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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+April 8, 1914, by Various
+
+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. 146, April 8, 1914
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 14, 2007 [EBook #23032]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Janet Blenkinship and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+
+VOL. 146
+
+
+APRIL 8, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+     "MR. ASQUITH CLEANS THE SLATE."
+
+_Daily Chronicle._
+
+The pity is that so many of his followers seem to prefer to slate the
+clean.
+
+       * * *
+
+Even _The Nation_ is not quite satisfied with the Government, and has
+been alluding to "the extreme slackness of Cabinet methods," and
+complains that "situations are not thought out beforehand." The
+Government, apparently, is now taking the lesson to heart, for _H.M.S.
+Foresight_, we read, has now replaced _H.M.S. Pathfinder in_ Belfast
+Lough.
+
+       * * *
+
+What the newspapers describe as "An unknown Botticelli" has just been
+sold by a celebrated firm of art dealers to an American gentleman, and
+it only remains to hope that the painting was not unknown to BOTTICELLI.
+
+       * * *
+
+"A telegram from Toledo," says a contemporary, "reports the theft of
+three valuable pictures by the celebrated artist, El Greco." There must
+be some mistake here. Anyhow, at the time of his death, a good many
+years ago, this gentleman was not under suspicion.
+
+       * * *
+
+The Christian Endeavour Union of Washington, alarmed at the spread of
+luxury, has launched a society whose members pledge themselves to wear
+no finery during Easter. Those members who hide baldness by means of
+elaborate coiffures might carry the idea further by appearing, for one
+week only, with heads like Easter eggs.
+
+       * * *
+
+Whether it is due to the Suffrage movement or not it is difficult to
+say, but women are undoubtedly coming into their rights by degrees. By
+the provisions of the new Bankruptcy Act it is now possible for any
+married woman, whether trading apart from her husband or not, to be made
+a bankrupt.
+
+       * * *
+
+In connection with the "Kensington Camp Week," when an effort is to be
+made to raise sufficient funds to establish and equip headquarters for
+the Kensington Reservists, a full-sized elephant has been chartered to
+ramble about the principal thoroughfares and collect money for the
+cause. To ensure success the sagacious quadruped is to be trained to
+step accidentally on the toes of those persons who ignore its appeal.
+
+       * * *
+
+A correspondent writes to _The Observer_ complaining bitterly of the
+state of the morass leading to the Aerodrome at Hendon. This gentleman
+does not realise that there is a didactic purpose in the cause of his
+annoyance. Learn to fly and you will keep your boots clean.
+
+       * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Nut (in car)._ "WHAT'S THAT, KID? 'WHY DON'T I KEEP ON
+THE ROAD?' WELL, THE SWEEP MUST BE DEAF--THE BALLY HOOTAH DON'T SHIFT
+HIM, AND--WELL, MY DEAR GIRL, THE CAR WAS CLEANED THIS MORNING!"]
+
+       * * *
+
+A man has been sentenced at Barmen, Prussia, on three separate counts to
+terms of imprisonment totalling 175 years. It is proposed that all the
+proprietors of specifics for prolonging life shall be given a free hand
+to enable the prisoner to cope with his sentence.
+
+       * * *
+
+All German actresses, whether married or single, are, in accordance with
+the ruling of the German Theatrical Union of Berlin, to be styled
+henceforth "Frau Schauspielerin," _i.e._ "Mrs. Actress." We are
+confident that this does not mean that those who are not married ought
+to be.
+
+       * * *
+
+An advertisement from _The Times_:--"BIG GAME EXPEDITION. Private and
+public shooting. Polar bears, musk oxen, walrus and seals arranged."
+This is not so easy as it sounds, for, ten to one, as soon as you have
+got the beasts arranged one of those plaguey musk oxen will spoil the
+whole thing by moving out of its place.
+
+       * * *
+
+A remarkable story is being told of the sagacity of a horse belonging to
+Captain WATSON, of Ardow, Mull. It lost a shoe, and, managing to get out
+of the field where it was grazing, travelled a considerable distance to
+a blacksmith, who was astonished to find the horse standing in front of
+the door holding up a fore-leg. The horse was shod, and then--we are
+afraid the rest of the story makes ugly reading--coolly galloped off
+without paying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "After the annexation of Alsace by Germany the baron stayed some
+     years in Paris, and became an intimate friend of Chopin."
+
+                                                 _Andover Advertiser._
+
+Never realising that CHOPIN had died more than twenty years before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a beauty specialist's advertisement:--
+
+     "How a poet of such a 'profound subtlety of instinct for the
+     absolute expression of absolute natural beauty' as Keats could have
+     penned the lines:--
+
+     '_Beauty is Fat, Fat Beauty. That is all Ye know on earth, and all
+     ye need to know._'
+
+     must remain one of those unfathomable curiosities of the working of
+     the human mind."
+
+We hope the writer hasn't been bothering about it for long. The good
+news we have for him--that KEATS didn't--will remove a great weight from
+his mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The bride's going away costume was of Parma violet cloth, with
+     waistcoat effect, in brocaded silk. She wore, also, a large blue
+     wolf, the gift of the bridegroom."
+
+     _Newcastle Evening Chronicle._
+
+_Bride_. "Of course, dear, one is bound not to look a gift wolf in the
+mouth, but are you _sure_ the large blue ones don't bite?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW TO GET ON OFF-HAND.
+
+(_A New Way With Employers._)
+
+The applicant for work is usually thrown into a state of nervous
+prostration by the difficulties that beset his task. By a perusal of the
+following hints he may learn to acquire an invulnerable calm, and if he
+follows the directions given he can reckon on surprising results.
+
+Suppose the application is for clerical work.
+
+When you are shown into the office of the employer he will probably be
+engaged with his correspondence. Do not stand meekly in front of him
+till he looks up and addresses you. This is playing into his hands.
+Instead, be perfectly at your ease. Make yourself at home. You might
+ring up one of your acquaintances on the telephone and have a little
+chat until the employer is disposed to interview you.
+
+Possibly, however, he himself may be using the instrument. If so draw a
+seat to the desk and write any little note you may wish to. You will
+find writing materials handy. The stamps are usually kept in one of the
+small drawers to the right of the desk.
+
+Either of these proceedings will show that you are used to an office and
+will create an impression on the employer. If you look at him you will
+see that it has done so.
+
+If he stares at you and continues to stare, say pleasantly, "What a
+glorious sky this morning! I believe we are in for a long spell of fine
+weather."
+
+At this he will probably grunt out gruffly, "Ugh!"
+
+Sympathise with his tonsils. Recommend any simple remedy of which you
+have heard, or point out the advantages of several spots on the Sussex
+coast. Ask him where his favourite holiday resort is; whether he goes
+there alone or if he is married, and if so how many children he has. Ask
+if they are all well at home.
+
+Remember politeness costs nothing.
+
+This method of leading up to business is much better than the old one,
+in which you stand and are bullied by a man who has no sort of right
+over you except that he has employment to offer and you want it badly.
+
+Therefore converse with him as if he were an equal, though possibly he
+may be your inferior.
+
+He may not answer your kind enquiries, but look you up and down from the
+welt of your boot to your scarf-pin. All employers have learnt this
+method of scrutiny. They have learnt it from their wives.
+
+Should he examine you in this manner, smile agreeably and walk a few
+yards to display your profile. Then change the angle and afford him a
+back view. Say easily, "This collar fits neatly, does it not?" or
+something like that.
+
+Turning, you can show yourself pleased with his own style of dress.
+
+"Excuse my mentioning it," you remark, "but your taste in neck-gear is
+exquisite. I have similar ties myself."
+
+This will flatter him, and those men are very susceptible to flattery.
+Also he will be led to speculate favourably upon the stylishness and
+extent of your wardrobe.
+
+After this interval of mutual admiration you draw a chair to the centre
+of the room and say, "I believe you have a vacancy in the office? What
+is it you want me to be? I presume you think of still managing the
+business yourself? I will gladly listen to your terms and we will
+discuss my prospects."
+
+It is now his move. Lean back in your chair and light a cigarette,
+regarding him with a reassuring smile.
+
+You will find that he will have listened to you attentively, looking
+hard at your face. As you finish he will push his chair back, rise and
+strut across the room.
+
+Now is your chance to decide your fate one way or the other.
+
+When he has gone a few steps produce your watch and exclaim in a mildly
+vexed tone, "How annoying! I had almost forgotten. I have another
+appointment at eleven. In the short time remaining at our disposal it is
+impossible to deal adequately with any offer you may make. May I propose
+an adjournment?"
+
+The suggestion of independence thus delicately conveyed will usually
+have the desired effect and result in an immediate engagement.
+
+Should the employer fail to be impressed he simply pushes the bell and
+you are shown off the premises with great promptitude.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "WANTED, strong Willing Girl, age 18, to wait on trained nurses and
+     assist third housemaid upstairs."
+
+     _Advt. in "Morning Post."_
+
+We should give the third housemaid one more chance and then, if she
+still can't get upstairs without assistance, dismiss her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+IN A GOOD CAUSE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_To Every Reader of "Punch"._
+
+DEAR READER,--H.R.H. PRINCE ARTHUR OF CONNAUGHT has consented to take
+the chair at the Centenary dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent
+Institution on May 6th. This Institution devotes itself to the help of
+artists who are in need through poverty, sickness or other ill-chance.
+As a lover of Art--and, of men--I am in close sympathy with this good
+work, and am to be represented at the dinner in the person of my Art
+Editor, Mr. F.H. TOWNSEND, who will act as one of the Stewards. I am
+appealing to my readers of their kindness to send something to swell his
+list, and so to help in making this Centenary a memorable year in the
+history of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution. Contributions
+addressed to Mr. F.H. TOWNSEND, "Punch" Office, 10, Bouverie Street,
+E.C., will be very gratefully acknowledged.
+
+                                Your faithful Servant,
+                                                    Punch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Unrest in India.
+
+     "The handwriting appeared to be that of a young school student and
+     the word 'Prosecutor' had been spelt 'Prosecutor.' The matter is
+     under enquiry."
+
+     "_Statesman_" (_Calcutta_).
+
+It is our earnest hope that this grave business will be sifted to the
+bottom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AN EASTER EGG.
+
+THE GREY FOWL. "A LITTLE SUGGESTION THAT I HAVE LAID ON THE TABLE--SO TO
+SPEAK."]
+
+[Illustration: _Servant (rebuked for bringing in a dirty cup_). "FUNNY
+THING, MUM, I ALWAYS SEEM TO HIT UPON THIS ONE WHEN YOU HAVE COMPANY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MANLY PART.
+
+(_Reflections at the moment of "Moving in."_)
+
+    The house has burst a-bloom like CERES' daughter;
+      The painters bicker and the plumbers flee;
+    The H. tap in the bathroom gives cold water
+        Endlessly, like the C.
+
+    All arts are being used to gild the tarnished,
+      And exorcise old ghosts and spirits fled,
+    And treacherous quags abound where boards are varnished
+        And no man's boot may tread.
+
+    And none can tell me where my spats were taken,
+      And decorators' coats adorn the pegs,
+    And savour of new paint surrounds the bacon,
+        New paint is in the eggs.
+
+    And huge men meet me and remark, "This dresser,
+      Where shall we put it?" And of course I say,
+    "Up in the bedroom;" and they answer, "Yessir,"
+        But Marion bids them stay.
+
+    All right--I'll sit (the sole place where one _can_ sit)
+      And gaze upon these walls with wild surmise,
+    And muse on all the things we've lost in transit,
+        The socks, the gloves, the ties.
+
+    Here, where in time to come the firebeams ruddy,
+      Falling on cosy chairs and bookshelves straight,
+    Shall show to me my own familiar study,
+        And Maud shall do the grate,
+
+    Here in this narrow carpet's sacred border,
+      Girt by the wet distemper's weltering foam,
+    I'll do my bit to set the house in order
+        And make it seem like home.
+
+    Mere hackwork, doubtless, is the stuff for women,
+      But mine to dissipate the dark has-been,
+    Mine to remove what shades are clustered dim in
+        Corners and coigns unseen;
+
+    To start the holiest rite of installation,
+      And from the still-remembering walls to wipe
+    All traces of a previous occupation--
+        Briefly, to light my pipe.
+
+    Paint is no hall-mark of a decent dwelling,
+      And moving furniture makes such a din;
+    The master's part shall be the ghost-dispelling--
+        That is where he comes in.
+
+    Forget not, while ye tramp with tread sonorous
+      The unclothed stairs and catch my weed's perfume,
+    That three mild spinsters had the house before us;
+        This was their morning-room.
+
+                                               EVOE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A quotation in _The Edinburgh Evening Dispatch_ of a verse of Mr. ROBERT
+BRIDGES' new poem ends like this:--
+
+
+    "From numbing stress and gloom profound
+    Madest escape in life desirous
+          To embroider her thin-spun robe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+           [PARAGRAPH ADVERTISEMENT.]
+
+               'WHO'S THE LADY?'"
+
+Perhaps the POET LAUREATE will answer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BOOK-BUYER.
+
+There was plenty to eat, the landlord said, if the commercial gentlemen
+made no objection to my joining their table; and such objection was very
+unlikely, since nicer gentlemen you couldn't hope to meet.
+
+He then went off to put the point to them, and they seem to have been
+very charming about it, judging by the cordiality and courtesy of the
+welcome which I received. Being, however, at the end of the table, I had
+but one neighbour, and he not a very communicative one, for, although he
+did at once lay down his knife and fork to tell me that the beef came
+from Scotland and was therefore more to be desired than the mutton,
+which was local, he said no more, and I was therefore left to eat in
+silence, my two _vis-�-vis_ being engaged in a private conversation.
+Such little as from time to time I heard among the others was not much
+in my line, dealing as it did either with horses, Ulster, or Mexico; but
+suddenly a big man with a purple face and a signet ring as large as a
+carriage lamp plunged me into curiosity by remarking that he "never
+bought less than three two-shilling books a week, and sometimes four."
+
+These being the last words I should have expected from him, for he
+looked absolutely the type that reads only a half-penny daily and a
+sporting sheet and puts in the rest of its leisure at gossip or cards,
+and as I am interested in people's taste in literature, I determined to
+improve his acquaintance and discover something as to his favourite
+authors; and again, as I made this resolve, I realised how foolish it is
+ever to expect the outside of a man to be any index of his mind. One
+never can tell, and one is always having further proof that one never
+can tell, and yet one goes on trying to tell.
+
+Studying him in a series of glances, I set him down for a NAT GOULD man.
+
+The arrival of coffee and the departure of certain guests (wisely, as it
+happened,) who did not want that curious beverage, relaxed the table,
+and I moved up to the brave buyer of books. He received me affably, and
+we exchanged a few remarks on those ice-breaking matters of no
+importance upon which real convictions are not expected. Then, with a
+deft touch, I turned the talk to literature. "I suppose," I said, "with
+your long journeys you get plenty of time for reading?"
+
+"Time enough," he said.
+
+I continued by a reference to the advantages which we enjoyed over our
+fathers and grandfathers in the multiplicity of cheap books. "Those
+wonderful sevenpennies!" I said.
+
+He agreed. He had often spent ten minutes at a junction in looking at
+them.
+
+"And the shilling books," I said. "The more serious ones--'Everyman's
+Library,' and all that sort of thing. Most remarkable!"
+
+He had noticed those too, but still he offered no views of his own.
+
+I saw that he was one of the uncommunicative kind. Information must be
+drawn forcibly from him.
+
+"And the two-shilling novels," I said--"they're wonderful too."
+
+I But his eyes did not light; his I purple mask kept its secrets.
+
+"The two-shilling ones," I repeated, with emphasis on the price. Hang
+it, how slow he was.
+
+Still he said nothing.
+
+"So much better than the old yellowbacks at that figure," I said.
+
+He was, if anything, more silent.
+
+Clearly I must plunge. "Who is your favourite writer?" I demanded,
+point-blank.
+
+"I haven't got such a thing," he said.
+
+Here's a strange thing, I thought. I suppose he's one of those
+mechanical readers who go through a book as a kind of dutiful pastime
+and never even notice the author's name.
+
+"But you read a lot?" I suggested.
+
+"Me? Good gracious, no," he said. "I don't read a book from one year's
+end to the other. Papers--oh, yes; but not books."
+
+I was staggered.
+
+"But I thought," I said, "that I heard you say a little while ago that
+you never bought fewer than three two-shilling books a week, and
+sometimes more?"
+
+His purple took on a darker richer shade, which I subsequently
+discovered indicated the approach of mirth. He began to make strange
+noises, which in time I found meant laughter.
+
+For a while he gave himself up to chromatic rumblings. At last, able to
+speak, he replied to me. "So I did say," he said; "so I did say I bought
+three two-shilling books a week. But not books to read"--here he became
+momentarily inarticulate again--"not books to read, but those little
+two-shilling books of stamps in red covers that you get at the
+post-office. I don't know where I should be without them."
+
+Shade of CARNEGIE!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Injured Party (who has just been turned out of a
+public-house, explaining his little grievance_). "NOW, WHAT D'YOU SHAY,
+CONSHABLE? D'YOU THINK I'M INTOXICATED?"
+
+_Constable._ "YES, I SHOULD CERTAINLY SAY YOU WERE."
+
+_Injured Party._ "WELL, I'M QUITE WILLING TO BE _ANALYSED_."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Musical Criticism.
+
+     "Sir John French had stultified himself singing the order."--_Irish
+     Independent._
+
+Personally we sing it over to ourselves in the bath every morning--all
+except the last two paragraphs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Messrs. BELL quote the following appreciative notice of one of their
+spelling books:--
+
+     "The spelling exercises, largely alliterative--e.g., 'A Beach-tree,
+     a sandy beach'--are quite attractive, and once in the mind remain
+     there."--_School Guardian._
+
+This attractive way of spelling "beech-tree" will not, we hope, remain
+indefinitely in the minds of our readers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _First Clubman._ "WELL, HOW ARE YOU?"
