&mdash;I borrowed the bigger conker and systematically and in
+deadly earnest I fought and defeated the other small boy.</p>
+<p>They say that treason never succeeds; so perhaps I can't be a
+traitor after all.</p>
+<hr />
+<h3>THE UNDISMAYED.</h3>
+<p>In a world of insecurity and change it is good to have one
+bedrock certainty upon which the mind can rest. Thrones totter and
+fall; Commanders-in-chief are superseded; Admirals of the High
+Fleet are displaced; in politics leaders come and go and
+reputations pass; in ordinary life a thousand mutations are
+visible. But amid all this flux there remains mercifully one
+resolute piece of routine that nothing can alter. Whatever may be
+happening elsewhere in the world&mdash;mutinies in the German Navy,
+revolutions in Russia, advances in France, advances in
+Flanders&mdash;Leicester Square keeps its head. Armageddon may be
+turning the world upside down, but it cannot cause those old
+antagonists, STEVENSON and REECE, to cease their perpetual contest;
+and if the War lasts another ten years you will read in <i>The
+Times</i> of October 17th, 1927, a paragraph to the effect that "at
+the close of play yesterday in the billiard match of 16,000 points
+up between Stevenson and Reece, at the Grand Hall, Leicester
+Square, the scores were: Reece (in play), 4,676; Stevenson,
+2,837."</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<h3>NOT CANNIBALS AFTER ALL.</h3>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The first contingent of the American troops brought food for
+six months, and hence the fears of the peasants in France lest they
+should be eaten up are groundless."&mdash;<i>Adelaide
+Advertiser</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"If the public continue to spend the same sum of money on bread
+at 9d. as they did when it was 1s., it is easy to see that the
+consumption will rise by a quarter or 25 per
+cent."&mdash;<i>Glasgow Evening News</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We are always timid about questioning a Scotsman's arithmetic,
+but we make the increase a third, or 33-1/3 per cent.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>[pg
+269]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;"><a href=
+"images/269.png"><img width="100%" src="images/269.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>He (connoisseur of wines)</i>. "WE STAYED SEVERAL DAYS AT AN
+INN IN A LITTLE GLOUCESTERSHIRE VILLAGE, AS WE FOUND THEY HAD SUCH
+AN EXCELLENT CELLAR."</p>
+<p><i>She</i>. "REALLY! I HAD NO IDEA THE RAIDERS HAD GOT SO FAR
+WEST AS THAT."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>CROSS-TALK WITH PETHERTON.</h2>
+<p>Petherton and I have just emerged from another bombardment.
+Certain correspondence in <i>The Surbury Gazette and North Herts
+Courier</i> gave me a welcome excuse for firing what I may term a
+sighting shot. I wrote to my genial neighbour as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+<p>DEAR MR. PETHERTON,&mdash;No doubt you have seen the recent
+letters in the local paper anent the remains of the old Cross,
+which are at once an ornament to Castle Street, Surbury, and a
+standing menace to the peace of mind of the local antiquarians.</p>
+<p>I am exceedingly interested in the matter myself and feel that
+the views of one who, I am sure, adds a wide knowledge of
+arch&aelig;ology to the long list of his accomplishments, would be
+both interesting and instructive to myself and (if you would allow
+your views to be published) to our little community in general.</p>
+<p>If therefore you will write and let me know your opinion on the
+matter I shall take it as a friendly and cousinly (<i>vide</i>
+certain eighteenth-century documents in the Record Office) act.</p>
+<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
+<p>HENRY J. FORDYCE.</p>
+<p>Petherton replied with a whizz-bang as thus:&mdash;</p>
+<p>SIR,&mdash;I have read the idiotic correspondence to which you
+refer, and am informed that you are the author of the screed which
+appeared in last Saturday's issue of the paper. If my informant is
+correct as to the authorship of the letter I can only say it is a
+pity that, with apparently no knowledge of the subject, you should
+venture into print. Anyone enjoying the least acquaintance with the
+rudiments of English history would be perfectly aware that the
+remains have no connection with QUEEN ELEANOR whatever. The
+whereabouts of all the crosses put up to her memory are quite well
+known to arch&aelig;ologists.</p>
+<p>Yours faithfully,</p>
+<p>FREDERICK PETHERTON.</p>
+<p>I replied with light artillery:&mdash;</p>
+<p>DEAR PETHERTON,&mdash;Yours <i>re</i> the late Mrs. EDWARD
+PLANTAGENET to hand.</p>
+<p>Though not a professed arch&aelig;ologist I do know something of
+the ruin in question, having several times examined it and having
+heard, perhaps, most, if not all, the various theories concerning
+it. I have been here a good deal longer than you have, I believe,
+and cannot think that you know more of the subject than I.</p>
+<p>Have you read Wycherley's treatise on the Eleanor Crosses? [I
+invented this monograph for the purpose of inducing Petherton to
+reload.] If not, why not? Perhaps you would like to dispute the
+existence of a castle on the site where the Castle Farm now stands,
+and where such shameless profiteering is carried on in eggs and
+butter?</p>
+<p>By the way, how is your poultry? I notice that your
+<i>seizi&egrave;me si&egrave;cle</i> rooster wants his tail
+remodelling. Perhaps you are not worrying about new plumage for him
+till after the War, though it seems like carrying patriotism to
+absurd lengths.</p>
+<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
+<p>HENRY J. FORDYCE.</p>
+<p>I hope you will allow your letter to be published in <i>The
+Gazette</i>.</p>
+<p>In reply to this Petherton discharged with:&mdash;</p>
+<p>SIR,&mdash;I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may
+not have existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's
+monograph on Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have
+the impudence to rush into print on matters of which they are
+sublimely ignorant.</p>
+<p>Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the
+end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries
+(1272-1307), not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of
+architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not
+earlier than the fifteenth century.</p>
+<p>Trusting you will not commit any further absurdities, though I
+am not too sanguine,</p>
+<p>I am, Yours faithfully,</p>
+<p>FREDERICK PETHERTON.</p>
+<p>My views are not for publication. I <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>[pg 270]</span> prefer
+not to be mixed up in such a symposium.</p>
+<p>It was evident that my neighbour's weapon was beginning to get
+heated, so I flicked him with some more light artillery to draw him
+on, and loosed off with:&mdash;</p>
+<p>Dear Old Man,&mdash;What a historian you are! You have JOHN
+RICHARD GREEN beaten to his knees, FROUDE and GARDINER out of
+sight, and even the authoress of the immortal <i>Little Arthur</i>
+could not have placed EDDY I. with greater chronological
+exactitude. In fact there seems to be no subject on which you
+cannot write informatively, which makes me sorry that you will not
+join in the literary fray in the local paper, as it deprives the
+natives of a great treat.</p>
+<p>But&mdash;there is a but, my dear Fred&mdash;I cannot admit your
+claim to superior knowledge of the Surbury relics. Remember, I have
+grown up with them as it were. Yours ever,</p>
+<p>HARRY FORDYCE.</p>
+<p>Sir (exploded Petherton),&mdash;What senseless drivel you write
+on the least provocation! Whether you grew up with the Surbury
+relics or not, you have certainly decayed with them. Every stone
+that's left of that confounded ruin (probably only a simple
+market-cross) proclaims the date of its birth. Even the broken
+finial and the two crockets lying on the ground expose your
+ignorance. Eleanor Cross, bah!</p>
+<p>Yours flly., F. PETHERTON.</p>
+<p>I thought it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and
+let off a heavy howitzer; which I did, with the
+following:&mdash;</p>
+<p>Dear Freddy,&mdash;I am afraid you have got hold of the wrong
+end of the stick and laid an egg in a mare's nest. [These mixed
+metaphors were designed to tease him into a further barrage.] I did
+not write, and I do not remember saying that I had written, the
+letter to the paper which seems to have given you as much pleasure
+as it has given me. I had no hand in the symposium, but the way you
+have brought your Chesterfield battery into action has been so
+masterly that I, for one, can never regret that you were
+misinformed. I believe the particular letter to <i>The Gazette</i>
+was written by one of the staff, a native of the place, who
+probably carved his name on the base in his youth, and has felt a
+personal interest in the Cross ever since. I hope with this new
+light on the affair you will favour me with your further views on
+history and arch&aelig;ology.</p>
+<p>Yours ever, Harry.</p>
+<p>How lovely the blackberries are looking after the rain!</p>
+<p>But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been
+knocked out by this direct hit.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/270.png"><img width="100%" src="images/270.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<i>Excitable Lady (describing to wounded Tommies the appearance
+of a bomb-hole on the London Front).</i> "You could have buried a
+horse in it. You never saw such a thing in your life!"
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h3>Sugar Control</h3>
+.