+
+_Second Clubman._ "ER--SO-SO, PERHAPS. LAST WEEK I THOUGHT I WAS IN FOR
+RHEUMATIC FEVER, BUT JUST MANAGED TO STAVE IT OFF, AND TO-DAY A TWINGE
+IN MY LEFT SHOULDER SUGGESTS--WELL, IT MAY BE NEURITIS OR----"
+
+_First Clubman._ "MY DEAR CHAP, I DIDN'T MEAN IT _LITERALLY_."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LIBERALS DAY BY DAY.
+
+_March 23._--During the course of a heated debate Mr. Joshua Dredgwood,
+M.P., said that, in spite of the Parliament Act, the House of Lords
+still dominated the situation. If there was a General Election next week
+it would be fought on a cry of the Proletariat against the Peers. The
+entire Liberal Party rose to its feet and cheered the speaker for seven
+minutes, waving hats, order papers and pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+_March 24._--Answering a question put by Mr. Connor Shaw, the PREMIER
+stated that he had decided to retire from the House of Commons and lead
+the Party from the House of Lords. The entire Liberal Party was
+convulsed with irrepressible enthusiasm and cheered the PREMIER'S
+announcement for nine minutes, many Members removing their collars and
+ties and waving them in delirious excitement.
+
+_March 25._--A reference to the Welsh Church Bill by a member of the
+Opposition elicited an epoch-making remark from Mr. Haydn Tooth, M.P. He
+said that the English Church blocked every measure of social reform so
+effectually that unless it was immediately disestablished and every
+archbishop and bishop deported to the Antarctic regions civil war would
+break out in a week. All records were broken by the Liberal Party, who
+rose as one man and cheered Mr. Tooth's declaration for ten minutes,
+many Members standing on their heads and waving their legs with
+epileptic fervour.
+
+_March 26._--Immediately after Question time the PRIME MINISTER asked to
+be allowed to make a brief statement. Amid profound silence he stated
+that he had decided, with the cordial approval of his colleagues, to
+create a new Ministry of Public Worship, to be held by the Archbishop of
+CANTERBURY, and that he would himself assume the archbishopric on the
+following day. The frenzied delight of the entire Liberal Party on
+hearing this momentous announcement beggars description. The cheering
+lasted fifteen minutes, and when the vocal chords of the Members were
+exhausted by the strain they rolled about on the floor of the House for
+nearly half-an-hour.
+
+_March 27._--A tremendous impression was created by Mr. James Board, the
+Labour Member, during the discussion of the Plumage Bill. After
+observing that fine feathers might make fine birds he went on to say
+that lawn sleeves were no palliation of the assumption of dictatorial
+and autocratic powers. The entire Liberal Party cheered the statement
+for twenty minutes, and then continued the demonstration with
+mouth-organs and megaphones for close upon an hour and a-half.
+
+_March 30._--The PREMIER, bidding farewell to the House of Commons,
+announced that he had with infinite regret accepted his own resignation
+of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and would in future be known as
+Super-Archimandrite of the Isle of Man. The entire Liberal Party were
+still cheering the announcement when we went to press.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Wanted, for country house, a good ODD MAN, more outside than
+     inside."
+
+                                            _Advt. in "Guardian"._
+
+The oddness of one's outside is, of course, more apparent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ORANGES AND LEMONS.
+
+V.--THE GAMESTERS.
+
+"It's about time," said Simpson one evening, "that we went to the tables
+and--er----" (he adjusted his spectacles)--"had a little flutter."
+
+We all looked at him in silent admiration.
+
+"Oh, Samuel," sighed Myra, "and I promised your aunt that you shouldn't
+gamble while you were away."
+
+"But, my dear Myra, it's the first thing the fellows at the club ask you
+when you've been to the Riviera--if you've had any luck."
+
+"Well, you've had a lot of luck," said Archie. "Several times when
+you've been standing on the heights and calling attention to the
+beautiful view below I've said to myself, 'One push, and he's a deader,'
+but something, some mysterious agency within, has kept me back."
+
+"All the fellows at the club----"
+
+Simpson is popularly supposed to belong to a Fleet Street Toilet and
+Hairdressing Club, where for three guineas a year he gets shaved every
+day, and his hair cut whenever Myra insists. On the many occasions when
+he authorises a startling story of some well-known statesman with the
+words: "My dear old chap, I know it for a fact. I heard it at the club
+to-day from a friend of his," then we know that once again the barber's
+assistant has been gossiping over the lather.
+
+"Do think, Samuel," I interrupted, "how much more splendid if you could
+be the only man who had seen Monte Carlo without going inside the rooms.
+And then when the hairdress--when your friends at the club ask if you've
+had any luck at the tables you just say coldly, 'What tables?'"
+
+"Preferably in Latin," said Archie. "_Quae mens�?_"
+
+But it was obviously no good arguing with him. Besides, we were all keen
+enough to go.
+
+"We needn't lose," said Myra. "We might win."
+
+"Good idea," said Thomas. He lit his pipe and added, "Simpson was
+telling me about his system last night. At least, he was just beginning
+when I went to sleep." He applied another match to his pipe and went on,
+as if the idea had suddenly struck him, "Perhaps it was only his
+internal system he meant. I didn't wait."
+
+"Samuel, you _are_ quite well inside, aren't you?"
+
+"Quite, Myra. But I _have_ invented a sort of system for _roulette_,
+which we might----"
+
+"There's only one system which is any good," pronounced Archie. "It's
+the system by which, when you've lost all your own money, you turn to
+the man next to you and say, 'Lend me a louis, dear old chap, till
+Christmas; I've forgotten my purse.'"
+
+"No systems," said Dahlia. "Let's make a collection and put it all on
+one number and hope it will win."
+
+Dahlia had obviously been reading novels about people who break the
+bank.
+
+"It's as good a way of losing as any other," said Archie. "Let's do it
+for our first gamble, anyway. Simpson, as our host, shall put the money
+on. I, as his oldest friend, shall watch him to see that he does it.
+What's the number to be?"
+
+We all thought hard for several moments.
+
+"Samuel, what's your age?" asked Myra at last.
+
+"Right off the board," said Thomas.
+
+"You're not really more than thirty-six?" Myra whispered to him. "Tell
+me as a secret."
+
+"Peter's nearly two," said Dahlia.
+
+"Do you think you could nearly put our money on 'two'?" asked Archie.
+
+"I once made seventeen," I said. "On that never-to-be-forgotten day when
+I went in first with Archie----"
+
+"That settles it. Here's to the highest score of The Rabbits'
+wicket-keeper. To-morrow afternoon we put our money on seventeen.
+Simpson, you have between now and 3.30 to-morrow to perfect your French
+delivery of the magic word _dix-sept_."
+
+I went to bed a proud but anxious man that night. It was _my_ famous
+score which had decided the figure that was to bring us fortune ... and
+yet ... and yet ...
+
+Suppose eighteen turned up? The remorse, the bitterness! "If only," I
+should tell myself--"if only we had run three instead of two for that
+cut to square-leg!" Suppose it were sixteen! "Why, oh why," I should
+groan, "did I make the scorer put that bye down as a hit?" Suppose it
+wore thirty-four! But there my responsibility ended ... If it were going
+to be thirty-four, they should have used one of Archie's scores, and
+made a good job of it.
+
+At 3.30 next day we were in the fatal building. I should like to pause
+here and describe my costume to you, which was a quiet grey in the best
+of taste, but Myra says that if I do this I must describe hers too, a
+feat beyond me. Sufficient that she looked dazzling, that as a party we
+were remarkably well-dressed, and that Simpson--murmuring "_dix-sept_"
+to himself at intervals--led the way through the rooms till he found a
+table to his liking.
+
+"Aren't you excited?" whispered Myra to me.
+
+"Frightfully," I said, and left my mouth well open.
+
+I don't quite know what picture of the event Myra and I had conjured up
+in our minds, but I fancy it was one something like this. At the
+entrance into the rooms of such a large and obviously distinguished
+party there would be a slight sensation among the crowd, and way would
+be made for us at the most important table. It would then leak out that
+Chevalier Simpson--the tall poetical-looking gentleman in the middle, my
+dear--had brought with him no less a sum than thirty francs with which
+to break the bank, and that he proposed to do this in one daring _coup_.
+At this news the players at the other tables would hastily leave their
+winnings (or losings) and crowd round us. Chevalier Simpson, pale but
+controlled, would then place his money on seventeen--"_dix-sept_," he
+would say to the croupier to make it quite clear--and the ball would be
+spun. As it slowed down the tension in the crowd would increase. "_Mon
+Dieu_!" a woman would cry in a shrill voice; there, would be guttural
+exclamations from Germans; at the edge of the crowd strong men would
+swoon. At last a sudden shriek ... and the croupier's voice, trembling
+for the first time for thirty years, "_Dix-sept!_" Then gold and notes
+would be pushed at the Chevalier. He would stuff his pockets with them;
+he would fill his hat with them; we others, we would stuff our pockets
+too. The bank would send out for more money. There would be loud cheers
+from all the company (with the exception of one man, who had put five
+francs on sixteen and had shot himself) and we should be carried--that
+is to say, we four men--shoulder high to the door, while by the deserted
+table Myra and Dahlia clung to each other weeping tears of happiness ...
+
+Something like that.
+
+What happened was different. As far as I could follow, it was this. Over
+the heads of an enormous, badly-dressed and utterly indifferent crowd
+Simpson handed his thirty francs to the croupier.
+
+"_Dix-sept_," he said.
+
+The croupier with his rake pushed the money on to seventeen.
+
+Another croupier with his rake pulled it off again ... and stuck to it.
+
+The day's fun was over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What _did_ win?" asked Myra some minutes later, when the fact that we
+should never see our money again had been brought home to her.
+
+"Zero," said Archie.
+
+I sighed heavily.
+
+"My usual score," I said, "not my highest."
+
+  A. A. M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SUPER-STORES.
+
+(_At a well-known Universal Emporium several Champions have been engaged
+to demonstrate the art of golf in the Games Department._)
+
+[Illustration: SIR GREGORY PILLKINGTON M.D., F.R.C.P., ETC., ETC., WILL
+BE IN ATTENDANCE IN THE DRUG DEPARTMENT, WHERE ALL CUSTOMERS MAY EXHIBIT
+THEIR TONGUES FREE OF CHARGE.]
+
+[Illustration: IN THE ART DEPARTMENT, SIR WILLIAM DAUBER, R.A., WILL
+GIVE A DEMONSTRATION ON THE LAYING ON OF COLOUR TO EVERY PURCHASER OF A
+SIXPENNY BOX OF PAINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: A SPECIAL LINE OP DANCING PUMPS IN THE BOOT DEPARTMENT.
+_Shopman._ "I THINK YOU'LL FIND THEM FIT, SIR, WHEN THE FOOT HAS WORKED
+DOWN INTO THEM. WILL YOU TRY A TURN, SIR? MADAME PAVLOVINA, FORWARD,
+PLEASE!"]
+
+[Illustration: A SPECIAL FEATURE OF THE GENT'S READY-TO-WEAR CLOTHING
+DEPARTMENT WILL BE THE ATTENDANCE, DAILY, OF A SUPER-"NUT" (FROM THE
+GAIETY OR DALY'S), WHO WILL GIVE FREE ADVICE TO EACH PURCHASER OF EASTER
+OUTFITS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Golfer (who has just been run over_). "GEE! WHAT LUCK!
+THAT WAS A NEAR THING. THEY MIGHT HAVE BROKEN MY PET CLEEK."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BALLAD OF THE WATCHFUL EYE.
+
+     ["In this crisis the best we can do is to keep our eye on Mr.
+     Asquith."--"_The Daily Chronicle's" report of Lord SAYE AND SELE at
+     Worthing._]
+
+    O keep your eye on DAVID,
+      The demigod of Wales,
+    Before whose furious onset
+      Dukes turn their timid tails;
+    Whom Merioneth mystics
+    Praise in delirious distichs,
+    And matched with whose statistics
+      MUNCHAUSEN'S glory pales.
+
+    O keep your eye on WINSTON,
+      And mind you keep it tight,
+    For nearly every Saturday
+      You'll find he takes to flight;
+    Now eloquent and thrilling,
+    Now simply cheap and filling,
+    And now bent on distilling
+      The purest Party spite.
+
+    O keep your eye on HALDANE,
+      Ex-Minister of War,
+    The sleek and supple-minded
+      And suave Lord Chancellor,
+    Whose brain, so keen and subtle,
+    Moves swifter than a shuttle,
+    Obscuring, like the cuttle,
+      Things that were plain before.
+
+    O keep your eye on MORLEY
+      (Well-known as "Honest John"),
+    The peccant paragrapher
+      Who still is holding on;
+    But, though his strange position
+    Excited some suspicion,
+    We've CURZON'S frank admission
+      Of joy he hasn't gone.
+
+    O keep your eye on LULU
+      Who Greater Britain sways
+    From distant Woolloomooloo
+      To Nova Scotia's bays;
+    Whose sumptuous urbanity,
+    Combined with well-groomed sanity
+    And freedom from profanity,
+    Stirs DAVID'S deep amaze.
+
+    O keep your eye on BIRRELL,
+      So wholly free from guile,
+    Conspicuous by his absence
+      From Erin's peaceful isle;
+    Who wakes from floor to rafter
+    The House to heedless laughter,
+    Careless of what comes after
+      Can he but raise a smile.
+
+    O keep your eye on MASTERMAN,
+      Dear DAVID'S henchman leal,
+    Whose piety and "uplift"
+      Make ribald Tories squeal;
+    In every public function
+    Displaying the conjunction
+    Of perfect moral unction
+      With perfect Party zeal.
+
+    Last, keep your eye on ASQUITH,
+      And he will bring you through,
+    No matter what his colleagues
+      May say or think or do;
+    For in the dirtiest weather
+    He moulted not a feather,
+    And safely kept together
+      His variegated crow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Siamese Twin.
+
+     "DERBYSHIRE.--To sell, handsome well-built and superbly finished
+     semi-detached Mouse, containing two entertaining, six bed rooms,
+     dressing-room, and excellent bathroom."--_Advt. in "Manchester
+     Guardian"._
+
+We had no idea a mouse had so much accommodation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "It was our intention before now to say a kindly word for 'The New
+     Weekly.' We trust we are not too late yet."
+
+                                                _Westminster Gazette._
+
+No. The paper after three weeks or so is still alive. But our green
+contemporary should have had more confidence in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AN ASQUITH TO THE RESCUE!
+
+WAR MINISTER (_to PREMIER_). "HOLD TIGHT! I'LL SEE YOU THROUGH."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+(EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW "DEMOCRATISED" ARMY.
+
+Certain officers having been guilty of the heinous offence of choosing
+one of two alternatives offered them by their superiors, it is now
+proposed to remodel our military system on democratic lines so as to
+leave no room for suspicion of political bias.
+
+[Major RAMSAY MACDONALD, Field-Marshal the Baron BYLES OF BRADFORD,
+Lieut.-Col. Sir J. BRUNNER, Capt. JOHN WARD and Col. KEIR HARDIE.]]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_House of Commons, Monday, March 30._--Stirring quarter of an hour. For
+dramatic surprise Drury Lane or Sadlers Wells in palmiest days not in it
+with T. R. Westminster. Doors open as usual at 2.45. In a few minutes
+there was standing room only. Appointed business of sitting Third
+Reading of Consolidated Fund Bill. Peculiarity of this measure is that
+through successive stages, each occupying a full sitting, no one even
+distantly alludes to its existence or provisions. Any other subject
+under the sun may, and is, talked around at length. To-day expected
+that opportunity would be seized by Opposition to make fresh attack on
+Government in respect of the Curragh affair and all it led to. Hence the
+crowded benches and prevalent expectation of a scrimmage.
+
+A cloud of questions addressed to PRIME MINISTER answered with that
+directness and brevity that mark his share in the conversation.
+Questions on Paper disposed of, LEADER OF OPPOSITION asked whether Sir
+JOHN FRENCH and Sir SPENCER EWART had withdrawn their resignation?
+Answering in the negative, the PREMIER paid high tribute to the ability,
+loyalty and devotion to duty with which the gallant officers have served
+the Army and the State. He added, what was regarded as foregone
+conclusion, that SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR had thought it right to
+press his proffered resignation.
+
+Here it seemed was end of statement. Members expected to see PREMIER
+resume his seat. He continued in the same level businesslike tone:--
+
+"In the circumstances, after much consideration, with not a little
+reluctance, I have felt it my duty, for the time at any rate, to assume
+the office of Secretary of State for War."
+
+There followed a moment of silence. Effect of announcement, unexpected,
+momentous, was stupefying. Then a cheer, strident, almost savage in its
+passion, burst from serried ranks of Ministerialists. One leaped up and
+waved a copy of Orders of the Day. In an instant all were on their feet
+wildly cheering.
+
+Meanwhile the PREMIER, apparently impassive, stood silent at the Table.
+When storm exhausted itself he quietly added that in accordance with law
+he would forthwith retire from the House "until, if it pleases them, my
+constituents sanction my return."
+
+Demonstration of personal esteem and political approval repeated when, a
+few moments later, he walked out behind SPEAKER'S Chair. Again the
+Liberals, now joined by Irish Nationalists, uprose, madly cheering.
+
+Following upon this unprecedented scene, SEELY'S personal statement
+inevitably partook of character of anticlimax. Entering while Questions
+were going forward, he passed the Treasury bench, where he had no longer
+right to sit, and turned up the Gangway, to find every seat occupied. He
+stood for a moment irresolute. CUTHBERT WASON, who has permanently
+appropriated third corner seat above Gangway (and portion of one
+adjoining), courteously made room for the ex-Minister.
+
+SEELY'S brief statement, dignified in its simplicity, unexceptional in
+its good taste, listened to by both sides with evident sympathy. During
+two years' administration of War Office affairs, he has by
+straightforwardness, urbanity, and display of perfect command of his
+subject, increased the personal popularity enjoyed whilst he was yet a
+private Member.