+<p>Thanks to the new sugar regulations we now expect half a pound
+of sugar per head per week instead of half a pound of sugar per
+head per-haps.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"HOGS STILL SOARING."</p>
+<p><i>Headline in Canadian Paper.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The shortage of petrol seems to have driven them from the
+roads.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Sir John Hare declares that there is no truth in the statement
+that he is saying '&mdash;&mdash;' to the
+stage."&mdash;<i>Bournemouth Echo.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Personally, we never believed that he would be guilty of such
+language.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The only thing which will actually bring peace is an army of
+occupation standing on its own flat feet, either in Germany or on
+the German frontier."&mdash;<i>Weekly Dispatch.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But why this preference for the flat-footed? Are not the
+hammer-toed to have a chance?</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>[pg
+271]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/271.png"><img width="100%" src="images/271.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>THE DANCE OF DEATH.</h3>
+<p>THE KAISER. "STOP! STOP! I'M TIRED."</p>
+<p>DEATH. "I STARTED AT YOUR BIDDING; I STOP WHEN I CHOOSE."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>[pg
+272]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/272.png"><img width="100%" src="images/272.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Officer</i>. "I SAY&mdash;LOOK HERE. I TOLD YOU TO GO TO
+PADDINGTON, AND YOU'RE GOING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION."</p>
+<p><i>Taxi-Driver</i>. "ORL RIGHT&mdash;ORL RIGHT! YOU'RE LUCKY TO
+GET A CAB AT ALL INSTEAD OF GRUMBLIN' ABAHT WHERE YER WANTS TER GO
+TO!"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM.</h2>
+<h3>CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LX.</h3>
+<p><i>Mary.</i> I wish, Mamma, that there were not so many shocking
+stories in history.</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> History is, indeed, a sad catalogue of human
+miseries, and one is glad to turn aside from the horrors of war to
+the amenities of private life. Shall I tell you something of the
+domestic habits of the English in the early twentieth century?</p>
+<p><i>Mary.</i> Oh do, Mamma; I shall like that very much.</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> The nobility and the well-to-do classes no longer
+lived shut up in gloomy castles, but made a point of spending most
+of their time in public. They never took their meals at home, but
+habitually frequented large buildings called restaurants, fitted up
+with sumptuous and semi-Sultanic splendour. In these halls, while
+the guests sat at a number of tables, they were entertained by
+minstrels and singers. It was even said that they acquired the
+habit of eating and drinking in time to the music. They were waited
+upon for the most part by foreigners, who spoke broken English, and
+what with the babel of tongues, the din of the music and the
+constant popping of corks, for alcohol had not yet been prohibited,
+the scene beggared description.</p>
+<p><i>Richard.</i> Well, I am sure I would rather dine in our neat
+little dining-room, with our silent wireless waiter, than partake
+of the most extravagant repasts in those sumptuous halls.</p>
+<p><i>George.</i> I must just ask you, Mamma, about one thing that
+has all along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords
+about all this time that they let the House of Commons govern the
+country and have their own way in everything?</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> I am afraid, my dear George, that you are
+animated by a somewhat reactionary bias in favour of feudalism,
+which in your own best interests you would do well to curb. It is
+enough to say that some of the peers supported the House of
+Commons, and the majority were too timid to make any stand against
+the numbers and violence of the other House. Nowadays, thanks to
+the wide diffusion of peerages and the fact that they are conferred
+far more freely on persons of advanced political views, this lack
+of independence has largely been eliminated.</p>
+<p><i>Richard.</i> I am sure we must all thank you for the trouble
+you took to explain about Free Trade and Protection; but if you are
+not too tired will you kindly tell us something about the learned
+and clever men who lived at this time?</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> You know, my dear boy, that I am always happy to
+impart information, and am pleased to have such attentive
+listeners. The authoress of your favourite poems, Mary, lived in
+this reign. I mean Mrs. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. The Rev. H.G. WELLS,
+the famous theologian who abolished the Latin and Greek grammars;
+the Baroness Corkscrew&mdash;to call her by the name under which
+she was ultimately elevated to the peerage&mdash;who wrote so many
+beautiful historical romances that she quite superseded Sir WALTER
+SCOTT; Sir JOHN OXENHAM, one of England's greatest poets; and Lord
+HALL-CAINE, author of <i>Isle of Man Power</i>, were commanding
+figures in this period.</p>
+<p><i>Richard.</i> Oh, Mamma, did not Lord HALL-CAINE discover the
+North Pole?</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> Not that I am aware of, my dear boy, though it is
+quite possible. But you are probably confusing him with the Arctic
+explorer, Dr. KANE. Among the scientific men I must mention Sir
+WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page273"
+id="page273"></a>[pg 273]</span> the great Scots agriculturist who
+first applied intensive culture to the kailyard; General BELLOC,
+the illustrious topographer, and HAROLD BEGBIE, who discovered and
+popularized Sir OLIVER LODGE.</p>
+<p><i>Richard.</i> Ah, Mamma, I know enough about the Georgians to
+feel sure that you have left out a great many things. You have
+never told us about the Marquis of NORTHCLIFFE'S discovery of
+America, his introduction of the potato to that Continent, and his
+building of the Yellow House in the Yellowstone Park.</p>
+<p><i>George.</i> And you have not fully satisfied our curiosity
+about Sir GEORGE ROBEY, Baronet, Lord LAUDER, Sir CHARLES CHAPLIN
+and other great Leaders of English Society.</p>
+<p><i>Mrs. M.</i> True, my dear, but you must read their lives in
+the <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>, for here is the tea,
+and I must leave off.</p>
+<hr />
+<h2>ALLIRAP ASRAS.</h2>
+<p>It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian
+ruler, but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it
+should be the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S
+expedition, rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new
+facts. Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a
+Persian kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several
+shillings'-worth of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I
+believe, called, in spite of <i>The Daily Mail</i>) into sheer
+scrap. Knitting however is not what it was in the early days of the
+War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed, my aunt, who has evidently
+an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC NEWTON, merely shaking her
+finger. But self-control among women must be on the increase, for
+in a hotel the other day I overheard a coffee-room conversation in
+which two cases were instanced of supreme heroism under agonising
+conditions&mdash;one being when a butler (an old and honoured
+butler too, who had never misconducted himself before) fainted
+while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most of it
+over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only
+disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the
+butler to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less
+than that.</p>
+<p>It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval
+officer among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits
+to amateur photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish
+for enemy cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to
+be filled up is one asking the applicant, in the interests of
+identification, to specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with
+a conscientiousness not excelled by the actor who blacked himself
+all over to play <i>Othello</i>, stated that she had only an
+appendicitis scar.</p>
+<p>But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing
+that great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that
+he was a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there
+was never any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have
+deceived you, but you must blame not me but a certain domestic
+remedy. If one bright cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing
+this medicinal beverage at a penny a glass, will insist upon being
+outside Westminster Abbey and another at the top of Cockspur Street
+every working day of the week for ever and ever, how can one help
+sooner or later spelling its staple product backwards and
+embroidering a little on the result?</p>
+<p>But what I want to know is&mdash;who drinks sarsaparilla,
+anyway?</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;"><a href=
+"images/273.png"><img width="100%" src="images/273.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<p><i>Vague Tommy (writing letter).</i> "WOT DAY IS IT?"</p>
+<p><i>Chorus.</i> "THE FOURTEENTH."</p>
+<p><i>Tommy.</i> "WOT MONTH?"</p>
+<p><i>Chorus.</i> "OCTOBER."</p>
+<p><i>Tommy.</i> "WOT YEAR?"</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those
+bygone times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and
+our names might have been inscribed in the book of
+immorality."&mdash;<i>New Ireland.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg
+274]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/274.png"><img width="100%" src="images/274.png" alt=
+"" /></a>LAMENTABLE LARCENY IN A BOARDING-HOUSE.
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>A DECLARATION OF WAR.</h2>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire,</p>
+<p>Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and
+expire&mdash;</p>
+<p>A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful
+liar:&mdash;</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago</p>
+<p>I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift&mdash;it was maybe thirty
+'below,'</p>
+<p>And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him
+with snow.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for
+dead,</p>
+<p>But I packed him along, as I've told you, and melted him out
+instead,</p>
+<p>And I rolled him up in my blankets and put him to sleep in my
+bed.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"So he dwelt in my humble shanty while the wintry gales did
+roar,</p>
+<p>While the blizzards howled in the passes and the timber wolves
+at the</p>
+<p class="i4">door,</p>
+<p>And he slept in my bunk at night-time while I stretched out on
+the floor.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"He watched me frying my bacon and he said that the smell was
+grand;</p>
+<p>He watched me bucking the stove-wood, but he never lent me a
+hand,</p>
+<p>And he played on my concertina the airs of his native land.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"And one month grew into two months and two months grew into
+three,</p>
+<p>And there he was sitting and smiling like a blooming Old Man of
+the Sea,</p>
+<p>Eating my pork and beans up and necking my whisky and tea.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"You say, 'Why didn't I shift him?' For the life o' me I
+dunno;</p>
+<p>I suppose there's something inside me that can't tell a fellow
+to go</p>
+<p>I hauled by the heels from a snowdrift at maybe thirty
+'below.'...</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"But at last, when the snows were going and the blue Spring
+skies</p>
+<p class="i4">were pale,</p>
+<p>Out after bear in the valley I met a chap on the
+trail&mdash;</p>
+<p>A chap coming up from the city, who stopped and told me a
+tale&mdash;</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"A tale of a red war raging all over the land and sea,</p>
+<p>And when he was through I was laughing, for the joke of it
+seemed to be</p>
+<p>That Hank was a goldarn German&mdash;and Hank was rooming with
+me!</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"So off I hiked to the shanty, and never a word I said,</p>
+<p>I floated in like a cyclone, I yanked him out of my bed,</p>
+<p>And I grabbed the concertina and smashed it over his head.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"I shook him up for a minute, I stood him down on the floor,</p>
+<p>I grabbed the scruff of his trousers and ran him along to the
+door,</p>
+<p>And I said, 'This here, if you get me, is a Declaration of
+War!'</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>"And I gave him a hoist with my gum-boot, a kind of a lift with
+my toe;</p>
+<p>But you can't give a fellow a hiding, as anyone sure must
+know,</p>
+<p>When you hauled him out of a snowdrift at maybe thirty
+'below.'"</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>C.F.S.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h3>A Good Day's Work.</h3>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"He left Flanders on leave at one o'clock yesterday morning and
+was in London after fourteen months' fighting before
+sundown."&mdash;<i>Daily News</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Why can't we find machies for long-distance raids since Germans
+can?"&mdash;<i>Evening News</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Personally, if distance is required, we prefer a brassie. We can
+only assume that the iron club is chosen in consequence of the
+number of bad lies there are about.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>On the German Naval mutiny:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"They may be divided into two camps. One holds that it is not an
+affair to which too much importance can be attached; the other that
+it is an affair to which one cannot attach too much
+importance."&mdash;<i>Star</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We cannot help feeling that these two factions might safely be
+accommodated in the same camp.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>[pg
+275]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/275.png"><img width="100%" src="images/275.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>A LONG-SIGHTED PATRIOT.</h3>
+<i>Aunt Susie (whose charity begins as far as possible from
+home).</i> "HAVE YOU FOUND OUT WHETHER THEY WEAR KNITTED SOCKS IN
+ARGENTINA?"
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>AT THE PLAY.</h2>
+<h3>"ONE HOUR OF LIFE."</h3>
+<p>In Captain DESMOND COKE'S extravaganza a group of
+philanthropists adopt the time-honoured procedure of ROBIN HOOD and
+his Greenwood Company, robbing Dives on system to pay Lazarus.
+Their economics are sounder than their sociology, which is of the
+crudest. They specialize in jewellery&mdash;useless, barbaric and
+generally vulgar survivals&mdash;which they extract from shop and
+safe, and sell in Amsterdam, distributing the proceeds to various
+deserving charitable agencies. In this particular crowded hour of
+life the leader of the group, a fanatical prig with hypnotic eyes,
+abducts the beautiful <i>Lady Fenton</i>, with ten thousand pounds'
+worth of stuff upon her, from one of the least ambitious of Soho
+restaurants.</p>
+<p>How came she there, thus bedizened? Well, her husband, eccentric
+peer with a priceless collection of snuffboxes and a chronic
+deficiency of humour, had arranged the little dinner to effect a
+reconciliation, away from the prying eyes of their set. It was not
+a success. She felt that she sparkled too much, was piqued, and
+dismissed her lord. Enter the hypnotic prig, who adroitly conveys
+her to his headquarters, preaches to her and converts her to the
+point of surrendering her jewels without a pang, and offering to
+assist in the lifting of the snuffboxes. I can't say more without
+endangering the effect of Captain COKE'S ingenious shifts and
+spoofs.</p>
+<p>The author seemed to me to tempt Providence by placing his
+perfervid philanthropist and his serious doctrines against a
+background of burlesque. But he succeeded in entertaining his
+audience. Miss LILLAH MCCARTHY, looking her very best as <i>Lady
+Fenton</i>, and Mr. COWLEY WRIGHT, looking quite plausible as the
+irresistible chief of the General Charities Distribution Bureau,
+shared the chief honours of the evening.</p>
+<p>T.</p>
+<hr />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The views expressed by Mr. Roosevelt are crystallising
+everywhere, and are bearing excellent fruit."&mdash;<i>Daily
+Paper.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>How does he get his sugar?</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Two million troubles are now standing to Koslovsky's account in
+Petrograd banks."&mdash;<i>Rangitikei Advocate (N.Z.).</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>We knew conditions were very trying in Russia, but had no idea
+any one man had such a burden as this.</p>
+<hr />
+<h2>RHYMES FOR THE TIMES.</h2>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>There was a false Pasha named BOLO,</p>
+<p>Who sank in iniquity so low.</p>
+<p class="i2">That the dirtiest work</p>
+<p class="i2">Of the Hun and the Turk</p>
+<p>Never made him ejaculate <i>Nolo!</i></p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>There was a stout fellow called YAPP,</p>
+<p>A great Red Triangular chap;</p>
+<p class="i2">Now he's working still harder</p>
+<p class="i2">To stock the State larder,</p>
+<p>And never has time for a nap.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>The manners and customs of Clare</p>
+<p>Have long been admittedly "quare,"</p>
+<p class="i2">But the tolerance shown</p>
+<p class="i2">To sedition full-blown</p>
+<p>Is enough to make CADBURY swear.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Politicians unstable and vague</p>
+<p>May well take example from HAIG,</p>
+<p class="i2">Who talks to the Huns</p>
+<p class="i2">In the voice of his guns</p>
+<p>Till they dread him far worse than the plague.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Renowned for her fine macaroni,</p>
+<p>And also for Signor MARCONI,</p>
+<p class="i2">Now Italy sends,</p>
+<p class="i2">To enrapture her friends,</p>
+<p>(And to finish these rhymes), the Caproni.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>[pg
+276]</span>
+<h2>MISSING.</h2>
+<blockquote>
+<p>"He was last seen going over the parapet into the German
+trenches."</p>
+</blockquote>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>What did you find after war's fierce alarms,</p>
+<p class="i2">When the kind earth gave you a resting place,</p>
+<p>And comforting night gathered you in her arms,</p>
+<p class="i2">With light dew falling on your upturned face?</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Did your heart beat, remembering what had been?</p>
+<p class="i2">Did you still hear around you, as you lay,</p>
+<p>The wings of airmen sweeping by unseen,</p>
+<p class="i2">The thunder of the guns at close of day?</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>All nature stoops to guard your lonely bed;</p>
+<p class="i2">Sunshine and rain fall with their calming breath;</p>
+<p>You need no pall, so young and newly dead,</p>
+<p class="i2">Where the Lost Legion triumphs over death.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>When with the morrow's dawn the bugle blew,</p>
+<p class="i2">For the first time it summoned you in vain;</p>
+<p>The Last Post does not sound for such as you;</p>
+<p class="i2">But God's Reveill&eacute; wakens you again.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>SUGAR.</h2>
+<p>"Francesca," I said, "you must be very deeply occupied; for ten
+minutes I have not heard your silvery voice."</p>
+<p>"I am attempting," she said, "to fill up our sugar form."</p>
+<p>"Is it a tremendous struggle?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," she said, "it is a regular brain-smasher."</p>
+<p>"Give me the paper, and let me have a go at it."</p>
+<p>With a haggard face, but without a word, she handed me the buff
+form, and sat silently while I read the various explanations and
+directions.</p>
+<p>"Francesca," I said, "you are doing wrong. It says that the form
+must be filled up and signed by a responsible member of the
+household. Now you can say that you're brilliant or amiable or
+handsome or powerful or domineering, but can you honestly say
+you're responsible? No, you can't. So I shall keep this form and
+fill it up myself in due time, and leave you to look after the hens
+or talk to the gardener."</p>
+<p>"Anybody," she said, "who can wring a smile from a gardener, as
+I have this morning, is entitled to be considered responsible.