+
+_Business done._--Resignation by Colonel SEELY of War Office portfolio
+announced. PRIME MINISTER takes it in personal charge.
+
+_House of Lords, Tuesday._--During last two days noble Lords been
+delighted with little by-play provided by Lord CURZON. Yesterday, he by
+severe cross-examination extracted from Lord MORLEY admission of
+personal knowledge of what are known as the peccant paragraphs in
+document handed on behalf of War Office to General GOUGH.
+
+What troubled CURZON was apprehension that such admission must
+necessarily be followed by resignation. Regretted this for dual reason.
+First, House would be deprived of presence of esteemed Viscount on
+Ministerial bench. Secondly, and to the generous mind this consideration
+even more poignant, the secession of a Minister so highly prized would
+in present circumstances strike heavy blow at Government. Might even
+lead to break up of Ministry, dissolution of Parliament, destruction of
+Home Rule and Welsh Church Bills.
+
+Under cross-examination MORLEY, whilst making clean breast of his share
+in incident that led to resignation of WAR MINISTER, said never a word
+about possibility, or otherwise, of his own retirement. CURZON'S
+generous alarm deepened. Better know the worst if it were lurking in the
+background.
+
+"How comes it," he asked, "if the Government felt compelled to withdraw
+these paragraphs, and if the SECRETARY FOR WAR resigned, that we still
+have the good fortune to see the noble Viscount in charge of the
+Government bench?"
+
+"The latter point," said MORLEY, "will be answered more or less
+satisfactorily to-morrow."
+
+CURZON went home in state of profound depression. MORLEY, regardless of
+the comfort, even the safety, of his colleagues in the Cabinet,
+evidently meant resignation. Came down to-day, his ingenuous countenance
+exhibiting signs of passage through an unrestful night.
+
+"But," as he quaintly remarked to commiserating friend, "better have the
+tooth out at once."
+
+Up again at first opportunity. Still harping on the Viscount.
+
+"It is rather difficult to see," he remarked, "why, the SECRETARY FOR
+WAR having handed in his first resignation, we should still have been
+favoured with the continuance in office of the noble Viscount.... The
+upshot of the incident is that Colonel SEELY has gone, while I hope the
+noble Viscount is going to remain."
+
+Appeal irresistible. In response MORLEY explained that had SEELY
+persisted in his first resignation his would have followed. When it came
+to SEELY'S second resignation he felt bound to remain.
+
+Distinction subtle. Possibly it was effect of wrestling with it that
+made CURZON look less joyous than might have been expected, seeing he
+had realised his disinterested hope, and a second, even more damaging,
+secession from a stricken Cabinet had been averted.
+
+[Illustration: Lord CURZON (_to Lord MORLEY_). "Must you go? Can't you
+stay?"]
+
+_Business done._--In the Commons debate on Second Reading of Home Rule
+Bill resumed. Atmosphere significantly less stormy than heretofore.
+
+_House of Commons, Thursday._--The MEMBER FOR SARK, in pursuance of his
+favourite axiom that there is nothing new under the sun, calls attention
+to two conversations in which he discovers singularly close parallel in
+tone and temper. The first will be found in official report of
+Parliamentary debate. It took place between LEADER OF OPPOSITION and
+FIRST LORD OF ADMIRALTY, the former insistent upon House being made
+acquainted with Sir ARTHUR PAGET'S report of what happened when he
+addressed officers under his command at Curragh on possibility of their
+being ordered to Ulster.
+
+Here follows excerpt from official report:--
+
+"_Mr. CHURCHILL._ The statement just made I make after having had an
+opportunity of communicating with Sir Arthur Paget. It is admitted that
+a misunderstanding on the point arose.
+
+_Mr. BONAR LAW._ Rubbish.
+
+_Mr. CHURCHILL._ Do I understand the right hon. gentleman to say
+'rubbish'?
+
+_Mr. BONAR LAW._ Yes."
+
+The parallel that pleases SARK will be found in report of a conversation
+between _Mrs. Gamp_ and _Mrs. Betsey Prig_ at what should have been a
+friendly tea-table in the home of the former. This was the historic
+occasion when _Mrs. Prig_ declared her rooted belief in the
+non-existence of _Mrs. Gamp's_ friend _Mrs. Harris_. For purpose of
+comparison it may be convenient to put what followed in the same form as
+official Parliamentary report:--
+
+_Mrs. Gamp._ What! you bago creetur, have I know'd Mrs. Harris
+five-and-thirty year, to be told at last that there ain't no sech a
+person livin'! Go along with you!
+
+_Mrs. Prig._ I'm agoin', Ma'am, aint I?
+
+_Mrs. Gamp._ You had better, Ma'am!
+
+_Mrs. Prig._ Do you know who you're talking to, Ma'am?
+
+_Mrs. Gamp._ Aperiently to Betsey Prig.
+
+_Business done._--Third night's debate on Second Reading of Home Rule
+Bill. Intended to divide. On urgent demand of Opposition division
+deferred till Monday.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Then came the resignation of Mr. Asquith, which left the Ministry
+     (temporarily) without its head. Hence another vacant seal in the
+     Government Front Bench."--_Globe._
+
+To prevent self-consciousness among the Cabinet, the name of the
+Minister who looks like a vacant seal should be given.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Mr. Bodkin, opening the case, described Hemmerde for the defence."
+
+                                         _North Eastern Daily Gazette._
+
+It is generally towards the end of a case that one wants to describe the
+opposing counsel in detail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PROOF
+
+ADDRESSED TO A LADY WHO HAS ASKED FOR IT.
+
+    Of old, when in the dance's-whirl
+      Or crouched behind a friendly screen
+    I fell in love with any girl
+      (You know the kind of love I mean),
+    I gave the credit to champagne--
+        And breathed again.
+
+    When first we met, a more intense
+      Emotion stirred me, I admit,
+    But having dined at great expense
+      I didn't like to mention it,
+    For tribute seemed to Bacchus due
+        As much as you.
+
+    But love that made a parish hop
+      A sacred feast for both of us
+    Burst into flame without a drop
+      Of alcoholic stimulus;
+    And love that thrives on lemonade
+        Can never fade.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+REVERSIBLE RHETORIC.
+
+(_Being the unsigned MS., evidently of a leading article, picked up in
+Fleet Street last week. What the finder wants to know is--which side is
+it arguing for?_)
+
+THE PLOT THAT FAILED.
+
+Out of the welter of mendacity, evasions and intrigue, for a parallel to
+which the records of this or indeed of any civilised country might be
+searched in vain, one fact has at last emerged clear and indisputable.
+The nation will learn this morning, with what feelings it is only too
+easy to conjecture, that a great party, a party which, despite its many
+political blunders, has at least a record for honourable if mistaken
+statesmanship in the past, has now stooped to the final and abysmal
+folly. Disguise the fact with what specious rhetoric they may, the truth
+remains that our opponents have deliberately endeavoured to tamper with
+a great national possession, and to make the British Army a tool in the
+game of party.
+
+Incredible, nay unthinkable, as such a situation would have been till
+lately, who is now to deny it? If any doubt still remained, surely the
+venomous outpourings of those journals which support and encourage the
+machinations of "honourable gentlemen"--alas that the phrase should
+henceforth have to be in quotation marks!--on the opposite side of the
+House must by now have dispelled it. Beaten to their last ditch, and
+discredited even in that, it is now evident that the conspirators had
+determined to stake all upon one final throw. Fortunately the very
+desperateness of the plot has proved its undoing, and from the tremulous
+lips of the perpetrators themselves comes to-day a froth of vituperation
+and rancorous abuse that is the surest confession of abject failure.
+
+Happily, however, there is a brighter side to the picture; signs are not
+wanting--and each hour, we are sure, will strengthen them--that moderate
+men in the ranks of our opponents are beginning to share our own
+indignation and dismay. Let but this spirit find its outlet and victory
+is ours. We say it in no petty strain of party triumph, but the day of
+reckoning can obviously no longer be delayed. A gang of wholly reckless
+and unscrupulous political adventurers have sown the dragon's teeth in
+the wind; let the whole nation see to it that they are now forced to
+reap armed men in the whirlwind!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AN ECHO OF SHOW SUNDAY.
+
+(_Proving that a humorist is never allowed to be serious._)
+
+_Visitor (after studying well-known humorous artist's classical Academy
+picture)._ "DELIGHTFULLY COMIC. TELL ME, WHAT IS THE JOKE TO THIS ONE?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Many a man whose courage would not respond to the spur of some
+     huge burglar would die rather than be beaten by a wretched little
+     collar stud."--_Times._
+
+The only burglar we have ever met was (luckily) in the Infantry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"THINGS WE'D LIKE TO KNOW."
+
+Almost the last thing that you expect in a starting-price bookie is a
+strong penchant for poetry. It is true that I have before me, as I
+write, a Turf Commissioner's telegraphic code which contains some rather
+picturesque symbols. Thus "amber" is the codeword for �1; "heliotrope"
+for �20; "rainbow" for "win and 1, 2." Still I do not think it probable
+that if the author of this code should go bankrupt as a bookie--and this
+he is never likely to do as far as I am concerned--he would be able to
+retrieve his fortunes by taking up the profession of a publisher of
+poetical works. Yet this is just what happened, in Mr. MONCKTON HOFFE'S
+play, with the firm of _Wilberforce Brothers_, Turf Commissioners. In
+the first Act we find them in such straits that they can barely scrape
+together enough petty cash to satisfy the demands of a Water-Rate
+Collector, insistent on the door-step. In the next Act, a year later,
+they are all flourishing like green bay-trees as a firm of Poetry
+Commissioners trading under the name of _The Lotus Publishing Company_.
+This amazing result they have achieved by foisting on the office
+typewriter--_tr�s gamine_--the poetical output of one of their own
+number, and exploiting her as a prodigy under the auspices of a patron
+of the arts--one _Lord Glandeville_. How this M�cenas, this connoisseur
+in taste, was ever imposed upon by the masquerading of such incredible
+types, and how they could have amassed all that wealth by the
+publication of serious poetry, the most notorious of drugs on the
+market--these are among the "things" that we should all "like to know"
+in case our own professions should fail us.
+
+What worried me most was that Mr. HOFFE should have so poor an idea of
+my intelligence as to suppose it possible to impart an atmosphere of
+probability to a scheme that was pure farce. Yet that was what he tried
+to do; he wanted me to believe that I was assisting at a comedy. There
+was no knockabout business; nobody entered the room with a somersault,
+tripped over a pin or hung his hat on the scenery. They all behaved as
+if they were presenting us with what is known as a human document, to be
+regarded _au grand_ (or, at worst, _au petit_) _s�rieux_. The fun--and
+there were some very pleasant touches--was not so much the fun of a huge
+and preposterous joke, but rather the humour of character or incidental
+detail. The part of _Lord Glandeville_, who might have been made the
+most ridiculous butt of imposture, was treated quite solemnly. Indeed,
+our sympathies were provoked for a man whose finest instincts had been
+trifled with; who had been suffered to fall in love with the poet-soul
+of a girl only to find that she was the tool of a gang of rogues. One of
+them, _Dick Gilder_, might tell him that he (_Glandeville_) was an
+egoist and that he ought to have fallen in love with the girl's body, as
+he (_Gilder_) had done, instead of her supposed soul; but that did not
+help matters much, or prevent our feeling that this treatment of
+_Glandeville_ was no matter for laughter. And when I go and see a
+production of Mr. HAWTREY'S I want matter for laughter and nothing else.
+
+The best individual performances were those of Mr. LYSTON LYLE--really
+excellent as a soldier of fortune--and Miss HELEN HAYE as _Lord
+Glandeville's_ aunt who lays herself out to defeat the matrimonial
+designs of the prodigy. Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY was not perhaps at his very
+best as _Dick Gilder._ He wore an air of detachment and indulged his old
+habit of looking over the heads of his stage-audience. He had too many
+set speeches and was not always quite sure what word came next. Still
+his mere presence is always irresistible.
+
+As _Lord Glandeville_, Mr. VANE TEMPEST, most admirable of buffoons,
+must have longed to be allowed to make us laugh, but solemnity was his
+order of the day and he carried it out like a hero. As for Mr. WENMAN,
+who played the partner that introduced _Lord Glandeville_ to the rest of
+the "Lotus Publishing Company" (though how that refined nobleman ever
+made the acquaintance of such a rough diamond is another of the "things
+we'd like to know"), his face is a gift and he used its mobility to good
+purpose.
+
+Finally, Miss DOROTHY MINTO, as _Dorothy Gedge_, typewriter (with the
+_nom de guerre_ of _Gedage_), was a little angular, and the motive of
+her spasmodic excursions across the stage was not always apparent. But
+she was extremely funny in her inimitable way when she had a chance of
+exhibiting the unreasonableness of her selection as a mouthpiece of the
+Muses. At the end, when she wonders if she could have been happy with
+_Glandeville_ and knows that she would be happy with _Gilder_, she
+showed an extremely pretty vein of sentiment. And here, too, I must
+heartily compliment the author on a scene which threatened to be
+commonplace and tedious, but was handled with a most engaging freshness
+and a very unusual sense of what was just right and enough.
+
+                                                              O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: POETRY COMMISSION-AGENTS FINDING A BACKER.
+
+  _Lord Giandeville_        Mr. VANE-TEMPEST.
+  _Brabazon Todd_           Mr. HENRY WENMAN.
+  _Richard Gilder_          Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_ARGUMENTUM AD FEMINAM._
+
+    Once, unless the tale's a myth,
+      Chloe danced mid rustic song
+    Indefatigably with
+      Amorous Damon all day long.
+    This was all the joy she knew
+      (Quite enough, no doubt), and yet,
+    Phyllis, when _you_ gambol, _you_
+      Rather gamble at roulette.
+
+    Simple 'twas in suchlike days
+      Wooing Chloe. Now, alas,
+    _You_'ve no taste for simple ways,
+      Much prefer green baize to grass.
+    Fled your interest in swains;
+      Nothing for my sighs you care;
+    All your joy is little trains,
+      Oddly dubbed "chemin de fer."
+
+    Phyllis, if your fixed intent
+      Is that you forsake the dance,
+    Quit Arcadian merriment
+      For exciting games of chance,
+    I've the best of 'em by heaps:
+      Come with me, my dear, and call
+    At the Registrar's; he keeps
+      One big gamble worth them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CON.
+
+    Con was the conjurer of the king
+      Ere the coming of Padraig Mor,
+    And a wand he had, and a golden ring,
+      And a five-prong crown he wore;
+    And his robe was trimmed with minever--
+      His robe of the royal blue,
+    For Con was the wonderful conjuror
+      In the days when the tricks were new.
+
+    He could pick a rabbit from out of a poke
+      Where never had rabbit lain;
+    He could pulp your watch like an egg's red yoke
+      And could give it you whole again;
+    And the king he laughed, "Ha-ha," he laughed,
+      Till they thumped on his back anon;
+    And the other magicians went dancing daft
+      To see the magic of Con.
+
+    Now Con he climbed on a moonbeam grey
+      To the dusk of the god's great shop,
+    And he stole the Elixir of Life away,
+      And he drank it, every drop;
+    He poured the draught in a golden cup
+      On a wonderful day that's gone,
+    And he swilled it round and he tossed it up,
+      And that was the curse of Con.
+
+    And the old king died at ninety-six
+      And his son he reigned instead;
+    But Con he conjured the same old tricks,
+      And his hair crow-black on his head;
+    And the new king died, and another king,
+      And another king after he,
+    But Con went on with his conjuring
+      The same as it used to be.
+
+    When the fifth king came (he was long of limb
+      And a hasty man) he swore,
+    When Con he conjured his tricks for him,
+      And he kicked Con through the door;
+    For that's in the songs the minstrels sung,
+      And thus is the story told,
+    For "Con," said the king, "you're none so young,
+      And your tricks are plaguey old!"
+
+                *   *   *
+
+    Now Con he tramps from shire to shire,
+      And he must till the crack of doom;
+    He takes the road in the dust and mire,
+      And he sleeps in the windy broom;
+    He's no address and he's no abode,
+      And his jacket's the worse o' wear;
+    And I've met him once on the Portsmouth Road,
+      And once at a Wicklow fair.
+
+    When the roundabouts and the swings are slow
+      And a conjuring chap draws near,
+    And there's nothing about his mug to show
+      That it's seen five thousand year
+    (For that's the way that the songs were sung,
+      And thus is the story told),
+    You'll know it's Con and he's none so young
+      For his tricks are plaguey old.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Retired M.F.H._ "AND WHEN WE CAME TO THE SEVENTEENTH,
+JUST AS I WAS GOING TO DRIVE, WHAT SHOULD I SEE BUT AN OLD DOG FOX
+STARING AT ME OUT OF THE HEDGE!"
+
+_Sympathetic Friend._ "YE-E-E-S?"
+
+_Retired M.F.H._ "NOW, DON'T YOU THINK THAT WAS A MOST REMARKABLE
+THING?"
+
+_Sympathetic Friend._ "WELL, YES, I SUPPOSE IT WAS; BUT THEN, YOU SEE, I
+DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOLF."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a list of new books:--
+
+     "Woman and Crime (Adam)."
+
+Well, he ought to know.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a pamphlet on "The 'King's Own' Mission":--
+
+  "MADAM ADA BACON,
+  Soloist for Easter Sunday Evening.
+
+     Please send some eggs."
+
+The writer has been carried away by the association of ideas. The
+singing will not really be so bad as that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two conflicting announcements from _The Observer_:--
+
+  "VILLA'S VICTORY.
+  FOUR DAYS OF FURIOUS FIGHTING."
+
+  "HOW THE VILLA WERE BEATEN.
+  LIVERPOOL'S SUPERIOR PACE."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EXILE.
+
+"And how long," said the lady of the house from behind her rampart of
+breakfast things, "shall you want to be away?"
+
+"Away?" I said. "Who said anything about being away?"
+
+"Well," she said, "if you want to go to all those annual dinners and
+things you'll have to go to London, and if you go to London you'll have
+to be away from here."