+Infirm of purpose! hand me the paper."</p>
+<p>"Very well," I said, "you can have the paper; only remember
+that, if we get fined a thousand pounds for transgressing the
+Defence of the Realm Act, you mustn't ask me for the money. You
+must pay it yourself."</p>
+<p>"I'll chance that," she said, as I handed back the paper.</p>
+<p>"Now then, we shan't be long. Which of these two addresses shall
+we have?"</p>
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+<p>"Why, they tell you to fill in the address in capital letters,
+and then they give you two to pick from. One is 1000, Upper
+Grosvenor Street, W. 1&mdash;"</p>
+<p>"It is a longer street than I had supposed."</p>
+<p>"And the other," she continued, "is 17, Church Lane, Middlewich,
+Cheshire."</p>
+<p>"Let it be Middlewich," I said. "Since boyhood's hour I have
+dreamt of living in Middlewich. As for the other, I simply couldn't
+live in a street of a thousand houses. Could you?"</p>
+<p>"No," she said, "I couldn't. We'll be Middlewichians.... There,
+it's done. Capital letters and all."</p>
+<p>"Don't slack off," I said. "Fill it all up now that you've got
+started."</p>
+<p>"I suppose I'd better begin with myself."</p>
+<p>"Yes," I said, "you may have that privilege. Put it down quick:
+Carlyon, Francesca; age blank, because they don't want ages over
+eighteen; F for female, and Married Woman for occupation. Then
+treat me in the same way, putting M for F, and 2nd Lieutenant of
+Volunteers instead of Married Woman."</p>
+<p>"Why shouldn't I put Married Man as your occupation?"</p>
+<p>"Simply because it isn't done. It's a splendid occupation, but
+it isn't recognised as such in formal documents."</p>
+<p>"Another injustice to women. I shall enter you as Married
+Man."</p>
+<p>"Enter me as anything you like," I said, "only let's get on with
+the job."</p>
+<p>"Very well; you're down as Married Man."</p>
+<p>"Now get on with the children. Muriel first. What about
+her?"</p>
+<p>"But she's away having her education finished."</p>
+<p>"Yes," I said, "but she'll be back for the holidays, and she'll
+want her sugar then, like the rest of us. And Frederick is away at
+<i>his</i> school, probably getting much better sugar than we are.
+He'll be wanting his ration in the holidays. You'd better put a
+note about that."</p>
+<p>"A note?" she said. "There's no room for notes on this form. All
+they want is a bald statement. And that's just what they can't get.
+They'll have to take it with the hair on. I'm cramming in about the
+holidays, and I hope Lord RHONDDA will be pleased with all the
+information he's getting about our family."</p>
+<p>"Keep going," I said; "you've still got the servants to do."</p>
+<p>"Yes, but the kitchenmaid's gone, and I haven't engaged another
+one yet."</p>
+<p>"Don't let that worry you," I said. "Write
+down&mdash;Kitchenmaid about to be engaged. Name will be supplied
+later.'"</p>
+<p>"You're quite brilliant to-day. There, that's finished, thank
+Heaven."</p>
+<p>"Not yet. You've got to address it to the Local Food
+Office."</p>
+<p>"But I haven't the remotest where the Local Food Office is. It
+can't have been there more than a short time, anyhow."</p>
+<p>"Hurrah!" I said, looking over her shoulder at the document. "It
+says if you are in doubt as to the name of the district of your
+Local Food Office you are to inquire of any policeman or special
+constable."</p>
+<p>"That's all very well," she said, "but how are we to find a
+policeman in this remote and peaceful place? I've never seen one.
+Have you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I said, "I think I saw one last year on a bicycle."</p>
+<p>"Well, he's probably arrived somewhere else by this time. He's
+no good to us."</p>
+<p>"No, but we might find a special constable."</p>
+<p>"I'll tell you what," she said, "old Glumgold is a special
+constable. I heard him complaining bitterly of having been hauled
+out of bed during the last air-raid on London. 'No nigher to we nor
+forty mile,' he said it was. He's sure to be among the cabbages. Be
+a dear and dash out and ask him."</p>
+<p>So I found Glumgold in among the cabbages and asked him where
+the Local Food Office was, and he said he'd be gingered if he knew,
+he or his old woman either; and that was the question they was
+a-going to arst of us, because to-day was the last day for sending
+in. So I advised him to chance it with Nebsbury, which happens to
+be eight miles off and possesses a High Street; and then I went
+back to Francesca and told her that Glumgold advised
+Nebsbury&mdash;which was cowardly, but one can't spend a lifetime
+over a fiddle-headed document like that. Anyhow, we folded it up
+and posted it, and we've heard nothing since.</p>
+<p>R.C.L.</p>
+<hr />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>[pg
+277]</span>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href=
+"images/277.png"><img width="100%" src="images/277.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<h3>ECHOES OF THE AIR-RAIDS.</h3>
+<p><i>First Souvenir-hunter</i>. "FOUND ANYFINK, 'ERB?"</p>
+<p><i>Second ditto</i>. "NO; BUT THAT'LL BE ALL RIGHT. THEY'RE SURE
+TO COME AGAIN TERMORRER NIGHT."</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+<h4>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.</i>)</h4>
+<p>Not for a great while have I met a story at once so moving and
+so simply made as <i>Summer</i> (MACMILLAN). Of course at this time
+the art of EDITH WHARTON is no new discovery; but to my thinking
+she has never done better work than this tale of a New England
+village, and the wakening to love of the girl who was drowsing away
+her youth there. It is all, as I say, so simple, and written with
+such apparent economy of effort, that only afterwards does the
+amazing cleverness of Mrs. WHARTON'S method impress itself upon the
+reader. <i>Charity Royall</i> was a waif, of worse than ambiguous
+parentage, brought up in a community where her passionate and
+violently sensitive nature was stifled. Two men loved
+her&mdash;dour middle-aged Lawyer <i>Royall</i>, whose house she
+kept, and <i>Lucius Harney</i>, the young visitor from the city,
+the fairy-prince of poor <i>Charity's</i> one great romance,
+through whom came tragedy. You see already the whole stark
+simplicity of the theme. What I cannot convey to you is that secret
+of Mrs. WHARTON'S that enables her by some exquisitely right word
+or phrase so to illuminate a scene that you see it as though by an
+inspiration of your own, and feel that thus and thus did the thing
+in fact happen. There are episodes in <i>Summer</i>&mdash;for
+example the Fourth of July firework evening, or the wildly macabre
+scene of the night funeral on the mountain&mdash;that seem to me to
+come as near perfection in their telling as anything I am ever
+likely to read, and when you have enjoyed them for yourself I fancy
+you will be inclined to join me in very sincere gratitude for work
+of such rare quality.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Those who admired (which is the same as saying those who read)
+that excellent book, <i>The Retreat from Mons</i>, will be glad to
+hear that its author, Major A. CORBETT-SMITH, has now continued his
+record in a further volume, called <i>The Marne and After</i>
+(CASSELL). In it you will find all those qualities, a sane and
+soldier-like common-sense, an entire absence of gush, and a saving
+humour in the midst of horrors, which made the earlier installment
+memorable. Above all else I have been impressed by the first of
+these characteristics. Major CORBETT-SMITH writes from the
+viewpoint of one to whom even this ghastliest of wars is part of
+the day's work. That he sees its human and hideous sides by no
+means impairs this quiet professional outlook. I recall one phrase
+in his chapter on the secret agents of the enemy: "At the Aisne
+German spies were a regular plague"&mdash;just as one might speak
+of wasps or weather&mdash;which somehow conveyed to me very vividly
+the secret of our original little army's disproportionate influence
+in the early weeks of the War. The operations which we call the
+actual Battle of the Marne (surely fated to be the most
+fought-again engagement in history) are here very clearly
+described, with illustrative plans; while one other chapter, called
+suggestively "<i>Kultur</i>," may be commended to those
+super-philosophers amongst us who are already beginning an attempt
+to belittle the foul record of calculated crime that must for at
+least a generation place Germany outside the pale of civilization.
+For this grim chapter alone I should like to see Major
+CORBETT-SMITH'S otherwise cheery volume scattered broadcast over
+the country.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><i>June</i> (METHUEN) is saturated with the simple
+sentimentality in which American authors excel. I do not know
+whether British novelists could write this sort of book
+successfully if they would, but I do know that they don't. Miss
+EDITH BARNARD DELANO, however, succeeds in getting considerable
+charm into her story, and if it leaves rather a sweeter taste in
+the mouth than some of us relish there are others who like their
+fiction to be strongly sugared. <i>June</i>, <span class=
+"pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>[pg 278]</span> an
+orphan child, was looked after by nigger servants, and by one,
+<i>Mammy</i>, in particular. She possessed a house and a valley;
+and a young man prospecting in the latter met with an accident and
+was discovered by the child. Hence complications, and the removal
+of <i>June</i> from her home to be educated with some cousins. Then
+poverty, hard times and plenty of pluck. But the clouds began to
+lift when <i>June</i> discovered that an emerald cross of hers was
+worth four thousand dollars; and finally the sun burst forth when,
+through the agency of the accidental young man, her property was
+found to be very valuable, and she more valuable still&mdash;to the
+young man. It sounds ingenuous, doesn't it? But not nearly so easy
+to write as it seems, for to produce anything as artless as
+<i>June</i> is an art in itself.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>In <i>The Book of the Happy Warrior</i> (LONGMANS) a chivalrous
+modern knight holds up to our youngsters the patterns of an older
+chivalry to teach them courage, clean fighting and devoted service.