+
+"'Plato,'" I said, "'thou reasonest well.' Helen, pass me the butter."
+
+"Why deny it, then?" said Helen's mother. "If you're going to be away
+you're going to be away, and there's an end of it."
+
+"You're wrong there," I said. "There isn't an end of it. I can go away
+and come back on the same day. By the last train, you know. The last
+train is intended for that very purpose."
+
+"What very purpose?"
+
+"For coming back by the last train. That's what it's there for. Fathers
+of families who come back by it sleep in their own beds instead of
+sleeping in strange beds in clubs or hotels. Let us sing the praises of
+the last train. Rosie, push over the marmalade, and don't upset the
+spoon on the table-cloth."
+
+It is not easy to converse with marmalade in one's mouth. I did not make
+the attempt, so there was a short pause in the argument. It was resumed
+by the lady of the house.
+
+"You'll lose a lot of sleep, you know," she said. "The last train
+doesn't get you here till one o'clock in the morning."
+
+"No matter," I said, "I can bear it. The thought of meeting my family at
+breakfast will sustain me."
+
+"But you never do meet us. After a last train night you 're always
+half-an-hour late, and by that time the girls are gone."
+
+"But you remain," I said. "To see you pouring out coffee is a liberal
+education in patience."
+
+"But it's tepid coffee."
+
+"I like tepid coffee as a change."
+
+"And the eggs and bacon are cold."
+
+"Pooh!" I said. "There is always the toast."
+
+"And the toast is limp."
+
+"If," I said, "you are so sure of these discomforts why not order me a
+fresh breakfast?"
+
+"And that," she said, "will make work for the servants."
+
+"Work," I said, "is for the workers. Besides the cook will like me to
+show an independent spirit."
+
+"The nature of cooks," she said, "is not one of your strong points. No,
+I am sure you will do better to stay in London."
+
+"But I can give up my dinners," I said.
+
+"And do you think I could ask you to make such a sacrifice? Old friends
+whom you meet only once a year! Certainly you must go."
+
+"But----"
+
+"If you don't turn up they'll put it down to me, and that wouldn't be
+fair."
+
+"I don't know," I said, "why you are so keen on my staying in London.
+There's something behind this--something more than meets the eye."
+
+"Nonsense," she said, "it's only your comfort; but men never can be
+reasonable."
+
+"Dad," said Helen to Rosie, "is going to have a holiday given him."
+
+"Yes," said Rosie; "but he doesn't seem to want it very much."
+
+"And it's not going to be a very long one," said Peggy, who generally
+supports my side of the battle.
+
+"And we'll do his packing," said their mother; "won't we, girls?"
+
+"Hurrah!" said Peggy.
+
+"Peggy," I said, "I am sorry to cast a cold shower on your enthusiasm,
+but there are limits. You and your mother are great and undeniable
+packers, but your ways are not my ways."
+
+"Anyhow," said Helen, "we should do it better than Swabey."
+
+"No," I said, "you would do it worse. Swabey has his faults, but I know
+them. He always forgets white ties and handkerchiefs, but these I can
+buy, borrow or steal. You would forget white shirts and dress trousers,
+which mean nothing to you, but are all the world to me. Swabey packs my
+shaving-brush and my safety razor into my dress shoes, where I come upon
+them eventually. You would leave them out altogether. I am grateful to
+you all for your generous offer, but Swabey shall do my packing--that is
+if I go."
+
+It is unnecessary to say that I went. The dinners were, as usual, a
+great success. We all became young again in our own eyes, and on the
+whole I was not sorry to have a bedroom in London. But why had it been
+forced on me against my will? The reason will appear in a letter from
+Peggy which I received on the second morning of my compulsory freedom;--
+
+"DEAREST DAD,--We are geting on alright. The maids are now in the libary
+and everything has been put somwere else. A lot of your papers got blown
+about, but we ran after them and got most of them. Our meels are in your
+den. Their going into the dining room direckly. The dust is dredfull and
+the dogs don't like it. It is a spring cleening with love from your
+loving
+
+                            PEGGY."
+                                                        R. C. L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LAID.
+
+    He was no commonplace suburban spook
+      Content to rap on table-tops; he cherished
+    The memory of days when at his look
+      Princes and peers incontinently perished;
+    Stuck in his heart a jewelled knife dripped red;
+    Flames had been known to issue from his head.
+
+    The Moated Grange, now ruinous and drear,
+      He roamed, constrained to bitter self-effacement,
+    Until one midnight his enraptured ear
+      Detected mortal accents in the basement.
+    Downstairs he crept; beside the cheerless grate
+    Sat four or five old men in keen debate.
+
+    Softly he chuckled, "Here's a bit of luck!"
+      And beat a warning rattle on his tabor
+    That once had made the stoutest run amok;
+      Then each old boy sat up and nudged his neighbour;
+    Calm and collected round the chimney-piece
+    They showed no sign of imminent decease.
+
+    In vain he practised all his horrid lore
+      And rolled his eyes and beckoned with distort hand;
+    In vain his dagger dripped with gouts of gore,
+      They only beamed and took a note in shorthand;
+    When in despair he loosed his flaming jet
+    One smiled and lit therefrom a cigarette.
+
+    That was the end! With agonising shriek
+      He turned and fled, the spectral perspiration
+    Dewing his brow and coursing down his cheek;
+      Fled, and was lost to man's investigation
+    (For full discussion of his little tricks
+    See Psychical Research Reports, vol. vi.).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Country Host._ "I HOPE THE OWLS DIDN'T DISTURB YOU LAST
+NIGHT, LADY JENKINS?"
+
+_Wife of Local Mayor._ "LAW BLESS YOU, NO! I DIDN'T 'EAR ANYTHING. WHICH
+DOG WAS IT?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
+
+Has Mr. W. J. LOCKE'S hand--the hand that created vagabond _Paragot_ for
+tears and laughter, and the resourceful _Aristide_--has it lost its
+particular cunning that he should begin his romance of _The Fortunate
+Youth_ (LANE) in a mood of heavy and misplaced facetiousness, and drift
+by way of Family Heraldry into an atmosphere of sham politics and a
+bright general glow of ineffectual snobbery? _Paul Savelli_, the
+fortunate youth, with his incredible beauty, his dreams, his
+accomplishments beyond all discernible cause, his faintly Disraelian
+airs, never once carried me out of my chair. And to what other end is
+romance ordained? Nor did his Princess, with her mastery of the easier
+French idioms; nor _Barney Bill_, the kind-hearted stage-tramp. Indeed,
+I found Mr. LOCKE constantly making statements about his people that
+were not substantiated, as about _Ursula Winwood_, the egregiously
+competent, the _confidante_ of troubled ministers, bishops and generals.
+_Jane_ alone, an early simple friend of _Paul_, I found credible and
+charming, and thanked heaven for her sake that _Paul_ married his
+Princess. It is indeed a romance gone wrong. Perhaps it is a more
+difficult thing plausibly and readily to sustain one's fancy in a modern
+setting, with modern folk, than in the fair realm of Tushery with
+rapier-wielding demigods. Yet I think that the dead HARLAND and the
+living HOPE (himself no mean Tusher) might have brought off their
+_Paul_. As a matter of fact, so I believe could Mr. LOCKE; that is just
+the pity of it. I merely record the fact that he has not done so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are, of course, short stories and short stories. On a perusal of
+those that Mr. RICHARD DEHAN has collected in volume form under the
+title of _The Cost of Wings_ (HEINEMANN), I am bound to record my
+conviction that most of them are profoundly unworthy of the author of
+_The Dop Doctor_. Few of them even aspire to anything beyond "first
+serial" quality; and though there is often present a certain easy
+flippancy of phrase it impressed me only as the crackling of thorns in a
+pot-boiler. Perhaps the best is the first or title tale, which tells of
+a young wife goaded to hard words by her constant anxiety for an
+aviator-husband. There is some genuine feeling here; but the climax, in
+which the pair decide only to fly in company, was dangerously like the
+end of a stage duologue. Moreover, so swift now-a-days is the flight of
+time--or the time of flight--that aviation stories very soon come to
+sound antiquated. Still, after all, there is at least plenty of variety
+in this volume, and it will be hard if, in a collection of twenty-six
+brief tales, you do not come upon something to your individual taste.
+But one word of gentle protest. I fancy the stage has at last agreed
+upon a close time for supposed infants, against whose arrival from India
+nurses and rocking-horses are engaged, and who turn out on appearance to
+be young persons of mature years. Well, I am convinced that it is high
+time for a similar prohibition in fiction. Mr. DEHAN at least has proved
+himself far too clever for me to tolerate this threadbare theme, not
+very illuminatingly treated, from his valuable pen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Mr. Anthony Venning_ was a young man of remarkable tact. Taking
+advantage of his position as a consultant engineer, at the beginning of
+_The Sentence Absolute_ (NISBET), he pocketed an advance commission for
+recommending the tender of a certain firm of contractors to the Welsh
+mill-owner who was employing his professional services. Whether this
+practice is common amongst engineers, as the authoress would seem to
+suggest, I cannot say, but at any rate it was hardly to be expected in
+the circumstances that _Mr. Venning_ should not fall in love with _Mr.
+Powell's_ extremely beautiful daughter, or that the boilers in _Mr.
+Powell's_ mill should hesitate in the fulness of time to explode. But
+the lover had the native good sense to be present at the moment of the
+inevitable catastrophe and to be the only person seriously damaged; and
+since it was his first real lapse from the paths of rectitude, and he
+was otherwise amiable, athletic, presentable and brave, who shall
+complain if, after confessing in a manly way and being put into a state
+of thorough repair, he found happiness in the end? Miss MARGARET
+MACAULAY tells her story in a pleasant enough way, and describes with
+some skill its idyllic setting (for _Mr. Powell_ was first a country
+squire, and only secondly a manufacturer); but since she neither
+indulges in satire, social and economic speculation, nor any pretence of
+subtlety in psychological probings, there is a curiously old-fashioned
+air about her novel. And when I mention that _Mr. Venning_ and _Miss
+Powell_ were actually cut off by the tide on a treacherous reef of the
+Cambrian coast it will be realised that _The Sentence Absolute_ is a
+book for one of those softer moods in which we do not desire to be
+startled or stung to profound meditation on the meaning of life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OUR CURIO CRANKS.
+
+THE MAN WHO TAKES EVERY OPPORTUNITY OF ADDING TO HIS GALLERY OF HATS OF
+FAMOUS MEN.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I hope that Mr. VAUGHAN KESTER, author of _John o' Jamestown_ (HODDER
+AND STOUGHTON), is innocent of intent to do the dreadful thing that he
+has done. With the book itself I have no fault to find; it is quite a
+good historical novel, and tells with a fair amount of excitement the
+story of _Captain John Smith_ and the early settlers in Virginia, not
+omitting _Pocahontas_. Mr. KESTER'S crime consists not in his novel, but
+in the fact that he has probably plunged America into all the horrors of
+a new outbreak of historical fiction. A few years ago every adult in the
+United States was writing historical novels. Those were the black days
+at the beginning of this century, still spoken of with a shudder from
+Maine to Tennessee. Gradually the horror spent itself; the country
+became pacified. Except for an occasional sporadic outbreak, the plague
+was stamped out. It got about that the historical novel was "a dead
+one," and young America turned to something else. Now you begin to see
+what Mr. KESTER has done. While Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON are
+publishing _John o' Jamestown_ over in England, another firm is flooding
+the States with it. Mr. KESTER is a confirmed "best-seller" on the other
+side of the Atlantic. Probably his American publishers have issued a
+first edition of a hundred thousand of this story. The result may be
+imagined. Wild-eyed literary agents will carry the fiery cross
+throughout the country, crying that the historical novel is not dead
+after all, that there is still money in it; and thousands of estimable
+young men who might have been turning out quite decent stories of
+American life will thrust paper into their typewriters and begin, "Of
+the days when I followed my dear lord through many a hard-fought fray it
+ill becomes me, plain rude man that I am, to speak...." And it will be
+Mr. KESTER'S fault. It would not matter so much if the great army of
+American writers could do the thing even half as well as he has done it
+in _John o' Jamestown_; but they cannot. I know them, and that is why a
+great trembling runs through me so that I can scarce hold my pen to
+complete this review.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The name of Mr. GORDON GARDINER is unfamiliar to me; but I have little
+doubt that if _The Reconnaissance_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) is a first novel
+its author will improve upon work that struck me as at present somewhat
+ingenuously conventional. There are two parts to the tale; the first
+shows how _Leslie_ earned popular applause and the V.C. by remaining
+with a wounded comrade whom he was actually too frightened to leave.
+That was a good beginning, and I said to myself that Mr. GARDINER was of
+the right stuff; he had a vigorous, incisive style that suited well the
+matter of pain and anguish that he had in hand. But, alas! in its hours
+of case the story became much more uncertain. All the characters,
+including the involuntary hero and the man he rescued (now a lord), turn
+up at an hotel on the Lake of Como. There is some mild word-painting
+that may remind you pleasantly of pleasant places; and a
+disproportionate pother because in one of the sudden lake storms
+_Leslie_ dashes for shelter into what he supposes to be his own bedroom
+(actually the heroine's) and is imprisoned there by the sticking of a
+shutter. An awkward incident, of course, especially as it occurred in
+the dead of night, but scarcely enough to make half a novel out of.
+Naturally, in the end _Leslie_ owns up about the heroism, and goes away
+to justify his unearned credit upon the stricken field; but I am afraid
+I must confess that the prospect of his return left me indifferent. I
+understand that _The Reconnaissance_ originally appeared in _The Daily
+Telegraph_; this being so, the persistence with which its characters
+quote extracts from _The Times_ savours almost of filial ingratitude.
+Seriously, the first part of the novel was a promise which the second
+left unfulfilled. Mr. GARDINER is still in my debt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO THE CABINET.
+
+(_Suggested by a recent doctoring of "Hansard."_)
+
+    The judgment of the People's "Yea" or "Nay"
+      Wherefore should virtuous men like _you_ shun?
+    You are--or so you confidently say--
+          Prepared for dissolution.
+
+    Then snatch a hint from HALDANE'S little fake,
+      Who glanced with eye alert and beady at
+    His speech in proof, and, for appearance' sake,
+          Added the word "_immediate_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The very clever may bethink themselves of Milton's 'subject of all
+     verse.'"--_Reynolds' Newspaper._
+
+The mere well-informed will bethink themselves of BROWNE.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+146, April 8, 1914, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+April 8, 1914, by Various
+
+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. 146, April 8, 1914
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 14, 2007 [EBook #23032]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Janet Blenkinship and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h1>PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+<h2>VOL. 146.</h2>
+
+
+<h2>APRIL 8, 1914.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHARIVARIA" id="CHARIVARIA"></a>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Asquith Cleans the Slate</span>."</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Daily Chronicle.</i></p>
+
+<p>The pity is that so many of his followers seem to prefer to slate the
+clean.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>Even <i>The Nation</i> is not quite satisfied with the Government, and has
+been alluding to "the extreme slackness of Cabinet methods," and
+complains that "situations are not thought out beforehand." The
+Government, apparently, is now taking the lesson to heart, for <i>H.M.S.
+Foresight</i>, we read, has now replaced <i>H.M.S. Pathfinder in</i> Belfast
+Lough.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>What the newspapers describe as "An unknown Botticelli" has just been
+sold by a celebrated firm of art dealers to an American gentleman, and
+it only remains to hope that the painting was not unknown to <span class="smcap">Botticelli</span>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>"A telegram from Toledo," says a contemporary, "reports the theft of
+three valuable pictures by the celebrated artist, El Greco." There must
+be some mistake here. Anyhow, at the time of his death, a good many
+years ago, this gentleman was not under suspicion.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>The Christian Endeavour Union of Washington, alarmed at the spread of
+luxury, has launched a society whose members pledge themselves to wear
+no finery during Easter. Those members who hide baldness by means of
+elaborate coiffures might carry the idea further by appearing, for one
+week only, with heads like Easter eggs.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>Whether it is due to the Suffrage movement or not it is difficult to
+say, but women are undoubtedly coming into their rights by degrees. By
+the provisions of the new Bankruptcy Act it is now possible for any
+married woman, whether trading apart from her husband or not, to be made
+a bankrupt.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>In connection with the "Kensington Camp Week," when an effort is to be
+made to raise sufficient funds to establish and equip headquarters for
+the Kensington Reservists, a full-sized elephant has been chartered to
+ramble about the principal thoroughfares and collect money for the
+cause. To ensure success the sagacious quadruped is to be trained to
+step accidentally on the toes of those persons who ignore its appeal.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>A correspondent writes to <i>The Observer</i> complaining bitterly of the
+state of the morass leading to the Aerodrome at Hendon. This gentleman
+does not realise that there is a didactic purpose in the cause of his
+annoyance. Learn to fly and you will keep your boots clean.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-261.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-261.jpg" alt="Nut (in car)." /></a>
+
+<p class="outdent"><i>Nut (in car).</i> "<span class="smcap">What's that, kid? 'Why don't I keep on
+the road?' Well, the sweep must be deaf&mdash;the bally hootah don't shift
+him, and&mdash;well, my dear girl, the car was cleaned this morning</span>!"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>A man has been sentenced at Barmen, Prussia, on three separate counts to
+terms of imprisonment totalling 175 years. It is proposed that all the
+proprietors of specifics for prolonging life shall be given a free hand
+to enable the prisoner to cope with his sentence.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>All German actresses, whether married or single, are, in accordance with
+the ruling of the German Theatrical Union of Berlin, to be styled
+henceforth "Frau Schauspielerin," <i>i.e.</i> "Mrs. Actress." We are
+confident that this does not mean that those who are not married ought
+to be.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>An advertisement from <i>The Times</i>:&mdash;"<span class="smcap">Big Game Expedition.</span> Private and
+public shooting. Polar bears, musk oxen, walrus and seals arranged."