+Sir HENEY NEWBOLT claims that the tradition of the public schools
+is the direct survival of the medi&aelig;val training for
+knighthood, and incidentally defends flannelled and muddied youth
+from hasty aspersions. ROLAND and his OLIVER, RICHARD LION-HEART,
+EDWARD the Black Prince and CHANDOS, DU GUESCLIN and BAYARD, if
+they revisited this tortured earth, would be dismayed by the
+procedure and the chilling impersonality of modern war. Perhaps in
+the glorious single combats of the Flying Corps they might
+recognise some faint semblance of their ancient method. Sir HENRY,
+rightly from his point of view, chooses to ignore the wholesale
+horrors of to-day's warfare and to emphasize the ideal of fighting
+service as a fine discipline and proof of manly worth. He shows an
+obvious, honest, aristocratic bias, but he does not forget another
+side of the matter, as a fragment of an imaginary conversation
+between a young lord and a squire present at the great tourney at
+St. Inglebert's between the Gentlemen of England and of France
+pleasantly shows. The Englishmen were worsted and took their defeat
+in a fine sporting spirit. "How is it we're beaten? We always win
+the battles, don't we?" asks the boy. "The archers win them for
+us," says the Squire. Quite a characteristic little touch of
+subaltern modesty! One thought occurs to me especially. It is
+unthinkable that a book like this should appear in the Germany of
+to-day. It will be worth your while giving it to your boy to find
+out why.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>Since the practice of writing first novels is becoming
+increasingly popular with young authors it was inevitable that a
+"First Novel Library" should find its way on to the market. Whether
+the classification is to be construed as an appeal for forbearance
+for the shortcomings of the neophyte, or as a warning which a
+considerate publisher feels is due to the public, is not for me to
+say. But the policy of charging six shillings for these maiden
+efforts&mdash;all that is required of us for the mature
+masterpieces of our MAURICE HEWLETTS and ARNOLD BENNETTS&mdash;is
+open to question. <i>The Puppet</i>, by JANE HARDING (UNWIN), is
+not without merit, but the faults of the beginner are present in
+manifold. The heroine tells her story in the first person&mdash;a
+difficult method of handling fiction at the best&mdash;and in the
+result we find a young lady of no particular education or apparent
+attainments holding forth in the stilted diction of a rather prosy
+early-Victorian Archbishop. The effect of unreality produced goes
+far to spoil a plot which is wound and unwound with considerable
+skill. Miss HARDING will write a good novel yet, but she must learn
+to make her characters act the parts she assigns to them.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>We all must be writing books about the War. It is natural enough
+to suppose one's own share of war-work is worthy of record, and
+indeed, when we come to think of it, the historian of the future
+will get his complete picture of the time only when he realises how
+every scrap of the national energy was absorbed in the one master
+purpose. That being so it is arguable that Mr. WARD MUIR was
+thinking far ahead in compiling his hospital reminiscences,
+<i>Observations of an Orderly</i> (SIMPKIN). One hastens to make it
+clear that the last thing intended or desired is to disparage the
+usefulness or the stark self-sacrifice of the men who are serving
+in menial capacities in our war hospitals, but to tell the truth
+this account of sculleries and laundry-baskets, polishing paste and
+nigger minstrels, bathrooms and pillow-slips, has not much
+intrinsic interest about it, nor are the author's general
+reflections very different from what one could supply oneself
+without much effort. His notes on war slang are about the best
+thing in the volume, and I liked the story of the blinded
+soldiers&mdash;feeling anything in the world but mournful or
+pathetic&mdash;who played pranks on the Tube escalator; but on the
+whole this is a book which will be of considerable interest only to
+the writer's fellow-labourers. They, beyond any doubt, will be glad
+to read this history of their familiar rounds and common tasks.</p>
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><i>Wanted, a Tortoise-Shell</i> (LANE) would have made an
+excellent short story, but to pursue its farcical developments
+through three hundred pages requires a considerable amount of
+perseverance. The scene of Mr. PETER BLUNDER'S book is laid in
+tropical Jallagar, where the British Resident was keener on cats
+than on his duties. A male tortoise-shell was what he fanatically
+and almost ferociously desired, and to obtain it he was ready to
+barter his daughter to one <i>Kamp</i>, who is tersely described as
+"a fat Swede." I conceived a strong distaste for this large and
+perspiring man, and can congratulate Mr. BLUNDELL on having created
+a character odious enough to linger in the memory. For the rest
+there are some gleams of real fun where a beach-comber tries to
+palm off a dyed cat as the long-deferred tortoise-shell, and the
+exit of this animal from a world too covetous to hold it is
+thoroughly sound farce. But on the whole I failed to get many of
+those quiet gurgles of delight which are the best tribute one can
+pay to a funny man's work.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;"><a href=
+"images/278.png"><img width="100%" src="images/278.png" alt=
+"" /></a>
+<i>Chairman at Farmers' Ordinary.</i> "NOW, GENTLEMEN, FILL UP
+YOUR MATCHBOXES TO THE VERY GOOD HEALTH OF THE CATERER."
+</div>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 153, OCT. 17, 1917***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 10903-h.txt or 10903-h.zip *******</p>
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+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,2014 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153,
+Oct. 17, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2004  [eBook #10903]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 153, OCT. 17, 1917***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Punch, or the London Charivari,
+William Flis, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 10903-h.htm or 10903-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/0/9/0/10903/10903-h/10903-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/0/9/0/10903/10903-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 153.
+
+OCTOBER 17, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The mutiny of the German sailors at Kiel is now explained. They
+preferred death to another speech from the KAISER.
+
+       ***
+
+A Constantinople poet has translated the plays of SHAKSPEARE into
+Turkish. The rendering is said to be faithful to the text, and it is
+assumed that a keen appreciation of Turkey's military necessities
+alone accounts for his reference to the "Swan of Avon" as the "Bulbul
+of Potsdam."
+
+       ***
+
+The use of flour as an ingredient of sausages is now forbidden. Young
+sausages which have hitherto been fed on bread and milk must either be
+broken to bones or killed for the table.
+
+       ***
+
+An optimist writes to express the hope that by this elimination of
+flour the dreadful secret of the sausage may be at last revealed.
+
+       ***
+
+The German Government has created a Pulp Commission. We have always
+said they would be reduced to it in time.
+
+       ***
+
+The King of SIAM'S royal yacht has been turned into a cargo boat.
+Reports that the Sacred White Elephant has been commandeered for use
+as a floating dock are still unconfirmed.
+
+       ***
+
+For giving corn to pheasants a fine of ten pounds has been inflicted
+on a merchant of New York (Lincs.) The removal _en bloc_ of this
+village from the mouth of the Hudson river to its present site should
+finally convince the sceptics of the magnitude of America's war
+effort.
+
+       ***
+
+The Vacant Land Cultivation Society offers a prize of ten shillings
+for the heaviest potato. Some of our most notorious potato-tellers are
+expected to compete.
+
+       ***
+
+The provision of steel helmets for the Metropolitan Police is all
+right so far as it goes, but the Force is still asking why it cannot
+be furnished with some protection for its other extremities.
+
+       ***
+
+From China it is reported that an aboriginal priest now claiming
+the Throne has been accustomed to eat the flesh of tigers, wolves,
+leopards, &c., also the human heart. It is, however, only fair to our
+own restaurateurs to state that, though China is alleged to be on the
+eve of war, there is as yet no food-control in that country.
+
+       ***
+
+An unusual scarcity of wasps is reported from various parts of the
+country. Nothing is being done about it.
+
+       ***
+
+A calf has been sold for two thousand seven hundred guineas in
+Aberdeenshire. The plucky purchaser is understood to have had for some
+time past a craving for a veal cutlet.
+
+       ***
+
+A new form of frightfulness is evidently being practised upon their
+guards by our interned Huns. "Some of them," says a contemporary,
+"purchase a hundred cigars with a portion of the one pound a day which
+is the miserable maximum they may spend on luxuries."
+
+       ***
+
+"People who speak of suicide seldom do anything desperate," says a
+well-known mental expert. So that the KAISER'S threat to fight England
+to the death may be taken for what it is worth.
+
+       ***
+
+An extraordinary meeting of German Reichstag Members has arrived at
+the decision that the Germans cannot hope for victory in the field. We
+see nothing extraordinary in this.
+
+       ***
+
+Professor BERGEN was once described as "the well-known inventor and
+philanthropist." He still invents (his latest is a gas-thrower,
+reported by the _Berliner Tageblatt_ to be "a veritable monster of
+destruction"), but has dropped the other job.
+
+       ***
+
+A swallow-tail butterfly which escaped from the Zoo has been
+re-captured at Eastbourne. When caught it gave the policeman to
+understand that it would go quietly.
+
+       ***
+
+Two men, we read, took twenty-two hours to chisel a hole through the
+three-foot flint concrete roof of the London Opera House. The report
+that they did this to avoid the Entertainment Tax has now been
+contradicted.
+
+       ***
+
+"The American Winston Churchill," says _The Daily Express_, "has to
+plod through life without a middle name." We all have our little cross
+to bear. Even the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS has to plod through life with
+the knowledge that there is another Winston Churchill loose about the
+world.
+
+       ***
+
+It is proposed that Parliament shall sit from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.,
+instead of from 3 to 11 P.M. We do not care for this crude attempt to
+mix business with politics.
+
+       ***
+
+The Boundary Commission Report advocates the creation of thirty-one
+new M.P.'s. It will be a bitter disappointment for those who were
+sanguine enough to hope that Redistribution would spell Reform.
+
+       ***
+
+The Government has commandeered all stocks of rum. The rigours of war,
+it seems, must be suffered even by our little tots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Wit._ "AH, NOW YOU'RE FOR IT, ALBERT?"
+
+_Tractor-Driver._ "WOT'S THE MATTER?"
+
+_The Wit._ "WHY, YOU'VE BEEN AND GONE AND COME ON PARADE WITHOUT
+YOUR SPURS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The bridegroom, 6 ft. 35 ins. in height, was wearing the
+    full-dress uniform of a captain in the Army."--_Great
+    Yarmouth Independent_.
+
+He would need it all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Headline to a description of a recent push:--
+
+    "VONDERFUL RESULTS."--_Evening Paper_.
+
+The "Hidden Hand" in the composing-room?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.
+
+    ["Stedfastness and righteousness are the qualities which the
+    German people value in the highest degree, and which have brought
+    it a good and honourable reputation in the whole world. When we
+    make experiments in lies and deception, intrigue and low cunning,
+    we suffer hopeless and brutal failure. Our lies are coarse and
+    improbable, our ambiguity is pitiful simplicity. The history
+    of the War proves this by a hundred examples. When our enemies
+    poured all these things upon us like a hailstorm, and we convinced
+    ourselves of the effectiveness of such tactics, we tried to
+    imitate them. But these tactics will not fit the German. We are
+    rough but moral, we are credulous but honest."--_Herr DERNBURG, in
+    "Deutsche Politik."_]
+
+  In Eden bowers, so fair to see,
+  There dwelt, when sin was yet to be,
+  A guileless Serpent up a tree,
+    Sniffing the virgin breezes;
+  Till EVE (the huzzy!), one fine day,
+  With evil purpose came his way,
+  And led that simple worm astray
+    By low and wicked wheezes.
+
+  A Wolf there was, quite sweet and good,
+  Till in his path Red Riding-Hood
+  Went camouflaging through the wood--
+    A brazen little terror;
+  Large teeth she had and bulgy eyes
+  And told the most amazing lies,
+  And taught him, in a flowery guise,
+    The downward route to error.
+
+  Of Fritz's nature, fresh as morn,
+  Pure as a babe that's just been born,
+  Clean as a poodle lately-shorn,
+    These are symbolic samples;
+  The Wolf unversed in specious vice,
+  The Serpent with a taste as nice
+  As anything in Paradise--
+    Debauched by bad examples.
+
+  England seduced us. 'Neath her spell,
+  Mistress of lies, we fell and fell
+  Into the poisoned sink, or well,
+    Of faked and fabulous rumour;
+  And there, as we were bound to do,
+  We failed, because we loved the True,
+  And loathed the False as alien to
+    Our artless German humour.
+
+  I speak as one who ought to know;
+  Myself I tried a trick or so
+  In U.S.A. and had to go,
+    Looking absurdly silly;
+  And now against us, big with fate,
+  That Hemisphere has thrown its weight,
+  Both North and South (though up to date
+    We haven't heard from Chili).
+
+  Laughter we've earned--a noble shame!
+  Built to achieve a higher aim,
+  We honest Huns can't play the game
+    Of shifty propaganders;
+  Henceforth we'd better all get back
+  On to the straight and righteous track
+  And help our HINDENBURG to hack
+    (If not too late) through Flanders.
+
+  O.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Red heels were much in evidence, both Lady D---- and Lady C----
+    affected them, and they were to be seen in other unexpected
+    places."--_Observer_.
+
+Certainly their use as ornaments in the small of the back surprised us
+a good deal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CARP AT MIRAMEL.
+
+    [In the following article all actual names, personal, geographical
+    and regimental, have been duly camouflaged.]
+
+The carp that live in the moat of the Chateau de Miramel (in the zone
+of the armies in France) are of an age and ugliness incredible and
+of a superlative cynicism. One of them--local tradition pointed to a
+one-eyed old reprobate with a yellow face--is the richer these hundred
+years past by an English peeress's diamond ring.
+
+From the bottom of the moat one world-war is like another, and none
+of them very different from peace. It is but a row of grinning red
+healthy faces over the coping and a shower of bread and biscuit.
+
+When the nightmare of BONAPARTE was ended in the Autumn of 1815, the
+22nd K.R. Lancers, commanded by an English peer, billeted themselves
+in and around the Chateau de Miramel. The English peer, finding time
+hang heavy on his hands, or my lady's letters proving insistent, sent
+for her to come out to him at Miramel. You could do that sort of
+homely thing in 1815.