+This is not so easy as it sounds, for, ten to one, as soon as you have
+got the beasts arranged one of those plaguey musk oxen will spoil the
+whole thing by moving out of its place.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%;" />
+
+<p>A remarkable story is being told of the sagacity of a horse belonging to
+Captain <span class="smcap">Watson</span>, of Ardow, Mull. It lost a shoe, and, managing to get out
+of the field where it was grazing, travelled a considerable distance to
+a blacksmith, who was astonished to find the horse standing in front of
+the door holding up a fore-leg. The horse was shod, and then&mdash;we are
+afraid the rest of the story makes ugly reading&mdash;coolly galloped off
+without paying.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"After the annexation of Alsace by Germany the baron stayed some
+years in Paris, and became an intimate friend of Chopin."</p>
+
+<p><i>Andover Advertiser</i>.</p></div>
+
+<p>Never realising that <span class="smcap">Chopin</span> had died more than twenty years before.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>From a beauty specialist's advertisement:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"How a poet of such a 'profound subtlety of instinct for the
+absolute expression of absolute natural beauty' as Keats could have
+penned the lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Beauty is Fat, Fat Beauty. That is all Ye know on earth, and all
+ye need to know.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>must remain one of those unfathomable curiosities of the working of
+the human mind."</p></div>
+
+<p>We hope the writer hasn't been bothering about it for long. The good
+news we have for him&mdash;that <span class="smcap">Keats</span> didn't&mdash;will remove a great weight from
+his mind.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The bride's going away costume was of Parma violet cloth, with
+waistcoat effect, in brocaded silk. She wore, also, a large blue
+wolf, the gift of the bridegroom."</p>
+
+<p><i>Newcastle Evening Chronicle</i>.</p></div>
+
+<p><i>Bride</i>. "Of course, dear, one is bound not to look a gift wolf in the
+mouth, but are you <i>sure</i> the large blue ones don't bite?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>HOW TO GET ON OFF-HAND.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>A New Way With Employers.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>The applicant for work is usually thrown into a state of nervous
+prostration by the difficulties that beset his task. By a perusal of the
+following hints he may learn to acquire an invulnerable calm, and if he
+follows the directions given he can reckon on surprising results.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose the application is for clerical work.</p>
+
+<p>When you are shown into the office of the employer he will probably be
+engaged with his correspondence. Do not stand meekly in front of him
+till he looks up and addresses you. This is playing into his hands.
+Instead, be perfectly at your ease. Make yourself at home. You might
+ring up one of your acquaintances on the telephone and have a little
+chat until the employer is disposed to interview you.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly, however, he himself may be using the instrument. If so draw a
+seat to the desk and write any little note you may wish to. You will
+find writing materials handy. The stamps are usually kept in one of the
+small drawers to the right of the desk.</p>
+
+<p>Either of these proceedings will show that you are used to an office and
+will create an impression on the employer. If you look at him you will
+see that it has done so.</p>
+
+<p>If he stares at you and continues to stare, say pleasantly, "What a
+glorious sky this morning! I believe we are in for a long spell of fine
+weather."</p>
+
+<p>At this he will probably grunt out gruffly, "Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>Sympathise with his tonsils. Recommend any simple remedy of which you
+have heard, or point out the advantages of several spots on the Sussex
+coast. Ask him where his favourite holiday resort is; whether he goes
+there alone or if he is married, and if so how many children he has. Ask
+if they are all well at home.</p>
+
+<p>Remember politeness costs nothing.</p>
+
+<p>This method of leading up to business is much better than the old one,
+in which you stand and are bullied by a man who has no sort of right
+over you except that he has employment to offer and you want it badly.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore converse with him as if he were an equal, though possibly he
+may be your inferior.</p>
+
+<p>He may not answer your kind enquiries, but look you up and down from the
+welt of your boot to your scarf-pin. All employers have learnt this
+method of scrutiny. They have learnt it from their wives.</p>
+
+<p>Should he examine you in this manner, smile agreeably and walk a few
+yards to display your profile. Then change the angle and afford him a
+back view. Say easily, "This collar fits neatly, does it not?" or
+something like that.</p>
+
+<p>Turning, you can show yourself pleased with his own style of dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse my mentioning it," you remark, "but your taste in neck-gear is
+exquisite. I have similar ties myself."</p>
+
+<p>This will flatter him, and those men are very susceptible to flattery.
+Also he will be led to speculate favourably upon the stylishness and
+extent of your wardrobe.</p>
+
+<p>After this interval of mutual admiration you draw a chair to the centre
+of the room and say, "I believe you have a vacancy in the office? What
+is it you want me to be? I presume you think of still managing the
+business yourself? I will gladly listen to your terms and we will
+discuss my prospects."</p>
+
+<p>It is now his move. Lean back in your chair and light a cigarette,
+regarding him with a reassuring smile.</p>
+
+<p>You will find that he will have listened to you attentively, looking
+hard at your face. As you finish he will push his chair back, rise and
+strut across the room.</p>
+
+<p>Now is your chance to decide your fate one way or the other.</p>
+
+<p>When he has gone a few steps produce your watch and exclaim in a mildly
+vexed tone, "How annoying! I had almost forgotten. I have another
+appointment at eleven. In the short time remaining at our disposal it is
+impossible to deal adequately with any offer you may make. May I propose
+an adjournment?"</p>
+
+<p>The suggestion of independence thus delicately conveyed will usually
+have the desired effect and result in an immediate engagement.</p>
+
+<p>Should the employer fail to be impressed he simply pushes the bell and
+you are shown off the premises with great promptitude.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Wanted</span>, strong Willing Girl, age 18, to wait on trained nurses and
+assist third housemaid upstairs."</p>
+
+<p><i>Advt. in "Morning Post."</i></p></div>
+
+<p>We should give the third housemaid one more chance and then, if she
+still can't get upstairs without assistance, dismiss her.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>IN A GOOD CAUSE.</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65%;">
+<a href="images/illus-262.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-262.jpg" alt="IN A GOOD CAUSE." /></a>
+
+<p class="center"><i>To Every Reader of "Punch".</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Reader</span>,&mdash;H.R.H. <span class="smcap">Prince Arthur of Connaught</span> has consented to take
+the chair at the Centenary dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent
+Institution on May 6th. This Institution devotes itself to the help of
+artists who are in need through poverty, sickness or other ill-chance.
+As a lover of Art&mdash;and, of men&mdash;I am in close sympathy with this good
+work, and am to be represented at the dinner in the person of my Art
+Editor, Mr. F.H. <span class="smcap">townsend</span>, who will act as one of the Stewards. I am
+appealing to my readers of their kindness to send something to swell his
+list, and so to help in making this Centenary a memorable year in the
+history of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution. Contributions
+addressed to Mr. F.H. <span class="smcap">Townsend</span>, "Punch" Office, 10, Bouverie Street,
+E.C., will be very gratefully acknowledged.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Your faithful Servant,
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Punch.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h4>Unrest in India.</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The handwriting appeared to be that of a young school student and
+the word 'Prosecutor' had been spelt 'Prosecutor.' The matter is
+under enquiry."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Statesman</i>" (<i>Calcutta</i>).</p></div>
+
+<p>It is our earnest hope that this grave business will be sifted to the
+bottom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-263.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-263.jpg" alt="AN EASTER EGG." /></a>
+
+<h3>AN EASTER EGG.</h3>
+
+<p class="outdent"><span class="smcap">The Grey Fowl</span>. "A LITTLE SUGGESTION THAT I HAVE LAID ON THE TABLE&mdash;SO TO
+SPEAK."</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-265.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-265.jpg" alt="Servant (rebuked for bringing in a dirty cup)" /></a>
+
+
+
+<p class="outdent"><i>Servant (rebuked for bringing in a dirty cup</i>). "<span class="smcap">Funny
+thing, Mum, I always seem to hit upon this one when you have company</span>."</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>THE MANLY PART.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>Reflections at the moment of "Moving in."</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The house has burst a-bloom like <span class="smcap">Ceres</span>' daughter;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The painters bicker and the plumbers flee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The H. tap in the bathroom gives cold water<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Endlessly, like the C.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All arts are being used to gild the tarnished,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And exorcise old ghosts and spirits fled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And treacherous quags abound where boards are varnished<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And no man's boot may tread.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And none can tell me where my spats were taken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And decorators' coats adorn the pegs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And savour of new paint surrounds the bacon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">New paint is in the eggs.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And huge men meet me and remark, "This dresser,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where shall we put it?" And of course I say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Up in the bedroom;" and they answer, "Yessir,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But Marion bids them stay.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All right&mdash;I'll sit (the sole place where one <i>can</i> sit)<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And gaze upon these walls with wild surmise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And muse on all the things we've lost in transit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The socks, the gloves, the ties.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here, where in time to come the firebeams ruddy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Falling on cosy chairs and bookshelves straight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall show to me my own familiar study,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And Maud shall do the grate,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here in this narrow carpet's sacred border,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Girt by the wet distemper's weltering foam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll do my bit to set the house in order<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And make it seem like home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mere hackwork, doubtless, is the stuff for women,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But mine to dissipate the dark has-been,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mine to remove what shades are clustered dim in<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Corners and coigns unseen;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To start the holiest rite of installation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And from the still-remembering walls to wipe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All traces of a previous occupation&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Briefly, to light my pipe.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Paint is no hall-mark of a decent dwelling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And moving furniture makes such a din;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The master's part shall be the ghost-dispelling&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That is where he comes in.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Forget not, while ye tramp with tread sonorous<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The unclothed stairs and catch my weed's perfume,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That three mild spinsters had the house before us;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">This was their morning-room.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14"><span class="smcap">Evoe</span>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A quotation in <i>The Edinburgh Evening Dispatch</i> of a verse of Mr. <span class="smcap">Robert
+Bridges</span>' new poem ends like this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"From numbing stress and gloom profound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Madest escape in life desirous<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">To embroider her thin-spun robe."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h4>[PARAGRAPH ADVERTISEMENT.]</h4>
+
+<h4>'WHO'S THE LADY?'"</h4></div>
+
+<p>Perhaps the <span class="smcap">Poet Laureate</span> will answer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>THE BOOK-BUYER.</h2>
+
+<p>There was plenty to eat, the landlord said, if the commercial gentlemen
+made no objection to my joining their table; and such objection was very
+unlikely, since nicer gentlemen you couldn't hope to meet.</p>
+
+<p>He then went off to put the point to them, and they seem to have been
+very charming about it, judging by the cordiality and courtesy of the
+welcome which I received. Being, however, at the end of the table, I had
+but one neighbour, and he not a very communicative one, for, although he
+did at once lay down his knife and fork to tell me that the beef came
+from Scotland and was therefore more to be desired than the mutton,
+which was local, he said no more, and I was therefore left to eat in
+silence, my two <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i> being engaged in a private conversation.
+Such little as from time to time I heard among the others was not much
+in my line, dealing as it did either with horses, Ulster, or Mexico; but
+suddenly a big man with a purple face and a signet ring as large as a
+carriage lamp plunged me into curiosity by remarking that he "never
+bought less than three two-shilling books a week, and sometimes four."</p>
+
+<p>These being the last words I should have expected from him, for he
+looked absolutely the type that reads only a half-penny daily and a
+sporting sheet and puts in the rest of its leisure at gossip or cards,
+and as I am interested in people's taste in literature, I determined to
+improve his acquaintance and discover something as to his favourite
+authors; and again, as I made this resolve, I realised how foolish it is
+ever to expect the outside of a man to be any index of his mind. One
+never can tell, and one is always having further proof that one never
+can tell, and yet one goes on trying to tell.</p>
+
+<p>Studying him in a series of glances, I set him down for a <span class="smcap">Nat Gould</span> man.</p>
+
+<p>The arrival of coffee and the departure of certain guests (wisely, as it
+happened,) who did not want that curious beverage, relaxed the table,
+and I moved up to the brave buyer of books. He received me affably, and
+we exchanged a few remarks on those ice-breaking matters of no
+importance upon which real convictions are not expected. Then, with a
+deft touch, I turned the talk to literature. "I suppose," I said, "with
+your long journeys you get plenty of time for reading?"</p>
+
+<p>"Time enough," he said.</p>
+
+<p>I continued by a reference to the advantages which we enjoyed over our
+fathers and grandfathers in the multiplicity of cheap books. "Those
+wonderful sevenpennies!" I said.</p>
+
+<p>He agreed. He had often spent ten minutes at a junction in looking at
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"And the shilling books," I said. "The more serious ones&mdash;'Everyman's
+Library,' and all that sort of thing. Most remarkable!"</p>
+
+<p>He had noticed those too, but still he offered no views of his own.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that he was one of the uncommunicative kind. Information must be
+drawn forcibly from him.</p>
+
+<p>"And the two-shilling novels," I said&mdash;"they're wonderful too."</p>
+
+<p>I But his eyes did not light; his I purple mask kept its secrets.</p>
+
+<p>"The two-shilling ones," I repeated, with emphasis on the price. Hang
+it, how slow he was.</p>
+
+<p>Still he said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"So much better than the old yellowbacks at that figure," I said.</p>
+
+<p>He was, if anything, more silent.</p>
+
+<p>Clearly I must plunge. "Who is your favourite writer?" I demanded,
+point-blank.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't got such a thing," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Here's a strange thing, I thought. I suppose he's one of those
+mechanical readers who go through a book as a kind of dutiful pastime
+and never even notice the author's name.</p>
+
+<p>"But you read a lot?" I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Good gracious, no," he said. "I don't read a book from one year's
+end to the other. Papers&mdash;oh, yes; but not books."</p>
+
+<p>I was staggered.</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought," I said, "that I heard you say a little while ago that
+you never bought fewer than three two-shilling books a week, and
+sometimes more?"</p>
+
+<p>His purple took on a darker richer shade, which I subsequently
+discovered indicated the approach of mirth. He began to make strange
+noises, which in time I found meant laughter.</p>
+
+<p>For a while he gave himself up to chromatic rumblings. At last, able to
+speak, he replied to me. "So I did say," he said; "so I did say I bought
+three two-shilling books a week. But not books to read"&mdash;here he became
+momentarily inarticulate again&mdash;"not books to read, but those little
+two-shilling books of stamps in red covers that you get at the
+post-office. I don't know where I should be without them."</p>
+
+<p>Shade of <span class="smcap">Carnegie</span>!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-266.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-266.jpg" alt="Injured Party" /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Injured Party (who has just been turned out of a
+public-house, explaining his little grievance</i>). "<span class="smcap">Now, what d'you shay,
+conshable? d'you think I'm intoxicated?</span>"</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Constable.</i> "<span class="smcap">Yes, I should certainly say you were</span>."</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Injured Party.</i> <span class="smcap">"Well, I'm quite willing to be <i>analysed</i></span>."]</p>
+
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h4>Musical Criticism.</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Sir John French had stultified himself singing the order."&mdash;<i>Irish
+Independent.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>Personally we sing it over to ourselves in the bath every morning&mdash;all
+except the last two paragraphs.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Messrs. <span class="smcap">Bell</span> quote the following appreciative notice of one of their
+spelling books:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The spelling exercises, largely alliterative&mdash;e.g., 'A Beach-tree,
+a sandy beach'&mdash;are quite attractive, and once in the mind remain
+there."&mdash;<i>School Guardian.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>This attractive way of spelling "beech-tree" will not, we hope, remain
+indefinitely in the minds of our readers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-267.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-267.jpg" alt="First Clubman." /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>First Clubman.</i> <span class="smcap">"Well, how are you</span>?"</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Second Clubman.</i> "<span class="smcap">Er&mdash;so-so, perhaps. Last week I thought I was in for
+rheumatic fever, but just managed to stave it off, and to-day a twinge
+in my left shoulder suggests&mdash;well, it may be neuritis or&mdash;&mdash;</span>"</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>First Clubman</i>. "<span class="smcap">My dear chap, I didn't mean it <i>literally</i></span>."</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>LIBERALS DAY BY DAY.</h2>
+
+<p><i>March 23.</i>&mdash;During the course of a heated debate Mr. Joshua Dredgwood,
+M.P., said that, in spite of the Parliament Act, the House of Lords
+still dominated the situation. If there was a General Election next week
+it would be fought on a cry of the Proletariat against the Peers. The
+entire Liberal Party rose to its feet and cheered the speaker for seven
+minutes, waving hats, order papers and pocket-handkerchiefs.</p>
+
+<p><i>March 24.</i>&mdash;Answering a question put by Mr. Connor Shaw, the <span class="smcap">premier</span>
+stated that he had decided to retire from the House of Commons and lead
+the Party from the House of Lords. The entire Liberal Party was
+convulsed with irrepressible enthusiasm and cheered the <span class="smcap">Premier's</span>
+announcement for nine minutes, many Members removing their collars and
+ties and waving them in delirious excitement.</p>
+
+<p><i>March 25.</i>&mdash;A reference to the Welsh Church Bill by a member of the
+Opposition elicited an epoch-making remark from Mr. Haydn Tooth, M.P. He
+said that the English Church blocked every measure of social reform so
+effectually that unless it was immediately disestablished and every
+archbishop and bishop deported to the Antarctic regions civil war would
+break out in a week. All records were broken by the Liberal Party, who
+rose as one man and cheered Mr. Tooth's declaration for ten minutes,
+many Members standing on their heads and waving their legs with
+epileptic fervour.</p>
+
+<p><i>March 26.</i>&mdash;Immediately after Question time the <span class="smcap">Prime Minister</span> asked to
+be allowed to make a brief statement. Amid profound silence he stated
+that he had decided, with the cordial approval of his colleagues, to
+create a new Ministry of Public Worship, to be held by the Archbishop of
+<span class="smcap">Canterbury</span>, and that he would himself assume the archbishopric on the
+following day. The frenzied delight of the entire Liberal Party on
+hearing this momentous announcement beggars description. The cheering
+lasted fifteen minutes, and when the vocal chords of the Members were
+exhausted by the strain they rolled about on the floor of the House for
+nearly half-an-hour.</p>
+
+<p><i>March 27.</i>&mdash;A tremendous impression was created by Mr. James Board, the
+Labour Member, during the discussion of the Plumage Bill. After
+observing that fine feathers might make fine birds he went on to say
+that lawn sleeves were no palliation of the assumption of dictatorial
+and autocratic powers. The entire Liberal Party cheered the statement
+for twenty minutes, and then continued the demonstration with
+mouth-organs and megaphones for close upon an hour and a-half.</p>
+
+<p><i>March 30.</i>&mdash;The <span class="smcap">Premier</span>, bidding farewell to the House of Commons,
+announced that he had with infinite regret accepted his own resignation
+of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and would in future be known as
+Super-Archimandrite of the Isle of Man. The entire Liberal Party were
+still cheering the announcement when we went to press.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Wanted, for country house, a good <span class="smcap">odd man</span>, more outside than
+inside."</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Advt. in "Guardian".</i></p></div>
+
+<p>The oddness of one's outside is, of course, more apparent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>ORANGES AND LEMONS.</h2>
+
+<h4>V.&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Gamesters</span>.</h4>
+
+<p>"It's about time," said Simpson one evening, "that we went to the tables
+and&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;" (he adjusted his spectacles)&mdash;"had a little flutter."</p>
+
+<p>We all looked at him in silent admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Samuel," sighed Myra, "and I promised your aunt that you shouldn't
+gamble while you were away."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Myra, it's the first thing the fellows at the club ask you
+when you've been to the Riviera&mdash;if you've had any luck."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you've had a lot of luck," said Archie. "Several times when
+you've been standing on the heights and calling attention to the
+beautiful view below I've said to myself, 'One push, and he's a deader,'
+but something, some mysterious agency within, has kept me back."</p>
+
+<p>"All the fellows at the club&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Simpson is popularly supposed to belong to a Fleet Street Toilet and
+Hairdressing Club, where for three guineas a year he gets shaved every
+day, and his hair cut whenever Myra insists. On the many occasions when
+he authorises a startling story of some well-known statesman with the
+words: "My dear old chap, I know it for a fact. I heard it at the club
+to-day from a friend of his," then we know that once again the barber's
+assistant has been gossiping over the lather.</p>
+
+<p>"Do think, Samuel," I interrupted, "how much more splendid if you could
+be the only man who had seen Monte Carlo without going inside the rooms.
+And then when the hairdress&mdash;when your friends at the club ask if you've
+had any luck at the tables you just say coldly, 'What tables?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Preferably in Latin," said Archie. "<i>Quae mens&aelig;?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>But it was obviously no good arguing with him. Besides, we were all keen
+enough to go.</p>
+
+<p>"We needn't lose," said Myra. "We might win."</p>
+
+<p>"Good idea," said Thomas. He lit his pipe and added, "Simpson was
+telling me about his system last night. At least, he was just beginning
+when I went to sleep." He applied another match to his pipe and went on,
+as if the idea had suddenly struck him, "Perhaps it was only his
+internal system he meant. I didn't wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Samuel, you <i>are</i> quite well inside, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite, Myra. But I <i>have</i> invented a sort of system for <i>roulette</i>,
+which we might&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There's only one system which is any good," pronounced Archie. "It's
+the system by which, when you've lost all your own money, you turn to
+the man next to you and say, 'Lend me a louis, dear old chap, till
+Christmas; I've forgotten my purse.'"</p>
+
+<p>"No systems," said Dahlia. "Let's make a collection and put it all on
+one number and hope it will win."</p>
+
+<p>Dahlia had obviously been reading novels about people who break the
+bank.</p>
+
+<p>"It's as good a way of losing as any other," said Archie. "Let's do it
+for our first gamble, anyway. Simpson, as our host, shall put the money
+on. I, as his oldest friend, shall watch him to see that he does it.
+What's the number to be?"</p>
+
+<p>We all thought hard for several moments.</p>
+
+<p>"Samuel, what's your age?" asked Myra at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Right off the board," said Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not really more than thirty-six?" Myra whispered to him. "Tell
+me as a secret."</p>
+
+<p>"Peter's nearly two," said Dahlia.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you could nearly put our money on 'two'?" asked Archie.</p>
+
+<p>"I once made seventeen," I said. "On that never-to-be-forgotten day when
+I went in first with Archie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That settles it. Here's to the highest score of The Rabbits'
+wicket-keeper. To-morrow afternoon we put our money on seventeen.
+Simpson, you have between now and 3.30 to-morrow to perfect your French
+delivery of the magic word <i>dix-sept</i>."</p>
+
+<p>I went to bed a proud but anxious man that night. It was <i>my</i> famous
+score which had decided the figure that was to bring us fortune ... and
+yet ... and yet ...</p>
+
+<p>Suppose eighteen turned up? The remorse, the bitterness! "If only," I
+should tell myself&mdash;"if only we had run three instead of two for that
+cut to square-leg!" Suppose it were sixteen! "Why, oh why," I should
+groan, "did I make the scorer put that bye down as a hit?" Suppose it
+wore thirty-four! But there my responsibility ended ... If it were going
+to be thirty-four, they should have used one of Archie's scores, and
+made a good job of it.</p>
+
+<p>At 3.30 next day we were in the fatal building. I should like to pause
+here and describe my costume to you, which was a quiet grey in the best
+of taste, but Myra says that if I do this I must describe hers too, a
+feat beyond me. Sufficient that she looked dazzling, that as a party we
+were remarkably well-dressed, and that Simpson&mdash;murmuring "<i>dix-sept</i>"
+to himself at intervals&mdash;led the way through the rooms till he found a
+table to his liking.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you excited?" whispered Myra to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Frightfully," I said, and left my mouth well open.</p>
+
+<p>I don't quite know what picture of the event Myra and I had conjured up
+in our minds, but I fancy it was one something like this. At the
+entrance into the rooms of such a large and obviously distinguished
+party there would be a slight sensation among the crowd, and way would
+be made for us at the most important table. It would then leak out that
+Chevalier Simpson&mdash;the tall poetical-looking gentleman in the middle, my
+dear&mdash;had brought with him no less a sum than thirty francs with which
+to break the bank, and that he proposed to do this in one daring <i>coup</i>.
+At this news the players at the other tables would hastily leave their
+winnings (or losings) and crowd round us. Chevalier Simpson, pale but
+controlled, would then place his money on seventeen&mdash;"<i>dix-sept</i>," he
+would say to the croupier to make it quite clear&mdash;and the ball would be
+spun. As it slowed down the tension in the crowd would increase. "<i>Mon
+Dieu</i>!" a woman would cry in a shrill voice; there, would be guttural
+exclamations from Germans; at the edge of the crowd strong men would
+swoon. At last a sudden shriek ... and the croupier's voice, trembling
+for the first time for thirty years, "<i>Dix-sept!</i>" Then gold and notes
+would be pushed at the Chevalier. He would stuff his pockets with them;
+he would fill his hat with them; we others, we would stuff our pockets
+too. The bank would send out for more money. There would be loud cheers
+from all the company (with the exception of one man, who had put five
+francs on sixteen and had shot himself) and we should be carried&mdash;that
+is to say, we four men&mdash;shoulder high to the door, while by the deserted
+table Myra and Dahlia clung to each other weeping tears of happiness ...</p>
+
+<p>Something like that.</p>
+
+<p>What happened was different. As far as I could follow, it was this. Over
+the heads of an enormous, badly-dressed and utterly indifferent crowd
+Simpson handed his thirty francs to the croupier.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dix-sept</i>," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The croupier with his rake pushed the money on to seventeen.</p>
+
+<p>Another croupier with his rake pulled it off again ... and stuck to it.</p>
+
+<p>The day's fun was over.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"What <i>did</i> win?" asked Myra some minutes later, when the fact that we
+should never see our money again had been brought home to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Zero," said Archie.</p>
+
+<p>I sighed heavily.</p>
+
+<p>"My usual score," I said, "not my highest."</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">A. A. M.</span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>THE SUPER-STORES.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="center">(<i>At a well-known Universal Emporium several Champions have been engaged
+to demonstrate the art of golf in the Games Department.</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%">
+<div class="figleft" style="width:302px; height:350px;">
+   <img src="images/illus-269atb.jpg"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Sir Gregory Pillkington M.D., F.R.C.P., etc., etc., will
+be in attendance in the Drug Department, where all customers may exhibit
+their tongues free of charge</span>.</p>
+<span class="link"><a href="images/illus-269a.jpg">View larger image</a></span>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width:292px; height:350px;">
+    <img src="images/illus-269btb.jpg"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">In the Art Department, Sir William Dauber, R.A., will
+give a demonstration on the laying on of colour to every purchaser of a
+sixpenny box of paints</span>.</p>
+<span class="link"><a href="images/illus-269b.jpg">View larger image</a></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p style="clear: both;"><br /><br /><br /><br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%">
+<div class="figleft" style="width:299px; height: 350px;">
+   <img src="images/illus-269ctb.jpg"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">A special line op dancing pumps in the Boot Department.</span>
+<i>Shopman.</i> "<span class="smcap">I think you'll find them fit, sir, when the foot has worked
+down into them. Will you try a turn, Sir? Madame Pavlovina, forward,
+please</span>!"</p>
+<span class="link"><a href="images/illus-269c.jpg">View larger image</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 309px; height: 350px;">
+    <img src="images/illus-269dtb.jpg"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">A special feature of the Gent's Ready-to-Wear Clothing
+Department will be the attendance, daily, of a super-"nut" (from the
+Gaiety or Daly's), who will give free advice to each purchaser of Easter
+Outfits</span>.</p>
+<span class="link"><a href="images/illus-269d.jpg">View larger image</a></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p style="clear: both;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-270.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-270.jpg" alt="Golfer (who has just been run over)." /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Golfer (who has just been run over</i>). "<span class="smcap">Gee! What luck!
+That was a near thing. They might have broken my pet cleek</span>."</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>BALLAD OF THE WATCHFUL EYE.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>["In this crisis the best we can do is to keep our eye on Mr.
+Asquith."&mdash;"<i>The Daily Chronicle's" report of Lord <span class="smcap">Saye and Sele</span> at
+Worthing.</i>]</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O keep your eye on <span class="smcap">David</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The demigod of Wales,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before whose furious onset<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dukes turn their timid tails;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom Merioneth mystics<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Praise in delirious distichs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And matched with whose statistics<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Munchausen's</span> glory pales.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O keep your eye on <span class="smcap">Winston</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And mind you keep it tight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For nearly every Saturday<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You'll find he takes to flight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now eloquent and thrilling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now simply cheap and filling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now bent on distilling<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The purest Party spite.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O keep your eye on <span class="smcap">Haldane</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ex-Minister of War,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sleek and supple-minded<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And suave Lord Chancellor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose brain, so keen and subtle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Moves swifter than a shuttle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Obscuring, like the cuttle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Things that were plain before.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O keep your eye on <span class="smcap">Morley</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(Well-known as "Honest John"),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The peccant paragrapher<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who still is holding on;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, though his strange position<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Excited some suspicion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We've <span class="smcap">Curzon's</span> frank admission<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of joy he hasn't gone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O keep your eye on <span class="smcap">Lulu</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who Greater Britain sways<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From distant Woolloomooloo<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To Nova Scotia's bays;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose sumptuous urbanity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Combined with well-groomed sanity<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And freedom from profanity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stirs <span class="smcap">David's</span> deep amaze.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O keep your eye on <span class="smcap">Birrell</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So wholly free from guile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conspicuous by his absence<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From Erin's peaceful isle;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who wakes from floor to rafter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The House to heedless laughter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Careless of what comes after<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Can he but raise a smile.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O keep your eye on <span class="smcap">Masterman</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dear <span class="smcap">David's</span> henchman leal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose piety and "uplift"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Make ribald Tories squeal;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every public function<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Displaying the conjunction<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of perfect moral unction<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With perfect Party zeal.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Last, keep your eye on <span class="smcap">Asquith</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he will bring you through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No matter what his colleagues<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May say or think or do;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For in the dirtiest weather<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He moulted not a feather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And safely kept together<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His variegated crow.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h4>The Siamese Twin.</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">"Derbyshire</span>.&mdash;To sell, handsome well-built and superbly finished
+semi-detached Mouse, containing two entertaining, six bed rooms,
+dressing-room, and excellent bathroom."&mdash;<i>Advt. in "Manchester
+Guardian".</i></p></div>
+
+<p>We had no idea a mouse had so much accommodation.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was our intention before now to say a kindly word for 'The New
+Weekly.' We trust we are not too late yet."</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Westminster Gazette.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>No. The paper after three weeks or so is still alive. But our green
+contemporary should have had more confidence in it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-271.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-271.jpg" alt="AN ASQUITH TO THE RESCUE!" /></a>
+
+<h3>AN ASQUITH TO THE RESCUE!</h3>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><span class="smcap">War Minister</span> (<i>to <span class="smcap">Premier</span></i>). "HOLD TIGHT! I'LL SEE YOU THROUGH."</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">(Extracted from the Diary of Toby, M.P.)</span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-273.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-273.jpg" alt="THE NEW DEMOCRATISED ARMY." /></a>
+
+
+<h3>THE NEW "DEMOCRATISED" ARMY.</h3>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in">Certain officers having been guilty of the heinous offence of choosing
+one of two alternatives offered them by their superiors, it is now
+proposed to remodel our military system on democratic lines so as to
+leave no room for suspicion of political bias.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in">[Major <span class="smcap">Ramsay Macdonald</span>, Field-Marshal the Baron <span class="smcap">Byles of Bradford</span>,
+Lieut.-Col. Sir <span class="smcap">J. Brunner</span>, Capt. <span class="smcap">John Ward</span> and Col. <span class="smcap">Keir Hardie</span>.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>House of Commons, Monday, March 30.</i>&mdash;Stirring quarter of an hour. For
+dramatic surprise Drury Lane or Sadlers Wells in palmiest days not in it
+with T. R. Westminster. Doors open as usual at 2.45. In a few minutes
+there was standing room only. Appointed business of sitting Third
+Reading of Consolidated Fund Bill. Peculiarity of this measure is that
+through successive stages, each occupying a full sitting, no one even
+distantly alludes to its existence or provisions. Any other subject
+under the sun may, and is, talked around at length. To-day expected
+that opportunity would be seized by Opposition to make fresh attack on
+Government in respect of the Curragh affair and all it led to. Hence the
+crowded benches and prevalent expectation of a scrimmage.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of questions addressed to <span class="smcap">Prime Minister</span> answered with that
+directness and brevity that mark his share in the conversation.
+Questions on Paper disposed of, <span class="smcap">Leader Of Opposition</span> asked whether Sir
+<span class="smcap">John French</span> and Sir <span class="smcap">Spencer Ewart</span> had withdrawn their resignation?
+Answering in the negative, the <span class="smcap">Premier</span> paid high tribute to the ability,
+loyalty and devotion to duty with which the gallant officers have served
+the Army and the State. He added, what was regarded as foregone
+conclusion, that <span class="smcap">Secretary of State for War</span> had thought it right to
+press his proffered resignation.</p>
+
+<p>Here it seemed was end of statement. Members expected to see <span class="smcap">Premier</span>
+resume his seat. He continued in the same level businesslike tone:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In the circumstances, after much consideration, with not a little
+reluctance, I have felt it my duty, for the time at any rate, to assume
+the office of Secretary of State for War."</p>
+
+<p>There followed a moment of silence. Effect of announcement, unexpected,
+momentous, was stupefying. Then a cheer, strident, almost savage in its
+passion, burst from serried ranks of Ministerialists. One leaped up and
+waved a copy of Orders of the Day. In an instant all were on their feet
+wildly cheering.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the <span class="smcap">Premier</span>, apparently impassive, stood silent at the Table.
+When storm exhausted itself he quietly added that in accordance with law
+he would forthwith retire from the House "until, if it pleases them, my
+constituents sanction my return."</p>
+
+<p>Demonstration of personal esteem and political approval repeated when, a
+few moments later, he walked out behind <span class="smcap">Speaker's</span> Chair. Again the
+Liberals, now joined by Irish Nationalists, uprose, madly cheering.</p>
+
+<p>Following upon this unprecedented scene, <span class="smcap">Seely's</span> personal statement
+inevitably partook of character of anticlimax. Entering while Questions
+were going forward, he passed the Treasury bench, where he had no longer
+right to sit, and turned up the Gangway, to find every seat occupied. He
+stood for a moment irresolute. <span class="smcap">Cuthbert Wason</span>, who has permanently
+appropriated third corner seat above Gangway (and portion of one
+adjoining), courteously made room for the ex-Minister.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Seely's</span> brief statement, dignified in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> its simplicity, unexceptional in
+its good taste, listened to by both sides with evident sympathy. During
+two years' administration of War Office affairs, he has by
+straightforwardness, urbanity, and display of perfect command of his
+subject, increased the personal popularity enjoyed whilst he was yet a
+private Member.</p>
+
+<p><i>Business done.</i>&mdash;Resignation by Colonel <span class="smcap">Seely</span> of War Office portfolio
+announced. <span class="smcap">Prime Minister</span> takes it in personal charge.</p>
+
+<p><i>House of Lords, Tuesday.</i>&mdash;During last two days noble Lords been
+delighted with little by-play provided by Lord <span class="smcap">Curzon</span>. Yesterday, he by
+severe cross-examination extracted from Lord <span class="smcap">Morley</span> admission of
+personal knowledge of what are known as the peccant paragraphs in
+document handed on behalf of War Office to General <span class="smcap">Gough</span>.</p>
+
+<p>What troubled <span class="smcap">Curzon</span> was apprehension that such admission must
+necessarily be followed by resignation. Regretted this for dual reason.