+
+So my lady comes to Miramel, and the very first day, as she leans out
+of window in the round tower, mishandles her diamond ring (gift of my
+lord) and drops it into the moat. Her host, the good Comte de Miramel,
+dredged and drained, but no trace of the diamond ring was ever found.
+But old Cyclops, the carp, grinned horribly.
+
+In due course my lord and lady went home to the Isle of Fogs, and
+thence they sent their portraits to their host as a souvenir of their
+stay. Here indeed the portraits still hang, very graceful in the style
+of the period. And to the appreciative visitor Madame de Miramel (of
+to-day) shows a missive of thanks, written in indifferent bad French,
+in which my lady refers sorrowfully to "_ma bague diamantee_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once again the 22nd K.R. Lancers are billeted in Miramel. The other
+day I noticed on a worn stone pillar at the great door the following
+half-obliterated words:--
+
+    "ED. WYNN, pikeman of the dashing 22nd King's Ryol ridgemet of
+    lanciers. Sept. 1815";
+
+and freshly scratched above the inscription:--
+
+  "Better at piking than at speling.
+      22nd K.R. Lancers. JAS. BARNET. Sept. 1917."
+
+The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like another.
+There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd King's
+Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium for
+self-expression.
+
+Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or so.
+There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring of
+red grinning faces above the coping. Yesterday I threw a disused
+safety-razor blade over the old scoundrel's nose. And "Bless my soul!"
+he said, as he lazily bolted it, "there hasn't been such a year for
+minnows since 1815."
+
+But Armageddon 1917 holds surprises even for those who live at the
+bottom of a moat. For very early this morning a bauble fell into the
+moat that Cyclops himself couldn't digest. The old cynic was found
+floating, scarred belly upwards, on the surface of the water.
+
+The mess-waiter took charge of the _post-mortem_. Like the _Duke of
+Plaza Toro_, he "likes an interment" and rarely misses a last rite.
+A keen fisherman, he had little difficulty in extracting an exhibit
+for the Court's inspection, which he unhesitatingly pronounced to be
+a diamond ring in an advanced state of decomposition.
+
+The mess-cook, on the other hand, identified the relic as the
+stopping, recently mislaid, from one of his back teeth.
+
+In any case there seems little room for doubt that a Hun airman has
+avenged the long-dead lady.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ENIGMA.
+
+POLICEMAN (_on duty at St. Stephen's_). "STAND ASIDE, PLEASE."
+
+MR. PUNCH. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"
+
+POLICEMAN. "PARLIAMENT REASSEMBLING."
+
+MR. PUNCH. "WHY?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Ex-Bus-driver (in difficulties in the roadless zone)._
+"'ERE'S OLE PICCADILLY UP AGIN--FAIR IN THE 'IGHTH OF THE SEASON."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MUD LARKS.
+
+All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour" of old
+Atkins. Every distinguished tripper who comes Cook's-touring to the
+Front for a couple of days devotes at least a chapter of his resultant
+book to it. "How in thunder does Thomas do it?" they ask. "What the
+mischief does he find to laugh at?" Listen.
+
+Years ago, when the well-known War was young, a great man sat in
+his sanctum exercising his grey matter. Ho said to himself, "There
+is a War on. Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from
+comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the term
+of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined and
+bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and scared
+silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum diluted, reliefs
+late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them for diamond-studded
+munitioneers. Their wives will write saying, 'Little Jimmie has the
+mumps; and what about the rent? You aren't spending all of five bob a
+week on yourself, are you?' This is but a tithe (or else a tittle) of
+the things that will occur to them, and their sunny natures will sour
+and sicken if something isn't done about it."
+
+The great man sat up all night chewing penholders and pondering on the
+problem. The BIG IDEA came with the end of the eighth penholder.
+
+He sprang to his feet, fires of inspiration flashing from his eyes,
+and boomed, "Let there be _Funny Cuts_!"--then went to bed. Next
+morning he created "I." (which stands for Intelligence), carefully
+selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs of appropriate hue, and told
+them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever
+since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us.
+Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG
+accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon
+cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with
+rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen
+climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to
+'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of
+the green tabs will make of it. A hint is as good as a wink to them,
+a nudge ample. Under the genius of these imaginative artists the most
+trivial incident burgeons forth into a LE QUEUX spell-binder, and the
+whole British Army, mustering about its Sergeant-Majors, gets selected
+cameos read to it every morning at roll-call, laughs brokenly into the
+jaws of dawn and continues chuckling to itself all day. Now you know.
+
+Our Adjutant had a telephone call not long ago. "Army speaking," said
+a voice. "Will you send somebody over to Rataplan and see if there is
+a Town Major there?"
+
+The Adjutant said he would, and a N.C.O. was despatched forthwith. He
+returned later, reporting no symptoms of one, so the Adjutant rang
+up Exchange and asked to be hooked on to Army Headquarters. "Which
+branch?" Exchange inquired. "Why, really I don't know--forgot to ask,"
+the Adjutant confessed. "I'll have a try at 'A.'"
+
+"Hello," said "A." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," said the
+Adjutant. "You astound me, Fair Unknown," said "A."; "but what about
+it, anyway?" The Adjutant apologised and asked Exchange for "Q."
+department. "Hello," said "Q." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan,"
+said the Adjutant. "Sorry, old thing, whoever you are," said "Q.,"
+"but we don't stock 'em. Rations, iron; perspirators, box; oil, whale,
+delivered with promptitude and civility, but NOT Town Majors--sorry."
+The Adjutant sighed and consulted with Exchange as to who possibly
+could have rung him up.
+
+Exchange couldn't guess unless it was "I."--no harm in trying, anyhow.
+
+"Hello!" said "I." "There is no Town Major at Rataplan," the Adjutant,
+droned somewhat wearily. "Wha-t!" "I." exclaimed, suddenly interested.
+"Say it again, clearer." "RAT-A-PLAN--NO--TOWN--MA-JOR," the Adjutant
+repeated. There was a pause; then he heard the somebody give off an
+awed "Good Lord!" and drop the receiver. Next morning in _Funny Cuts_
+(the organ of Intelligence) we learned that "Corps Headquarters
+was heavily shelled last night. The Town Major is missing. This is
+evidence that the enemy has brought long-range guns into the opposite
+sector." Followed masses of information as to the probable make of the
+guns, the size of shell they preferred, the life-story of the Battery
+Commander, his favourite flower and author.
+
+The Bosch, always on the alert to snaffle the paying devices of an
+opposition firm, now has his "I." staff and _Funny Cuts_ as well. From
+time to time we capture a copy and read this sort of thing:--
+
+"From agonised screeches heard by one of our intrepid airmen while
+patrolling over the enemy's lines yesterday, it is evident that the
+brutal and relentless British are bayonetting their prisoners."
+
+A Highland Division, whose star pipers were holding a dirge and lament
+contest on that date, are now ticking off the hours to the next
+offensive.
+
+The Antrims had a _cordon bleu_ by the name of Michael O'Callagan.
+He was a sturdy rogue, having retreated all the way from Mons, and
+subsequently advanced all the way back to the Yser with a huge
+stock-pot on his back, from which he had furnished mysterious stews
+to all comers, at all hours, under any conditions. For this, and for
+the fact that he could cook under water, and would turn out hot meals
+when other _chefs_ were committing suicide, much was forgiven him,
+but he was prone to look upon the _vin_ when it was _rouge_ and was
+habitually coated an inch thick with a varnish of soot and pot-black.
+One morning he calmly hove himself over the parapet and, in spite of
+the earnest attentions of Hun snipers, remained there long enough to
+collect sufficient _debris_ to boil his dixies. Next day the Bosch
+_Funny Cuts_ flared forth scareheads:--
+
+    "SAVAGES ON THE SOMME.
+
+    "The desperate and unprincipled British are employing black
+    cannibal Zulus in the defence of their system. Yesterday one of
+    them, a chief of incredibly depraved appearance, was observed
+    scouting in the open."
+
+The communique ended with a treatise on the Zulu, its black man-eating
+habits, and an exhortation to "our old Brandenburgers" not to be
+dismayed.
+
+PATLANDER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OWING TO PRESSURE FROM THE ALL-HIGHEST, HIS ORIENTAL
+ALLY IS FORMING A MAGIC-CARPET BOMBING SQUADRON.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MORE SEX PROBLEMS.
+
+From a stock-auction report:--
+
+    "THE BULL CALVES. THE BULL CALVES."
+    _Glasgow Herald._
+
+Notwithstanding the repetition of this statement we find great
+difficulty in believing it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "SOLDIERS' CHRISTMAS GIFTS. POSTING DATES FOR EGYPT AND SALONIKA."
+    _Times._
+
+It sounds a little like consigning coal to Newcastle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "AIR RAIDS.--Peaceful country rectory, Hampshire, well out of
+    danger zone, can receive three or four paying guests. Large
+    garden, beautiful scenery, high, bracing. Simple life. L10
+    each weekly."--_The Times._
+
+This enterprising parson seems to have borrowed his recipe for the
+simple life from GRAY'S _Elegy_:--
+
+  Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
+    They kept the noiseless tenner of their way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BEASTS ROYAL.
+
+IV.
+
+KING HENRY'S STAG-HOUND. A.D. 1536.
+
+  Ten puffs upon my master's toes,
+    And twenty on his sleeves,
+  Upon his hat a Tudor rose
+    Set round with silver leaves;
+      But never a hunting-spear,
+        And never a rowel-spur;
+      Who is this that he calls his Dear?
+        I think I will bark at her.
+
+  The Windsor groves were fresh and green,
+    Dangling with Summer dew,
+  When my master rode with his Spanish queen,
+    And the huntsman cried, "Halloo!"
+      Now never a horn is heard,
+        And never the lances stir;
+      Who is this that he calls his Bird?
+        I think I will follow her.
+
+  To-night my master walks alone
+    In the pleached pathway dim,
+  And the thick moss reddens on the stone
+    Where she used to walk with him.
+      When will he shout for the glove
+        And the spear of the verderer?
+      Where is she gone whom he called his Love?
+        For I cannot follow her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SECOND CHILDHOOD.
+
+I must make a confession to someone. I have wasted raw material which
+is a substitute for something else indispensable for defeating the
+Hun, and probably traitor is the right name for me. Let me explain.
+
+Somewhere in Nutshire there is a place called Cotterham. It is one of
+those little villages which somehow nobody expects to meet nowadays
+outside the pages of a KATE GREENAWAY painting book. There is the
+village green, with its pond and geese and absurdly pretty cottages
+with gardens full of red bergamot and lads'-love, and a little
+school where the children are still taught to curtsey and pull their
+forelocks when the Squire goes by. And beyond the Green, at the end
+of Plough Lane and after you have crossed Leg-o'-Mutton Common, you
+come to Down Wood, and if you don't meet Little Red Riding-Hood on
+the way or come on Snow White and her seven dwarfs, that is only
+because you must have taken the wrong turning after you came through
+the kissing-gate at the bottom of Lovers' Lane. I am a native of
+Cotterham, and in my more reflective moments I wonder why such an
+idyllic place should have produced anything so unromantic as myself,
+His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector for All Sorts of
+Unexpected Explosives. Cotterham still has a large place in my
+affections, and it gave me a considerable shock the other day to get
+a letter from the Squire, who is an old friend, asking me down for a
+week-end, and adding, "You can do a little professional job for me
+too. You really will be interested to see what splendid work is being
+done here in your line of fire. The output is some of the best in the
+district. But there has been trouble lately and the leaders of the two
+biggest shifts were found to have appropriated a substantial part of
+the output to their own uses. I shall rely on you to straighten things
+out and suggest the right penalties."
+
+So they were even making munitions in Cotterham. I conjured up visions
+of interminable rows of huts, of thousands of overalled workers
+swamping Plough Lane, trampling the Green brown, scaring the geese,
+obliterating the immemorial shape of Leg-o'-Mutton Common by a
+mushroom township, laying Down Wood low, and coming to me with some
+miserable tale of petty pilfering for my adjustment. I must own I got
+out of the train at Muddlehampstead and into the station fly feeling
+distinctly low-spirited. It was some consolation to find that the
+railway still stopped seven miles short of my village, though I
+reflected gloomily that the place itself was doubtless a network of
+light railways by this time. We bowled along in stately fashion up
+Plough Lane and past Halfpenny Cross to the Manor House with its
+thatched roof and Virginia-creeper all over the porch. The Squire
+carried me off at once for the professional part of my visit, but we
+fell to talking of fishing, which had been good, and cubbing, which
+had been bad, and were on to Leg-o'-Mutton Common before I remembered
+to speak of munitions.