+First, House would be deprived of presence of esteemed Viscount on
+Ministerial bench. Secondly, and to the generous mind this consideration
+even more poignant, the secession of a Minister so highly prized would
+in present circumstances strike heavy blow at Government. Might even
+lead to break up of Ministry, dissolution of Parliament, destruction of
+Home Rule and Welsh Church Bills.</p>
+
+<p>Under cross-examination <span class="smcap">Morley</span>, whilst making clean breast of his share
+in incident that led to resignation of <span class="smcap">War Minister</span>, said never a word
+about possibility, or otherwise, of his own retirement. <span class="smcap">Curzon's</span>
+generous alarm deepened. Better know the worst if it were lurking in the
+background.</p>
+
+<p>"How comes it," he asked, "if the Government felt compelled to withdraw
+these paragraphs, and if the <span class="smcap">Secretary for War</span> resigned, that we still
+have the good fortune to see the noble Viscount in charge of the
+Government bench?"</p>
+
+<p>"The latter point," said <span class="smcap">Morley</span>, "will be answered more or less
+satisfactorily to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Curzon</span> went home in state of profound depression. <span class="smcap">Morley</span>, regardless of
+the comfort, even the safety, of his colleagues in the Cabinet,
+evidently meant resignation. Came down to-day, his ingenuous countenance
+exhibiting signs of passage through an unrestful night.</p>
+
+<p>"But," as he quaintly remarked to commiserating friend, "better have the
+tooth out at once."</p>
+
+<p>Up again at first opportunity. Still harping on the Viscount.</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather difficult to see," he remarked, "why, the <span class="smcap">Secretary for
+War</span> having handed in his first resignation, we should still have been
+favoured with the continuance in office of the noble Viscount.... The
+upshot of the incident is that Colonel <span class="smcap">Seely</span> has gone, while I hope the
+noble Viscount is going to remain."</p>
+
+<p>Appeal irresistible. In response <span class="smcap">Morley</span> explained that had <span class="smcap">Seely</span>
+persisted in his first resignation his would have followed. When it came
+to <span class="smcap">Seely's</span> second resignation he felt bound to remain.</p>
+
+<p>Distinction subtle. Possibly it was effect of wrestling with it that
+made <span class="smcap">Curzon</span> look less joyous than might have been expected, seeing he
+had realised his disinterested hope, and a second, even more damaging,
+secession from a stricken Cabinet had been averted.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 40%;">
+<a href="images/illus-274.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-274.jpg" alt="Lord Curzon" /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in">Lord <span class="smcap">Curzon</span> (<i>to Lord <span class="smcap">Morley</span></i>). "Must you go? Can't you
+stay?"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<p><i>Business done.</i>&mdash;In the Commons debate on Second Reading of Home Rule
+Bill resumed. Atmosphere significantly less stormy than heretofore.</p>
+
+<p><i>House of Commons, Thursday.</i>&mdash;The <span class="smcap">Member for Sark</span>, in pursuance of his
+favourite axiom that there is nothing new under the sun, calls attention
+to two conversations in which he discovers singularly close parallel in
+tone and temper. The first will be found in official report of
+Parliamentary debate. It took place between <span class="smcap">Leader of Opposition</span> and
+<span class="smcap">First Lord of Admiralty</span>, the former insistent upon House being made
+acquainted with Sir <span class="smcap">Arthur Paget's</span> report of what happened when he
+addressed officers under his command at Curragh on possibility of their
+being ordered to Ulster.</p>
+
+<p>Here follows excerpt from official report:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Churchill</span>.</i> The statement just made I make after having had an
+opportunity of communicating with Sir Arthur Paget. It is admitted that
+a misunderstanding on the point arose.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Bonar Law</span>.</i> Rubbish.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Churchill</span>.</i> Do I understand the right hon. gentleman to say
+'rubbish'?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. <span class="smcap">Bonar Law</span>.</i> Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The parallel that pleases <span class="smcap">Sark</span> will be found in report of a conversation
+between <i>Mrs. Gamp</i> and <i>Mrs. Betsey Prig</i> at what should have been a
+friendly tea-table in the home of the former. This was the historic
+occasion when <i>Mrs. Prig</i> declared her rooted belief in the
+non-existence of <i>Mrs. Gamp's</i> friend <i>Mrs. Harris</i>. For purpose of
+comparison it may be convenient to put what followed in the same form as
+official Parliamentary report:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Gamp.</i> What! you bago creetur, have I know'd Mrs. Harris
+five-and-thirty year, to be told at last that there ain't no sech a
+person livin'! Go along with you!</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Prig.</i> I'm agoin', Ma'am, aint I?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Gamp.</i> You had better, Ma'am!</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Prig.</i> Do you know who you're talking to, Ma'am?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Gamp.</i> Aperiently to Betsey Prig.</p>
+
+<p><i>Business done.</i>&mdash;Third night's debate on Second Reading of Home Rule
+Bill. Intended to divide. On urgent demand of Opposition division
+deferred till Monday.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Then came the resignation of Mr. Asquith, which left the Ministry
+(temporarily) without its head. Hence another vacant seal in the
+Government Front Bench."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>To prevent self-consciousness among the Cabinet, the name of the
+Minister who looks like a vacant seal should be given.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Mr. Bodkin, opening the case, described Hemmerde for the defence."</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>North Eastern Daily Gazette.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>It is generally towards the end of a case that one wants to describe the
+opposing counsel in detail.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>PROOF</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Addressed to a Lady who has asked for it.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Of old, when in the dance's-whirl<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or crouched behind a friendly screen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I fell in love with any girl<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(You know the kind of love I mean),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I gave the credit to champagne&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And breathed again.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When first we met, a more intense<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Emotion stirred me, I admit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But having dined at great expense<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I didn't like to mention it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For tribute seemed to Bacchus due<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">As much as you.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But love that made a parish hop<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A sacred feast for both of us<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burst into flame without a drop<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of alcoholic stimulus;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And love that thrives on lemonade<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Can never fade.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>REVERSIBLE RHETORIC.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>(<i>Being the unsigned MS., evidently of a leading article, picked up in
+Fleet Street last week. What the finder wants to know is&mdash;which side is
+it arguing for?</i>)</p></blockquote>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Plot that Failed.</span></h4>
+
+<p>Out of the welter of mendacity, evasions and intrigue, for a parallel to
+which the records of this or indeed of any civilised country might be
+searched in vain, one fact has at last emerged clear and indisputable.
+The nation will learn this morning, with what feelings it is only too
+easy to conjecture, that a great party, a party which, despite its many
+political blunders, has at least a record for honourable if mistaken
+statesmanship in the past, has now stooped to the final and abysmal
+folly. Disguise the fact with what specious rhetoric they may, the truth
+remains that our opponents have deliberately endeavoured to tamper with
+a great national possession, and to make the British Army a tool in the
+game of party.</p>
+
+<p>Incredible, nay unthinkable, as such a situation would have been till
+lately, who is now to deny it? If any doubt still remained, surely the
+venomous outpourings of those journals which support and encourage the
+machinations of "honourable gentlemen"&mdash;alas that the phrase should
+henceforth have to be in quotation marks!&mdash;on the opposite side of the
+House must by now have dispelled it. Beaten to their last ditch, and
+discredited even in that, it is now evident that the conspirators had
+determined to stake all upon one final throw. Fortunately the very
+desperateness of the plot has proved its undoing, and from the tremulous
+lips of the perpetrators themselves comes to-day a froth of vituperation
+and rancorous abuse that is the surest confession of abject failure.</p>
+
+<p>Happily, however, there is a brighter side to the picture; signs are not
+wanting&mdash;and each hour, we are sure, will strengthen them&mdash;that moderate
+men in the ranks of our opponents are beginning to share our own
+indignation and dismay. Let but this spirit find its outlet and victory
+is ours. We say it in no petty strain of party triumph, but the day of
+reckoning can obviously no longer be delayed. A gang of wholly reckless
+and unscrupulous political adventurers have sown the dragon's teeth in
+the wind; let the whole nation see to it that they are now forced to
+reap armed men in the whirlwind!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65%;">
+<a href="images/illus-275.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-275.jpg" alt="AN ECHO OF SHOW SUNDAY." /></a>
+
+<h3>AN ECHO OF SHOW SUNDAY.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>Proving that a humorist is never allowed to be serious.</i>)</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Visitor (after studying well-known humorous artist's classical Academy
+picture).</i> "<span class="smcap">Delightfully comic. Tell me, what is the joke to this one?</span>"</p>
+
+
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Many a man whose courage would not respond to the spur of some
+huge burglar would die rather than be beaten by a wretched little
+collar stud."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>The only burglar we have ever met was (luckily) in the Infantry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>AT THE PLAY.</h2>
+
+<h4>"<span class="smcap">Things we'd like to know.</span>"</h4>
+
+<p>Almost the last thing that you expect in a starting-price bookie is a
+strong penchant for poetry. It is true that I have before me, as I
+write, a Turf Commissioner's telegraphic code which contains some rather
+picturesque symbols. Thus "amber" is the codeword for &pound;1; "heliotrope"
+for &pound;20; "rainbow" for "win and 1, 2." Still I do not think it probable
+that if the author of this code should go bankrupt as a bookie&mdash;and this
+he is never likely to do as far as I am concerned&mdash;he would be able to
+retrieve his fortunes by taking up the profession of a publisher of
+poetical works. Yet this is just what happened, in Mr. <span class="smcap">Monckton Hoffe's</span>
+play, with the firm of <i>Wilberforce Brothers</i>, Turf Commissioners. In
+the first Act we find them in such straits that they can barely scrape
+together enough petty cash to satisfy the demands of a Water-Rate
+Collector, insistent on the door-step. In the next Act, a year later,
+they are all flourishing like green bay-trees as a firm of Poetry
+Commissioners trading under the name of <i>The Lotus Publishing Company</i>.
+This amazing result they have achieved by foisting on the office
+typewriter&mdash;<i>tr&eacute;s gamine</i>&mdash;the poetical output of one of their own
+number, and exploiting her as a prodigy under the auspices of a patron
+of the arts&mdash;one <i>Lord Glandeville</i>. How this M&aelig;cenas, this connoisseur
+in taste, was ever imposed upon by the masquerading of such incredible
+types, and how they could have amassed all that wealth by the
+publication of serious poetry, the most notorious of drugs on the
+market&mdash;these are among the "things" that we should all "like to know"
+in case our own professions should fail us.</p>
+
+<p>What worried me most was that Mr. <span class="smcap">Hoffe</span> should have so poor an idea of
+my intelligence as to suppose it possible to impart an atmosphere of
+probability to a scheme that was pure farce. Yet that was what he tried
+to do; he wanted me to believe that I was assisting at a comedy. There
+was no knockabout business; nobody entered the room with a somersault,
+tripped over a pin or hung his hat on the scenery. They all behaved as
+if they were presenting us with what is known as a human document, to be
+regarded <i>au grand</i> (or, at worst, <i>au petit</i>) <i>s&eacute;rieux</i>. The fun&mdash;and
+there were some very pleasant touches&mdash;was not so much the fun of a huge
+and preposterous joke, but rather the humour of character or incidental
+detail. The part of <i>Lord Glandeville</i>, who might have been made the
+most ridiculous butt of imposture, was treated quite solemnly. Indeed,
+our sympathies were provoked for a man whose finest instincts had been
+trifled with; who had been suffered to fall in love with the poet-soul
+of a girl only to find that she was the tool of a gang of rogues. One of
+them, <i>Dick Gilder</i>, might tell him that he (<i>Glandeville</i>) was an
+egoist and that he ought to have fallen in love with the girl's body, as
+he (<i>Gilder</i>) had done, instead of her supposed soul; but that did not
+help matters much, or prevent our feeling that this treatment of
+<i>Glandeville</i> was no matter for laughter. And when I go and see a
+production of Mr. <span class="smcap">Hawtrey's</span> I want matter for laughter and nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>The best individual performances were those of Mr. <span class="smcap">Lyston Lyle</span>&mdash;really
+excellent as a soldier of fortune&mdash;and Miss <span class="smcap">Helen Haye</span> as <i>Lord
+Glandeville's</i> aunt who lays herself out to defeat the matrimonial
+designs of the prodigy. Mr. <span class="smcap">Charles Hawtrey</span> was not perhaps at his very
+best as <i>Dick Gilder.</i> He wore an air of detachment and indulged his old
+habit of looking over the heads of his stage-audience. He had too many
+set speeches and was not always quite sure what word came next. Still
+his mere presence is always irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>As <i>Lord Glandeville</i>, Mr. <span class="smcap">Vane Tempest</span>, most admirable of buffoons,
+must have longed to be allowed to make us laugh, but solemnity was his
+order of the day and he carried it out like a hero. As for Mr. <span class="smcap">Wenman</span>,
+who played the partner that introduced <i>Lord Glandeville</i> to the rest of
+the "Lotus Publishing Company" (though how that refined nobleman ever
+made the acquaintance of such a rough diamond is another of the "things
+we'd like to know"), his face is a gift and he used its mobility to good
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Miss <span class="smcap">Dorothy Minto</span>, as <i>Dorothy Gedge</i>, typewriter (with the
+<i>nom de guerre</i> of <i>Gedage</i>), was a little angular, and the motive of
+her spasmodic excursions across the stage was not always apparent. But
+she was extremely funny in her inimitable way when she had a chance of
+exhibiting the unreasonableness of her selection as a mouthpiece of the
+Muses. At the end, when she wonders if she could have been happy with
+<i>Glandeville</i> and knows that she would be happy with <i>Gilder</i>, she
+showed an extremely pretty vein of sentiment. And here, too, I must
+heartily compliment the author on a scene which threatened to be
+commonplace and tedious, but was handled with a most engaging freshness
+and a very unusual sense of what was just right and enough.</p>
+
+<p class="right">O. S.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%;">
+<a href="images/illus-276.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-276.jpg" alt="POETRY COMMISSION-AGENTS FINDING A BACKER." /></a>
+
+<h3>POETRY COMMISSION-AGENTS FINDING A BACKER.</h3>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="40%" cellspacing="0" summary="POETRY COMMISSION-AGENTS FINDING A BACKER.">
+<tr><td align='left'><i>Lord Giandeville</i></td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Vane-Tempest</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><i>Brabazon Todd</i></td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Henry Wenman</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><i>Richard Gilder</i></td><td align='left'>Mr. <span class="smcap">Charles Hawtrey</span>.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2><i>ARGUMENTUM AD FEMINAM.</i></h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Once, unless the tale's a myth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Chloe danced mid rustic song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indefatigably with<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Amorous Damon all day long.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This was all the joy she knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(Quite enough, no doubt), and yet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Phyllis, when <i>you</i> gambol, <i>you</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rather gamble at roulette.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Simple 'twas in suchlike days<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wooing Chloe. Now, alas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>You</i>'ve no taste for simple ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Much prefer green baize to grass.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fled your interest in swains;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nothing for my sighs you care;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All your joy is little trains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oddly dubbed "chemin de fer."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Phyllis, if your fixed intent<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is that you forsake the dance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quit Arcadian merriment<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For exciting games of chance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've the best of 'em by heaps:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Come with me, my dear, and call<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the Registrar's; he keeps<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">One big gamble worth them all.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>CON.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Con was the conjurer of the king<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ere the coming of Padraig Mor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a wand he had, and a golden ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a five-prong crown he wore;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his robe was trimmed with minever&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His robe of the royal blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Con was the wonderful conjuror<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the days when the tricks were new.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He could pick a rabbit from out of a poke<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where never had rabbit lain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He could pulp your watch like an egg's red yoke<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And could give it you whole again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the king he laughed, "Ha-ha," he laughed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Till they thumped on his back anon;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the other magicians went dancing daft<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To see the magic of Con.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now Con he climbed on a moonbeam grey<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the dusk of the god's great shop,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he stole the Elixir of Life away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he drank it, every drop;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He poured the draught in a golden cup<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On a wonderful day that's gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he swilled it round and he tossed it up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And that was the curse of Con.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the old king died at ninety-six<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his son he reigned instead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Con he conjured the same old tricks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his hair crow-black on his head;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the new king died, and another king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And another king after he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Con went on with his conjuring<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The same as it used to be.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the fifth king came (he was long of limb<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a hasty man) he swore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Con he conjured his tricks for him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he kicked Con through the door;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For that's in the songs the minstrels sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thus is the story told,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For "Con," said the king, "you're none so young,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And your tricks are plaguey old!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">*   *   *   *   *<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now Con he tramps from shire to shire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he must till the crack of doom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He takes the road in the dust and mire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he sleeps in the windy broom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He's no address and he's no abode,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his jacket's the worse o' wear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I've met him once on the Portsmouth Road,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And once at a Wicklow fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the roundabouts and the swings are slow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a conjuring chap draws near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there's nothing about his mug to show<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That it's seen five thousand year<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(For that's the way that the songs were sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thus is the story told),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You'll know it's Con and he's none so young<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For his tricks are plaguey old.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65%;">
+<a href="images/illus-277.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-277.jpg" alt="Retired M.F.H." /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Retired M.F.H.</i> "<span class="smcap">And when we came to the seventeenth,
+just as I was going to drive, what should I see but an old dog fox
+staring at me out of the hedge!</span>"</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Sympathetic Friend.</i> "<span class="smcap">Ye-e-e-s?</span>"</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Retired M.F.H.</i> "<span class="smcap">Now, don't you think that was a most remarkable
+thing?</span>"</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Sympathetic Friend.</i> "<span class="smcap">Well, yes, I suppose it was; but then, you see, I
+don't know anything about golf.</span>"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>From a list of new books:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Woman and Crime (Adam)."</p></div>
+
+<p>Well, he ought to know.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>From a pamphlet on "The 'King's Own' Mission":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<span class="smcap">Madam Ada Bacon</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Soloist for Easter Sunday Evening</span>.<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Please send some eggs."</p></div>
+
+<p>The writer has been carried away by the association of ideas. The
+singing will not really be so bad as that.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Two conflicting announcements from <i>The Observer</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<span class="smcap">Villa's Victory.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Four Days of Furious Fighting.</span>"</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<span class="smcap">How the Villa were Beaten.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Liverpool's superior Pace.</span>"</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>EXILE.</h2>
+
+<p>"And how long," said the lady of the house from behind her rampart of
+breakfast things, "shall you want to be away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Away?" I said. "Who said anything about being away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "if you want to go to all those annual dinners and
+things you'll have to go to London, and if you go to London you'll have
+to be away from here."</p>
+
+<p>"'Plato,'" I said, "'thou reasonest well.' Helen, pass me the butter."</p>
+
+<p>"Why deny it, then?" said Helen's mother. "If you're going to be away
+you're going to be away, and there's an end of it."</p>
+
+<p>"You're wrong there," I said. "There isn't an end of it. I can go away
+and come back on the same day. By the last train, you know. The last
+train is intended for that very purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"What very purpose?"</p>
+
+<p>"For coming back by the last train. That's what it's there for. Fathers
+of families who come back by it sleep in their own beds instead of
+sleeping in strange beds in clubs or hotels. Let us sing the praises of
+the last train. Rosie, push over the marmalade, and don't upset the
+spoon on the table-cloth."</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to converse with marmalade in one's mouth. I did not make
+the attempt, so there was a short pause in the argument. It was resumed
+by the lady of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll lose a lot of sleep, you know," she said. "The last train
+doesn't get you here till one o'clock in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"No matter," I said, "I can bear it. The thought of meeting my family at
+breakfast will sustain me."</p>
+
+<p>"But you never do meet us. After a last train night you 're always
+half-an-hour late, and by that time the girls are gone."</p>
+
+<p>"But you remain," I said. "To see you pouring out coffee is a liberal
+education in patience."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's tepid coffee."</p>
+
+<p>"I like tepid coffee as a change."</p>
+
+<p>"And the eggs and bacon are cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" I said. "There is always the toast."</p>
+
+<p>"And the toast is limp."</p>
+
+<p>"If," I said, "you are so sure of these discomforts why not order me a
+fresh breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"And that," she said, "will make work for the servants."</p>
+
+<p>"Work," I said, "is for the workers. Besides the cook will like me to
+show an independent spirit."</p>
+
+<p>"The nature of cooks," she said, "is not one of your strong points. No,
+I am sure you will do better to stay in London."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can give up my dinners," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you think I could ask you to make such a sacrifice? Old friends
+whom you meet only once a year! Certainly you must go."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't turn up they'll put it down to me, and that wouldn't be
+fair."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I said, "why you are so keen on my staying in London.