+
+"Not much sign of war here," I said with a relieved sigh. "I was
+afraid they'd have spoilt the dear old heath for a certainty. Only
+don't say it's Down Wood they've gone to, for that'd be more than I
+could stand. I thought there were fairies there long after I ought
+to have been a hard-headed young man of six, and if they've gone and
+desecrated that wood with factories--"
+
+The Squire smiled.
+
+"I don't think I should worry. Amongst all your Unexpected Explosives
+do you happen to condescend to have heard of the gentle horse-chestnut
+and the school-children that collect them? Here are the two
+delinquents I wrote to you about, and we've caught them in the act.
+Just look at them wasting the precious things."
+
+Two small boys were playing at conkers, two small boys with very
+earnest faces and grubby clothes which never figured in KATE
+GREENAWAY'S pictures, wasting precious material which five-and-thirty
+other scholars were diligently collecting and stuffing into sacks. I
+ought to have given them a lecture on patriotism--the army behind the
+Army. But we each of us keep one childish passion untamed, even if we
+are unromantic old bachelors, and I, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant
+Acting Inspector for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives and his very
+loyal subject, who have lived for nearly half-a-century of Octobers in
+London town--I borrowed the bigger conker and systematically and in
+deadly earnest I fought and defeated the other small boy.
+
+They say that treason never succeeds; so perhaps I can't be a traitor
+after all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE UNDISMAYED.
+
+In a world of insecurity and change it is good to have one bedrock
+certainty upon which the mind can rest. Thrones totter and fall;
+Commanders-in-chief are superseded; Admirals of the High Fleet are
+displaced; in politics leaders come and go and reputations pass; in
+ordinary life a thousand mutations are visible. But amid all this flux
+there remains mercifully one resolute piece of routine that nothing
+can alter. Whatever may be happening elsewhere in the world--mutinies
+in the German Navy, revolutions in Russia, advances in France,
+advances in Flanders--Leicester Square keeps its head. Armageddon
+may be turning the world upside down, but it cannot cause those old
+antagonists, STEVENSON and REECE, to cease their perpetual contest;
+and if the War lasts another ten years you will read in _The Times_
+of October 17th, 1927, a paragraph to the effect that "at the close
+of play yesterday in the billiard match of 16,000 points up between
+Stevenson and Reece, at the Grand Hall, Leicester Square, the scores
+were: Reece (in play), 4,676; Stevenson, 2,837."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOT CANNIBALS AFTER ALL.
+
+    "The first contingent of the American troops brought food for six
+    months, and hence the fears of the peasants in France lest they
+    should be eaten up are groundless."--_Adelaide Advertiser_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "If the public continue to spend the same sum of money on bread
+    at 9d. as they did when it was 1s., it is easy to see that the
+    consumption will rise by a quarter or 25 per cent."--_Glasgow
+    Evening News_.
+
+We are always timid about questioning a Scotsman's arithmetic, but we
+make the increase a third, or 33-1/3 per cent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _He (connoisseur of wines)_. "WE STAYED SEVERAL DAYS AT
+AN INN IN A LITTLE GLOUCESTERSHIRE VILLAGE, AS WE FOUND THEY HAD SUCH
+AN EXCELLENT CELLAR."
+
+_She_. "REALLY! I HAD NO IDEA THE RAIDERS HAD GOT SO FAR WEST AS
+THAT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CROSS-TALK WITH PETHERTON.
+
+Petherton and I have just emerged from another bombardment. Certain
+correspondence in _The Surbury Gazette and North Herts Courier_ gave
+me a welcome excuse for firing what I may term a sighting shot. I
+wrote to my genial neighbour as follows:--
+
+DEAR MR. PETHERTON,--No doubt you have seen the recent letters in the
+local paper anent the remains of the old Cross, which are at once an
+ornament to Castle Street, Surbury, and a standing menace to the peace
+of mind of the local antiquarians.
+
+I am exceedingly interested in the matter myself and feel that the
+views of one who, I am sure, adds a wide knowledge of archaeology
+to the long list of his accomplishments, would be both interesting
+and instructive to myself and (if you would allow your views to be
+published) to our little community in general.
+
+If therefore you will write and let me know your opinion on the
+matter I shall take it as a friendly and cousinly (_vide_ certain
+eighteenth-century documents in the Record Office) act.
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+HENRY J. FORDYCE.
+
+Petherton replied with a whizz-bang as thus:--
+
+SIR,--I have read the idiotic correspondence to which you refer, and
+am informed that you are the author of the screed which appeared in
+last Saturday's issue of the paper. If my informant is correct as to
+the authorship of the letter I can only say it is a pity that, with
+apparently no knowledge of the subject, you should venture into print.
+Anyone enjoying the least acquaintance with the rudiments of English
+history would be perfectly aware that the remains have no connection
+with QUEEN ELEANOR whatever. The whereabouts of all the crosses put
+up to her memory are quite well known to archaeologists.
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+FREDERICK PETHERTON.
+
+I replied with light artillery:--
+
+DEAR PETHERTON,--Yours _re_ the late Mrs. EDWARD PLANTAGENET to hand.
+
+Though not a professed archaeologist I do know something of the ruin in
+question, having several times examined it and having heard, perhaps,
+most, if not all, the various theories concerning it. I have been here
+a good deal longer than you have, I believe, and cannot think that you
+know more of the subject than I.
+
+Have you read Wycherley's treatise on the Eleanor Crosses? [I invented
+this monograph for the purpose of inducing Petherton to reload.] If
+not, why not? Perhaps you would like to dispute the existence of a
+castle on the site where the Castle Farm now stands, and where such
+shameless profiteering is carried on in eggs and butter?
+
+By the way, how is your poultry? I notice that your _seizieme siecle_
+rooster wants his tail remodelling. Perhaps you are not worrying about
+new plumage for him till after the War, though it seems like carrying
+patriotism to absurd lengths.
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+HENRY J. FORDYCE.
+
+I hope you will allow your letter to be published in _The Gazette_.
+
+In reply to this Petherton discharged with:--
+
+SIR,--I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may not have
+existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's monograph on
+Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have the impudence to
+rush into print on matters of which they are sublimely ignorant.
+
+Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the end
+of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries
+(1272-1307), not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of
+architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not
+earlier than the fifteenth century.
+
+Trusting you will not commit any further absurdities, though I am not
+too sanguine,
+
+I am, Yours faithfully,
+
+FREDERICK PETHERTON.
+
+My views are not for publication. I prefer not to be mixed up in such
+a symposium.
+
+It was evident that my neighbour's weapon was beginning to get heated,
+so I flicked him with some more light artillery to draw him on, and
+loosed off with:--
+
+Dear Old Man,--What a historian you are! You have JOHN RICHARD GREEN
+beaten to his knees, FROUDE and GARDINER out of sight, and even the
+authoress of the immortal _Little Arthur_ could not have placed EDDY
+I. with greater chronological exactitude. In fact there seems to be no
+subject on which you cannot write informatively, which makes me sorry
+that you will not join in the literary fray in the local paper, as it
+deprives the natives of a great treat.
+
+But--there is a but, my dear Fred--I cannot admit your claim to
+superior knowledge of the Surbury relics. Remember, I have grown up
+with them as it were. Yours ever,
+
+HARRY FORDYCE.
+
+Sir (exploded Petherton),--What senseless drivel you write on the
+least provocation! Whether you grew up with the Surbury relics or not,
+you have certainly decayed with them. Every stone that's left of that
+confounded ruin (probably only a simple market-cross) proclaims the
+date of its birth. Even the broken finial and the two crockets lying
+on the ground expose your ignorance. Eleanor Cross, bah!
+
+Yours flly., F. PETHERTON.
+
+I thought it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and let
+off a heavy howitzer; which I did, with the following:--
+
+Dear Freddy,--I am afraid you have got hold of the wrong end of the
+stick and laid an egg in a mare's nest. [These mixed metaphors were
+designed to tease him into a further barrage.] I did not write, and
+I do not remember saying that I had written, the letter to the paper
+which seems to have given you as much pleasure as it has given me.
+I had no hand in the symposium, but the way you have brought your
+Chesterfield battery into action has been so masterly that I, for one,
+can never regret that you were misinformed. I believe the particular
+letter to _The Gazette_ was written by one of the staff, a native of
+the place, who probably carved his name on the base in his youth, and
+has felt a personal interest in the Cross ever since. I hope with this
+new light on the affair you will favour me with your further views on
+history and archaeology.
+
+Yours ever, Harry.
+
+How lovely the blackberries are looking after the rain!
+
+But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been
+knocked out by this direct hit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Excitable Lady (describing to wounded Tommies the
+appearance of a bomb-hole on the London Front)._ "You could have
+buried a horse in it. You never saw such a thing in your life!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUGAR CONTROL.
+
+Thanks to the new sugar regulations we now expect half a pound of
+sugar per head per week instead of half a pound of sugar per head
+per-haps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "HOGS STILL SOARING."
+    _Headline in Canadian Paper._
+
+The shortage of petrol seems to have driven them from the roads.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Sir John Hare declares that there is no truth in the statement
+    that he is saying '----' to the stage."--_Bournemouth Echo._
+
+Personally, we never believed that he would be guilty of such
+language.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The only thing which will actually bring peace is an army of
+    occupation standing on its own flat feet, either in Germany or
+    on the German frontier."--_Weekly Dispatch._
+
+But why this preference for the flat-footed? Are not the hammer-toed
+to have a chance?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE DANCE OF DEATH.
+
+THE KAISER. "STOP! STOP! I'M TIRED."
+
+DEATH. "I STARTED AT YOUR BIDDING; I STOP WHEN I CHOOSE."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Officer_. "I SAY--LOOK HERE. I TOLD YOU TO GO TO
+PADDINGTON, AND YOU'RE GOING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION."
+
+_Taxi-Driver_. "ORL RIGHT--ORL RIGHT! YOU'RE LUCKY TO GET A CAB AT ALL
+INSTEAD OF GRUMBLIN' ABAHT WHERE YER WANTS TER GO TO!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM.
+
+CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LX.
+
+_Mary._ I wish, Mamma, that there were not so many shocking stories in
+history.
+
+_Mrs. M._ History is, indeed, a sad catalogue of human miseries, and
+one is glad to turn aside from the horrors of war to the amenities of
+private life. Shall I tell you something of the domestic habits of the
+English in the early twentieth century?
+
+_Mary._ Oh do, Mamma; I shall like that very much.
+
+_Mrs. M._ The nobility and the well-to-do classes no longer lived
+shut up in gloomy castles, but made a point of spending most of their
+time in public. They never took their meals at home, but habitually
+frequented large buildings called restaurants, fitted up with
+sumptuous and semi-Sultanic splendour. In these halls, while the
+guests sat at a number of tables, they were entertained by minstrels
+and singers. It was even said that they acquired the habit of eating
+and drinking in time to the music. They were waited upon for the
+most part by foreigners, who spoke broken English, and what with the
+babel of tongues, the din of the music and the constant popping of
+corks, for alcohol had not yet been prohibited, the scene beggared
+description.
+
+_Richard._ Well, I am sure I would rather dine in our neat little
+dining-room, with our silent wireless waiter, than partake of the most
+extravagant repasts in those sumptuous halls.
+
+_George._ I must just ask you, Mamma, about one thing that has all
+along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords about all this
+time that they let the House of Commons govern the country and have
+their own way in everything?
+
+_Mrs. M._ I am afraid, my dear George, that you are animated by a
+somewhat reactionary bias in favour of feudalism, which in your own
+best interests you would do well to curb. It is enough to say that
+some of the peers supported the House of Commons, and the majority
+were too timid to make any stand against the numbers and violence of
+the other House. Nowadays, thanks to the wide diffusion of peerages
+and the fact that they are conferred far more freely on persons of
+advanced political views, this lack of independence has largely been
+eliminated.
+
+_Richard._ I am sure we must all thank you for the trouble you took to
+explain about Free Trade and Protection; but if you are not too tired
+will you kindly tell us something about the learned and clever men who
+lived at this time?
+
+_Mrs. M._ You know, my dear boy, that I am always happy to impart
+information, and am pleased to have such attentive listeners. The
+authoress of your favourite poems, Mary, lived in this reign. I mean
+Mrs. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. The Rev. H.G. WELLS, the famous theologian
+who abolished the Latin and Greek grammars; the Baroness Corkscrew--to
+call her by the name under which she was ultimately elevated to the
+peerage--who wrote so many beautiful historical romances that she
+quite superseded Sir WALTER SCOTT; Sir JOHN OXENHAM, one of England's
+greatest poets; and Lord HALL-CAINE, author of _Isle of Man Power_,
+were commanding figures in this period.
+
+_Richard._ Oh, Mamma, did not Lord HALL-CAINE discover the North Pole?
+
+_Mrs. M._ Not that I am aware of, my dear boy, though it is quite
+possible. But you are probably confusing him with the Arctic explorer,
+Dr. KANE. Among the scientific men I must mention Sir WILLIAM
+ROBERTSON NICOLL, the great Scots agriculturist who first applied
+intensive culture to the kailyard; General BELLOC, the illustrious
+topographer, and HAROLD BEGBIE, who discovered and popularized Sir
+OLIVER LODGE.
+
+_Richard._ Ah, Mamma, I know enough about the Georgians to feel sure
+that you have left out a great many things. You have never told
+us about the Marquis of NORTHCLIFFE'S discovery of America, his
+introduction of the potato to that Continent, and his building of
+the Yellow House in the Yellowstone Park.
+
+_George._ And you have not fully satisfied our curiosity about Sir
+GEORGE ROBEY, Baronet, Lord LAUDER, Sir CHARLES CHAPLIN and other
+great Leaders of English Society.
+
+_Mrs. M._ True, my dear, but you must read their lives in the
+_Dictionary of National Biography_, for here is the tea, and I
+must leave off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALLIRAP ASRAS.
+
+It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian ruler,
+but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it should be
+the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S expedition,
+rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new facts.
+Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian
+kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth
+of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite
+of _The Daily Mail_) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it
+was in the early days of the War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed,
+my aunt, who has evidently an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC
+NEWTON, merely shaking her finger. But self-control among women
+must be on the increase, for in a hotel the other day I overheard a
+coffee-room conversation in which two cases were instanced of supreme
+heroism under agonising conditions--one being when a butler (an old
+and honoured butler too, who had never misconducted himself before)
+fainted while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most
+of it over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only
+disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the butler
+to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less than that.
+
+It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer
+among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur
+photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy
+cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up
+is one asking the applicant, in the interests of identification, to
+specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with a conscientiousness
+not excelled by the actor who blacked himself all over to play
+_Othello_, stated that she had only an appendicitis scar.
+
+But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing that
+great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that he was
+a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there was never
+any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have deceived you, but
+you must blame not me but a certain domestic remedy. If one bright
+cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing this medicinal beverage
+at a penny a glass, will insist upon being outside Westminster Abbey
+and another at the top of Cockspur Street every working day of the
+week for ever and ever, how can one help sooner or later spelling its
+staple product backwards and embroidering a little on the result?
+
+But what I want to know is--who drinks sarsaparilla, anyway?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Vague Tommy (writing letter)._ "WOT DAY IS IT?"
+
+_Chorus._ "THE FOURTEENTH."
+
+_Tommy._ "WOT MONTH?"
+
+_Chorus._ "OCTOBER."
+
+_Tommy._ "WOT YEAR?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those bygone
+    times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and our
+    names might have been inscribed in the book of immorality."--_New
+    Ireland._
+
+We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LAMENTABLE LARCENY IN A BOARDING-HOUSE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A DECLARATION OF WAR.
+
+  This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire,
+  Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and expire--
+  A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful liar:--
+
+  "'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago
+  I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift--it was maybe thirty 'below,'
+  And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him with snow.
+
+  "He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for dead,
+  But I packed him along, as I've told you, and melted him out instead,
+  And I rolled him up in my blankets and put him to sleep in my bed.
+
+  "So he dwelt in my humble shanty while the wintry gales did roar,
+  While the blizzards howled in the passes and the timber wolves at the
+      door,
+  And he slept in my bunk at night-time while I stretched out on the floor.
+
+  "He watched me frying my bacon and he said that the smell was grand;
+  He watched me bucking the stove-wood, but he never lent me a hand,
+  And he played on my concertina the airs of his native land.
+
+  "And one month grew into two months and two months grew into three,
+  And there he was sitting and smiling like a blooming Old Man of the Sea,
+  Eating my pork and beans up and necking my whisky and tea.
+
+  "You say, 'Why didn't I shift him?' For the life o' me I dunno;
+  I suppose there's something inside me that can't tell a fellow to go
+  I hauled by the heels from a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'...
+
+  "But at last, when the snows were going and the blue Spring skies
+      were pale,
+  Out after bear in the valley I met a chap on the trail--
+  A chap coming up from the city, who stopped and told me a tale--
+
+  "A tale of a red war raging all over the land and sea,
+  And when he was through I was laughing, for the joke of it seemed to be
+  That Hank was a goldarn German--and Hank was rooming with me!
+
+  "So off I hiked to the shanty, and never a word I said,
+  I floated in like a cyclone, I yanked him out of my bed,
+  And I grabbed the concertina and smashed it over his head.
+
+  "I shook him up for a minute, I stood him down on the floor,
+  I grabbed the scruff of his trousers and ran him along to the door,
+  And I said, 'This here, if you get me, is a Declaration of War!'
+
+  "And I gave him a hoist with my gum-boot, a kind of a lift with my toe;
+  But you can't give a fellow a hiding, as anyone sure must know,
+  When you hauled him out of a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'"
+
+  C.F.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A GOOD DAY'S WORK.
+
+    "He left Flanders on leave at one o'clock yesterday morning
+    and was in London after fourteen months' fighting before
+    sundown."--_Daily News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Why can't we find machies for long-distance raids since Germans
+    can?"--_Evening News_.
+
+Personally, if distance is required, we prefer a brassie. We can only
+assume that the iron club is chosen in consequence of the number of
+bad lies there are about.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the German Naval mutiny:--
+
+    "They may be divided into two camps. One holds that it is not
+    an affair to which too much importance can be attached; the
+    other that it is an affair to which one cannot attach too much
+    importance."--_Star_.
+
+We cannot help feeling that these two factions might safely be
+accommodated in the same camp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A LONG-SIGHTED PATRIOT.
+
+_Aunt Susie (whose charity begins as far as possible from home)._
+"HAVE YOU FOUND OUT WHETHER THEY WEAR KNITTED SOCKS IN ARGENTINA?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"ONE HOUR OF LIFE."
+
+In Captain DESMOND COKE'S extravaganza a group of philanthropists
+adopt the time-honoured procedure of ROBIN HOOD and his Greenwood
+Company, robbing Dives on system to pay Lazarus. Their economics are
+sounder than their sociology, which is of the crudest. They specialize
+in jewellery--useless, barbaric and generally vulgar survivals--which
+they extract from shop and safe, and sell in Amsterdam, distributing
+the proceeds to various deserving charitable agencies. In this
+particular crowded hour of life the leader of the group, a fanatical
+prig with hypnotic eyes, abducts the beautiful _Lady Fenton_, with
+ten thousand pounds' worth of stuff upon her, from one of the least
+ambitious of Soho restaurants.
+
+How came she there, thus bedizened? Well, her husband, eccentric peer
+with a priceless collection of snuffboxes and a chronic deficiency of
+humour, had arranged the little dinner to effect a reconciliation,
+away from the prying eyes of their set. It was not a success. She felt
+that she sparkled too much, was piqued, and dismissed her lord. Enter
+the hypnotic prig, who adroitly conveys her to his headquarters,
+preaches to her and converts her to the point of surrendering her
+jewels without a pang, and offering to assist in the lifting of the
+snuffboxes. I can't say more without endangering the effect of Captain
+COKE'S ingenious shifts and spoofs.
+
+The author seemed to me to tempt Providence by placing his perfervid
+philanthropist and his serious doctrines against a background of
+burlesque. But he succeeded in entertaining his audience. Miss LILLAH
+MCCARTHY, looking her very best as _Lady Fenton_, and Mr. COWLEY
+WRIGHT, looking quite plausible as the irresistible chief of the
+General Charities Distribution Bureau, shared the chief honours of the
+evening.
+
+T.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The views expressed by Mr. Roosevelt are crystallising
+    everywhere, and are bearing excellent fruit."--_Daily Paper._
+
+How does he get his sugar?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Two million troubles are now standing to Koslovsky's account
+    in Petrograd banks."--_Rangitikei Advocate (N.Z.)._
+
+We knew conditions were very trying in Russia, but had no idea any one
+man had such a burden as this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+RHYMES FOR THE TIMES.
+
+  There was a false Pasha named BOLO,
+  Who sank in iniquity so low.
+    That the dirtiest work
+    Of the Hun and the Turk
+  Never made him ejaculate _Nolo!_
+
+  There was a stout fellow called YAPP,
+  A great Red Triangular chap;
+    Now he's working still harder
+    To stock the State larder,
+  And never has time for a nap.
+
+  The manners and customs of Clare
+  Have long been admittedly "quare,"
+    But the tolerance shown
+    To sedition full-blown
+  Is enough to make CADBURY swear.
+
+  Politicians unstable and vague
+  May well take example from HAIG,
+    Who talks to the Huns
+    In the voice of his guns
+  Till they dread him far worse than the plague.
+
+  Renowned for her fine macaroni,
+  And also for Signor MARCONI,
+    Now Italy sends,
+    To enrapture her friends,
+  (And to finish these rhymes), the Caproni.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MISSING.
+
+    "He was last seen going over the parapet into the German
+    trenches."
+
+  What did you find after war's fierce alarms,
+    When the kind earth gave you a resting place,
+  And comforting night gathered you in her arms,
+    With light dew falling on your upturned face?
+
+  Did your heart beat, remembering what had been?
+    Did you still hear around you, as you lay,
+  The wings of airmen sweeping by unseen,
+    The thunder of the guns at close of day?
+
+  All nature stoops to guard your lonely bed;
+    Sunshine and rain fall with their calming breath;
+  You need no pall, so young and newly dead,
+    Where the Lost Legion triumphs over death.
+
+  When with the morrow's dawn the bugle blew,
+    For the first time it summoned you in vain;
+  The Last Post does not sound for such as you;
+    But God's Reveille wakens you again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUGAR.
+
+"Francesca," I said, "you must be very deeply occupied; for ten
+minutes I have not heard your silvery voice."
+
+"I am attempting," she said, "to fill up our sugar form."
+
+"Is it a tremendous struggle?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "it is a regular brain-smasher."
+
+"Give me the paper, and let me have a go at it."
+
+With a haggard face, but without a word, she handed me the buff form,
+and sat silently while I read the various explanations and directions.
+
+"Francesca," I said, "you are doing wrong. It says that the form must
+be filled up and signed by a responsible member of the household. Now
+you can say that you're brilliant or amiable or handsome or powerful
+or domineering, but can you honestly say you're responsible? No, you
+can't. So I shall keep this form and fill it up myself in due time,
+and leave you to look after the hens or talk to the gardener."
+
+"Anybody," she said, "who can wring a smile from a gardener, as I have
+this morning, is entitled to be considered responsible. Infirm of
+purpose! hand me the paper."
+
+"Very well," I said, "you can have the paper; only remember that,
+if we get fined a thousand pounds for transgressing the Defence of
+the Realm Act, you mustn't ask me for the money. You must pay it
+yourself."
+
+"I'll chance that," she said, as I handed back the paper.
+
+"Now then, we shan't be long. Which of these two addresses shall we
+have?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why, they tell you to fill in the address in capital letters, and
+then they give you two to pick from. One is 1000, Upper Grosvenor
+Street, W. 1--"
+
+"It is a longer street than I had supposed."
+
+"And the other," she continued, "is 17, Church Lane, Middlewich,
+Cheshire."
+
+"Let it be Middlewich," I said. "Since boyhood's hour I have dreamt
+of living in Middlewich. As for the other, I simply couldn't live in
+a street of a thousand houses. Could you?"
+
+"No," she said, "I couldn't. We'll be Middlewichians.... There, it's
+done. Capital letters and all."
+
+"Don't slack off," I said. "Fill it all up now that you've got
+started."
+
+"I suppose I'd better begin with myself."
+
+"Yes," I said, "you may have that privilege. Put it down quick:
+Carlyon, Francesca; age blank, because they don't want ages over
+eighteen; F for female, and Married Woman for occupation. Then treat
+me in the same way, putting M for F, and 2nd Lieutenant of Volunteers
+instead of Married Woman."
+
+"Why shouldn't I put Married Man as your occupation?"
+
+"Simply because it isn't done. It's a splendid occupation, but it
+isn't recognised as such in formal documents."
+
+"Another injustice to women. I shall enter you as Married Man."
+
+"Enter me as anything you like," I said, "only let's get on with the
+job."
+
+"Very well; you're down as Married Man."
+
+"Now get on with the children. Muriel first. What about her?"
+
+"But she's away having her education finished."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but she'll be back for the holidays, and she'll want
+her sugar then, like the rest of us. And Frederick is away at _his_
+school, probably getting much better sugar than we are. He'll be
+wanting his ration in the holidays. You'd better put a note about
+that."
+
+"A note?" she said. "There's no room for notes on this form. All they
+want is a bald statement. And that's just what they can't get. They'll
+have to take it with the hair on. I'm cramming in about the holidays,
+and I hope Lord RHONDDA will be pleased with all the information he's
+getting about our family."
+
+"Keep going," I said; "you've still got the servants to do."
+
+"Yes, but the kitchenmaid's gone, and I haven't engaged another one
+yet."
+
+"Don't let that worry you," I said. "Write down--Kitchenmaid about to
+be engaged. Name will be supplied later.'"
+
+"You're quite brilliant to-day. There, that's finished, thank Heaven."
+
+"Not yet. You've got to address it to the Local Food Office."
+
+"But I haven't the remotest where the Local Food Office is. It can't
+have been there more than a short time, anyhow."
+
+"Hurrah!" I said, looking over her shoulder at the document. "It says
+if you are in doubt as to the name of the district of your Local Food
+Office you are to inquire of any policeman or special constable."
+
+"That's all very well," she said, "but how are we to find a policeman
+in this remote and peaceful place? I've never seen one. Have you?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I think I saw one last year on a bicycle."
+
+"Well, he's probably arrived somewhere else by this time. He's no good
+to us."
+
+"No, but we might find a special constable."
+
+"I'll tell you what," she said, "old Glumgold is a special constable.
+I heard him complaining bitterly of having been hauled out of bed
+during the last air-raid on London. 'No nigher to we nor forty mile,'
+he said it was. He's sure to be among the cabbages. Be a dear and dash
+out and ask him."
+
+So I found Glumgold in among the cabbages and asked him where the
+Local Food Office was, and he said he'd be gingered if he knew, he
+or his old woman either; and that was the question they was a-going
+to arst of us, because to-day was the last day for sending in. So I
+advised him to chance it with Nebsbury, which happens to be eight
+miles off and possesses a High Street; and then I went back to
+Francesca and told her that Glumgold advised Nebsbury--which was
+cowardly, but one can't spend a lifetime over a fiddle-headed document
+like that. Anyhow, we folded it up and posted it, and we've heard
+nothing since.
+
+R.C.L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ECHOES OF THE AIR-RAIDS.
+
+_First Souvenir-hunter_. "FOUND ANYFINK, 'ERB?"
+
+_Second ditto_. "NO; BUT THAT'LL BE ALL RIGHT. THEY'RE SURE TO COME
+AGAIN TERMORRER NIGHT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
+
+Not for a great while have I met a story at once so moving and so
+simply made as _Summer_ (MACMILLAN). Of course at this time the art
+of EDITH WHARTON is no new discovery; but to my thinking she has never
+done better work than this tale of a New England village, and the
+wakening to love of the girl who was drowsing away her youth there.
+It is all, as I say, so simple, and written with such apparent economy
+of effort, that only afterwards does the amazing cleverness of Mrs.
+WHARTON'S method impress itself upon the reader. _Charity Royall_ was
+a waif, of worse than ambiguous parentage, brought up in a community
+where her passionate and violently sensitive nature was stifled. Two
+men loved her--dour middle-aged Lawyer _Royall_, whose house she kept,
+and _Lucius Harney_, the young visitor from the city, the fairy-prince
+of poor _Charity's_ one great romance, through whom came tragedy. You
+see already the whole stark simplicity of the theme. What I cannot
+convey to you is that secret of Mrs. WHARTON'S that enables her by
+some exquisitely right word or phrase so to illuminate a scene that
+you see it as though by an inspiration of your own, and feel that
+thus and thus did the thing in fact happen. There are episodes in
+_Summer_--for example the Fourth of July firework evening, or the
+wildly macabre scene of the night funeral on the mountain--that seem
+to me to come as near perfection in their telling as anything I am
+ever likely to read, and when you have enjoyed them for yourself I
+fancy you will be inclined to join me in very sincere gratitude for
+work of such rare quality.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Those who admired (which is the same as saying those who read) that
+excellent book, _The Retreat from Mons_, will be glad to hear that
+its author, Major A. CORBETT-SMITH, has now continued his record in a
+further volume, called _The Marne and After_ (CASSELL). In it you will
+find all those qualities, a sane and soldier-like common-sense, an
+entire absence of gush, and a saving humour in the midst of horrors,
+which made the earlier installment memorable. Above all else I
+have been impressed by the first of these characteristics. Major
+CORBETT-SMITH writes from the viewpoint of one to whom even this
+ghastliest of wars is part of the day's work. That he sees its human
+and hideous sides by no means impairs this quiet professional outlook.
+I recall one phrase in his chapter on the secret agents of the enemy:
+"At the Aisne German spies were a regular plague"--just as one might
+speak of wasps or weather--which somehow conveyed to me very vividly
+the secret of our original little army's disproportionate influence
+in the early weeks of the War. The operations which we call the
+actual Battle of the Marne (surely fated to be the most fought-again
+engagement in history) are here very clearly described, with
+illustrative plans; while one other chapter, called suggestively
+"_Kultur_," may be commended to those super-philosophers amongst us
+who are already beginning an attempt to belittle the foul record of
+calculated crime that must for at least a generation place Germany
+outside the pale of civilization. For this grim chapter alone I should
+like to see Major CORBETT-SMITH'S otherwise cheery volume scattered
+broadcast over the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_June_ (METHUEN) is saturated with the simple sentimentality in which
+American authors excel. I do not know whether British novelists could
+write this sort of book successfully if they would, but I do know that
+they don't. Miss EDITH BARNARD DELANO, however, succeeds in getting
+considerable charm into her story, and if it leaves rather a sweeter
+taste in the mouth than some of us relish there are others who like
+their fiction to be strongly sugared. _June_, an orphan child, was
+looked after by nigger servants, and by one, _Mammy_, in particular.
+She possessed a house and a valley; and a young man prospecting in the
+latter met with an accident and was discovered by the child. Hence
+complications, and the removal of _June_ from her home to be educated
+with some cousins. Then poverty, hard times and plenty of pluck.
+But the clouds began to lift when _June_ discovered that an emerald
+cross of hers was worth four thousand dollars; and finally the sun
+burst forth when, through the agency of the accidental young man,
+her property was found to be very valuable, and she more valuable
+still--to the young man. It sounds ingenuous, doesn't it? But not
+nearly so easy to write as it seems, for to produce anything as
+artless as _June_ is an art in itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _The Book of the Happy Warrior_ (LONGMANS) a chivalrous modern
+knight holds up to our youngsters the patterns of an older chivalry
+to teach them courage, clean fighting and devoted service. Sir HENEY
+NEWBOLT claims that the tradition of the public schools is the direct
+survival of the mediaeval training for knighthood, and incidentally
+defends flannelled and muddied youth from hasty aspersions. ROLAND and
+his OLIVER, RICHARD LION-HEART, EDWARD the Black Prince and CHANDOS,
+DU GUESCLIN and BAYARD, if they revisited this tortured earth, would
+be dismayed by the procedure and the chilling impersonality of modern
+war. Perhaps in the glorious single combats of the Flying Corps they
+might recognise some faint semblance of their ancient method. Sir
+HENRY, rightly from his point of view, chooses to ignore the wholesale
+horrors of to-day's warfare and to emphasize the ideal of fighting
+service as a fine discipline and proof of manly worth. He shows an
+obvious, honest, aristocratic bias, but he does not forget another
+side of the matter, as a fragment of an imaginary conversation
+between a young lord and a squire present at the great tourney at St.
+Inglebert's between the Gentlemen of England and of France pleasantly
+shows. The Englishmen were worsted and took their defeat in a fine
+sporting spirit. "How is it we're beaten? We always win the battles,
+don't we?" asks the boy. "The archers win them for us," says the
+Squire. Quite a characteristic little touch of subaltern modesty! One
+thought occurs to me especially. It is unthinkable that a book like
+this should appear in the Germany of to-day. It will be worth your
+while giving it to your boy to find out why.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since the practice of writing first novels is becoming increasingly
+popular with young authors it was inevitable that a "First Novel
+Library" should find its way on to the market. Whether the
+classification is to be construed as an appeal for forbearance for
+the shortcomings of the neophyte, or as a warning which a considerate
+publisher feels is due to the public, is not for me to say. But the
+policy of charging six shillings for these maiden efforts--all that
+is required of us for the mature masterpieces of our MAURICE HEWLETTS
+and ARNOLD BENNETTS--is open to question. _The Puppet_, by JANE
+HARDING (UNWIN), is not without merit, but the faults of the beginner
+are present in manifold. The heroine tells her story in the first
+person--a difficult method of handling fiction at the best--and in the
+result we find a young lady of no particular education or apparent
+attainments holding forth in the stilted diction of a rather prosy
+early-Victorian Archbishop. The effect of unreality produced goes far
+to spoil a plot which is wound and unwound with considerable skill.
+Miss HARDING will write a good novel yet, but she must learn to make
+her characters act the parts she assigns to them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We all must be writing books about the War. It is natural enough to
+suppose one's own share of war-work is worthy of record, and indeed,
+when we come to think of it, the historian of the future will get his
+complete picture of the time only when he realises how every scrap
+of the national energy was absorbed in the one master purpose. That
+being so it is arguable that Mr. WARD MUIR was thinking far ahead in
+compiling his hospital reminiscences, _Observations of an Orderly_
+(SIMPKIN). One hastens to make it clear that the last thing intended
+or desired is to disparage the usefulness or the stark self-sacrifice
+of the men who are serving in menial capacities in our war hospitals,
+but to tell the truth this account of sculleries and laundry-baskets,
+polishing paste and nigger minstrels, bathrooms and pillow-slips, has
+not much intrinsic interest about it, nor are the author's general
+reflections very different from what one could supply oneself without
+much effort. His notes on war slang are about the best thing in
+the volume, and I liked the story of the blinded soldiers--feeling
+anything in the world but mournful or pathetic--who played pranks on
+the Tube escalator; but on the whole this is a book which will be of
+considerable interest only to the writer's fellow-labourers. They,
+beyond any doubt, will be glad to read this history of their familiar
+rounds and common tasks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Wanted, a Tortoise-Shell_ (LANE) would have made an excellent short
+story, but to pursue its farcical developments through three hundred
+pages requires a considerable amount of perseverance. The scene of Mr.
+PETER BLUNDER'S book is laid in tropical Jallagar, where the British
+Resident was keener on cats than on his duties. A male tortoise-shell
+was what he fanatically and almost ferociously desired, and to obtain
+it he was ready to barter his daughter to one _Kamp_, who is tersely
+described as "a fat Swede." I conceived a strong distaste for this
+large and perspiring man, and can congratulate Mr. BLUNDELL on having
+created a character odious enough to linger in the memory. For the
+rest there are some gleams of real fun where a beach-comber tries to
+palm off a dyed cat as the long-deferred tortoise-shell, and the exit
+of this animal from a world too covetous to hold it is thoroughly
+sound farce. But on the whole I failed to get many of those quiet
+gurgles of delight which are the best tribute one can pay to a funny
+man's work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Chairman at Farmers' Ordinary._ "NOW, GENTLEMEN, FILL
+UP YOUR MATCHBOXES TO THE VERY GOOD HEALTH OF THE CATERER."]
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+153, OCT. 17, 1917***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 10903.txt or 10903.zip *******
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