+There's something behind this&mdash;something more than meets the eye."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," she said, "it's only your comfort; but men never can be
+reasonable."</p>
+
+<p>"Dad," said Helen to Rosie, "is going to have a holiday given him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Rosie; "but he doesn't seem to want it very much."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's not going to be a very long one," said Peggy, who generally
+supports my side of the battle.</p>
+
+<p>"And we'll do his packing," said their mother; "won't we, girls?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah!" said Peggy.</p>
+
+<p>"Peggy," I said, "I am sorry to cast a cold shower on your enthusiasm,
+but there are limits. You and your mother are great and undeniable
+packers, but your ways are not my ways."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," said Helen, "we should do it better than Swabey."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "you would do it worse. Swabey has his faults, but I know
+them. He always forgets white ties and handkerchiefs, but these I can
+buy, borrow or steal. You would forget white shirts and dress trousers,
+which mean nothing to you, but are all the world to me. Swabey packs my
+shaving-brush and my safety razor into my dress shoes, where I come upon
+them eventually. You would leave them out altogether. I am grateful to
+you all for your generous offer, but Swabey shall do my packing&mdash;that is
+if I go."</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to say that I went. The dinners were, as usual, a
+great success. We all became young again in our own eyes, and on the
+whole I was not sorry to have a bedroom in London. But why had it been
+forced on me against my will? The reason will appear in a letter from
+Peggy which I received on the second morning of my compulsory freedom;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dearest Dad</span>,&mdash;We are geting on alright. The maids are now in the libary
+and everything has been put somwere else. A lot of your papers got blown
+about, but we ran after them and got most of them. Our meels are in your
+den. Their going into the dining room direckly. The dust is dredfull and
+the dogs don't like it. It is a spring cleening with love from your
+loving</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">Peggy</span>."
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">R. C. L.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>LAID.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He was no commonplace suburban spook<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Content to rap on table-tops; he cherished<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The memory of days when at his look<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Princes and peers incontinently perished;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stuck in his heart a jewelled knife dripped red;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flames had been known to issue from his head.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Moated Grange, now ruinous and drear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He roamed, constrained to bitter self-effacement,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until one midnight his enraptured ear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Detected mortal accents in the basement.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Downstairs he crept; beside the cheerless grate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sat four or five old men in keen debate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Softly he chuckled, "Here's a bit of luck!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And beat a warning rattle on his tabor<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That once had made the stoutest run amok;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then each old boy sat up and nudged his neighbour;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Calm and collected round the chimney-piece<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They showed no sign of imminent decease.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In vain he practised all his horrid lore<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And rolled his eyes and beckoned with distort hand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In vain his dagger dripped with gouts of gore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They only beamed and took a note in shorthand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When in despair he loosed his flaming jet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One smiled and lit therefrom a cigarette.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That was the end! With agonising shriek<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He turned and fled, the spectral perspiration<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dewing his brow and coursing down his cheek;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fled, and was lost to man's investigation<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(For full discussion of his little tricks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See Psychical Research Reports, vol. vi.).<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65%;">
+<a href="images/illus-279.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-279.jpg" alt="Country Host." /></a>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Country Host.</i> "<span class="smcap">I hope the owls didn't disturb you last
+night, Lady Jenkins?</span>"</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><i>Wife of Local Mayor.</i> "<span class="smcap">Law bless you, no! I didn't 'ear anything. Which
+dog was it?</span>"</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>Has Mr. <span class="smcap">W. J. Locke's</span> hand&mdash;the hand that created vagabond <i>Paragot</i> for
+tears and laughter, and the resourceful <i>Aristide</i>&mdash;has it lost its
+particular cunning that he should begin his romance of <i>The Fortunate
+Youth</i> (<span class="smcap">Lane</span>) in a mood of heavy and misplaced facetiousness, and drift
+by way of Family Heraldry into an atmosphere of sham politics and a
+bright general glow of ineffectual snobbery? <i>Paul Savelli</i>, the
+fortunate youth, with his incredible beauty, his dreams, his
+accomplishments beyond all discernible cause, his faintly Disraelian
+airs, never once carried me out of my chair. And to what other end is
+romance ordained? Nor did his Princess, with her mastery of the easier
+French idioms; nor <i>Barney Bill</i>, the kind-hearted stage-tramp. Indeed,
+I found Mr. <span class="smcap">Locke</span> constantly making statements about his people that
+were not substantiated, as about <i>Ursula Winwood</i>, the egregiously
+competent, the <i>confidante</i> of troubled ministers, bishops and generals.
+<i>Jane</i> alone, an early simple friend of <i>Paul</i>, I found credible and
+charming, and thanked heaven for her sake that <i>Paul</i> married his
+Princess. It is indeed a romance gone wrong. Perhaps it is a more
+difficult thing plausibly and readily to sustain one's fancy in a modern
+setting, with modern folk, than in the fair realm of Tushery with
+rapier-wielding demigods. Yet I think that the dead <span class="smcap">Harland</span> and the
+living <span class="smcap">Hope</span> (himself no mean Tusher) might have brought off their
+<i>Paul</i>. As a matter of fact, so I believe could Mr. <span class="smcap">Locke</span>; that is just
+the pity of it. I merely record the fact that he has not done so.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>There are, of course, short stories and short stories. On a perusal of
+those that Mr. <span class="smcap">Richard Dehan</span> has collected in volume form under the
+title of <i>The Cost of Wings</i> (<span class="smcap">Heinemann</span>), I am bound to record my
+conviction that most of them are profoundly unworthy of the author of
+<i>The Dop Doctor</i>. Few of them even aspire to anything beyond "first
+serial" quality; and though there is often present a certain easy
+flippancy of phrase it impressed me only as the crackling of thorns in a
+pot-boiler. Perhaps the best is the first or title tale, which tells of
+a young wife goaded to hard words by her constant anxiety for an
+aviator-husband. There is some genuine feeling here; but the climax, in
+which the pair decide only to fly in company, was dangerously like the
+end of a stage duologue. Moreover, so swift now-a-days is the flight of
+time&mdash;or the time of flight&mdash;that aviation stories very soon come to
+sound antiquated. Still, after all, there is at least plenty of variety
+in this volume, and it will be hard if, in a collection of twenty-six
+brief tales, you do not come upon something to your individual taste.
+But one word of gentle protest. I fancy the stage has at last agreed
+upon a close time for supposed infants, against whose arrival from India
+nurses and rocking-horses are engaged, and who turn out on appearance to
+be young persons of mature years. Well, I am convinced that it is high
+time for a similar prohibition in fiction. Mr. <span class="smcap">Dehan</span> at least has proved
+himself far too clever for me to tolerate this threadbare theme, not
+very illuminatingly treated, from his valuable pen.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>Mr. Anthony Venning</i> was a young man of remarkable tact. Taking
+advantage of his position as a consultant engineer, at the beginning of
+<i>The Sentence Absolute</i> (<span class="smcap">Nisbet</span>), he pocketed an advance commission for
+recommending the tender of a certain firm of contractors to the Welsh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+mill-owner who was employing his professional services. Whether this
+practice is common amongst engineers, as the authoress would seem to
+suggest, I cannot say, but at any rate it was hardly to be expected in
+the circumstances that <i>Mr. Venning</i> should not fall in love with <i>Mr.
+Powell's</i> extremely beautiful daughter, or that the boilers in <i>Mr.
+Powell's</i> mill should hesitate in the fulness of time to explode. But
+the lover had the native good sense to be present at the moment of the
+inevitable catastrophe and to be the only person seriously damaged; and
+since it was his first real lapse from the paths of rectitude, and he
+was otherwise amiable, athletic, presentable and brave, who shall
+complain if, after confessing in a manly way and being put into a state
+of thorough repair, he found happiness in the end? Miss <span class="smcap">Margaret
+Macaulay</span> tells her story in a pleasant enough way, and describes with
+some skill its idyllic setting (for <i>Mr. Powell</i> was first a country
+squire, and only secondly a manufacturer); but since she neither
+indulges in satire, social and economic speculation, nor any pretence of
+subtlety in psychological probings, there is a curiously old-fashioned
+air about her novel. And when I mention that <i>Mr. Venning</i> and <i>Miss
+Powell</i> were actually cut off by the tide on a treacherous reef of the
+Cambrian coast it will be realised that <i>The Sentence Absolute</i> is a
+book for one of those softer moods in which we do not desire to be
+startled or stung to profound meditation on the meaning of life.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65%;">
+<a href="images/illus-280.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/illus-280.jpg" alt="OUR CURIO CRANKS." /></a>
+
+<h3>OUR CURIO CRANKS.</h3>
+
+<p style="margin-left:.1in;text-indent:-.1in"><span class="smcap">The man who takes every opportunity of adding to his gallery of Hats of
+Famous Men.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I hope that Mr. <span class="smcap">Vaughan Kester</span>, author of <i>John o' Jamestown</i> (<span class="smcap">Hodder
+and Stoughton</span>), is innocent of intent to do the dreadful thing that he
+has done. With the book itself I have no fault to find; it is quite a
+good historical novel, and tells with a fair amount of excitement the
+story of <i>Captain John Smith</i> and the early settlers in Virginia, not
+omitting <i>Pocahontas</i>. Mr. <span class="smcap">Kester's</span> crime consists not in his novel, but
+in the fact that he has probably plunged America into all the horrors of
+a new outbreak of historical fiction. A few years ago every adult in the
+United States was writing historical novels. Those were the black days
+at the beginning of this century, still spoken of with a shudder from
+Maine to Tennessee. Gradually the horror spent itself; the country
+became pacified. Except for an occasional sporadic outbreak, the plague
+was stamped out. It got about that the historical novel was "a dead
+one," and young America turned to something else. Now you begin to see
+what Mr. <span class="smcap">Kester</span> has done. While Messrs. <span class="smcap">Hodder and Stoughton</span> are
+publishing <i>John o' Jamestown</i> over in England, another firm is flooding
+the States with it. Mr. <span class="smcap">Kester</span> is a confirmed "best-seller" on the other
+side of the Atlantic. Probably his American publishers have issued a
+first edition of a hundred thousand of this story. The result may be
+imagined. Wild-eyed literary agents will carry the fiery cross
+throughout the country, crying that the historical novel is not dead
+after all, that there is still money in it; and thousands of estimable
+young men who might have been turning out quite decent stories of
+American life will thrust paper into their typewriters and begin, "Of
+the days when I followed my dear lord through many a hard-fought fray it
+ill becomes me, plain rude man that I am, to speak...." And it will be
+Mr. <span class="smcap">Kester's</span> fault. It would not matter so much if the great army of
+American writers could do the thing even half as well as he has done it
+in <i>John o' Jamestown</i>; but they cannot. I know them, and that is why a
+great trembling runs through me so that I can scarce hold my pen to
+complete this review.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The name of Mr. <span class="smcap">Gordon Gardiner</span> is unfamiliar to me; but I have little
+doubt that if <i>The Reconnaissance</i> (<span class="smcap">Chapman and Hall</span>) is a first novel
+its author will improve upon work that struck me as at present somewhat
+ingenuously conventional. There are two parts to the tale; the first
+shows how <i>Leslie</i> earned popular applause and the V.C. by remaining
+with a wounded comrade whom he was actually too frightened to leave.
+That was a good beginning, and I said to myself that Mr. <span class="smcap">Gardiner</span> was of
+the right stuff; he had a vigorous, incisive style that suited well the
+matter of pain and anguish that he had in hand. But, alas! in its hours
+of case the story became much more uncertain. All the characters,
+including the involuntary hero and the man he rescued (now a lord), turn
+up at an hotel on the Lake of Como. There is some mild word-painting
+that may remind you pleasantly of pleasant places; and a
+disproportionate pother because in one of the sudden lake storms
+<i>Leslie</i> dashes for shelter into what he supposes to be his own bedroom
+(actually the heroine's) and is imprisoned there by the sticking of a
+shutter. An awkward incident, of course, especially as it occurred in
+the dead of night, but scarcely enough to make half a novel out of.
+Naturally, in the end <i>Leslie</i> owns up about the heroism, and goes away
+to justify his unearned credit upon the stricken field; but I am afraid
+I must confess that the prospect of his return left me indifferent. I
+understand that <i>The Reconnaissance</i> originally appeared in <i>The Daily
+Telegraph</i>; this being so, the persistence with which its characters
+quote extracts from <i>The Times</i> savours almost of filial ingratitude.
+Seriously, the first part of the novel was a promise which the second
+left unfulfilled. Mr. <span class="smcap">Gardiner</span> is still in my debt.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>TO THE CABINET.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>Suggested by a recent doctoring of "Hansard."</i>)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The judgment of the People's "Yea" or "Nay"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wherefore should virtuous men like <i>you</i> shun?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You are&mdash;or so you confidently say&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Prepared for dissolution.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then snatch a hint from <span class="smcap">Haldane's</span> little fake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who glanced with eye alert and beady at<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His speech in proof, and, for appearance' sake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Added the word "<i>immediate</i>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The very clever may bethink themselves of Milton's 'subject of all
+verse.'"&mdash;<i>Reynolds' Newspaper.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>The mere well-informed will bethink themselves of <span class="smcap">Browne</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+146, April 8, 1914, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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@@ -0,0 +1,2184 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146,
+April 8, 1914, by Various
+
+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. 146, April 8, 1914
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: October 14, 2007 [EBook #23032]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Janet Blenkinship and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
+
+
+VOL. 146
+
+
+APRIL 8, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+     "MR. ASQUITH CLEANS THE SLATE."
+
+_Daily Chronicle._
+
+The pity is that so many of his followers seem to prefer to slate the
+clean.
+
+       * * *
+
+Even _The Nation_ is not quite satisfied with the Government, and has
+been alluding to "the extreme slackness of Cabinet methods," and
+complains that "situations are not thought out beforehand." The
+Government, apparently, is now taking the lesson to heart, for _H.M.S.
+Foresight_, we read, has now replaced _H.M.S. Pathfinder in_ Belfast
+Lough.
+
+       * * *
+
+What the newspapers describe as "An unknown Botticelli" has just been
+sold by a celebrated firm of art dealers to an American gentleman, and
+it only remains to hope that the painting was not unknown to BOTTICELLI.
+
+       * * *
+
+"A telegram from Toledo," says a contemporary, "reports the theft of
+three valuable pictures by the celebrated artist, El Greco." There must
+be some mistake here. Anyhow, at the time of his death, a good many
+years ago, this gentleman was not under suspicion.
+
+       * * *
+
+The Christian Endeavour Union of Washington, alarmed at the spread of
+luxury, has launched a society whose members pledge themselves to wear
+no finery during Easter. Those members who hide baldness by means of
+elaborate coiffures might carry the idea further by appearing, for one
+week only, with heads like Easter eggs.
+
+       * * *
+
+Whether it is due to the Suffrage movement or not it is difficult to
+say, but women are undoubtedly coming into their rights by degrees. By
+the provisions of the new Bankruptcy Act it is now possible for any
+married woman, whether trading apart from her husband or not, to be made
+a bankrupt.
+
+       * * *
+
+In connection with the "Kensington Camp Week," when an effort is to be
+made to raise sufficient funds to establish and equip headquarters for
+the Kensington Reservists, a full-sized elephant has been chartered to
+ramble about the principal thoroughfares and collect money for the
+cause. To ensure success the sagacious quadruped is to be trained to
+step accidentally on the toes of those persons who ignore its appeal.
+
+       * * *
+
+A correspondent writes to _The Observer_ complaining bitterly of the
+state of the morass leading to the Aerodrome at Hendon. This gentleman
+does not realise that there is a didactic purpose in the cause of his
+annoyance. Learn to fly and you will keep your boots clean.
+
+       * * *
+
+[Illustration: _Nut (in car)._ "WHAT'S THAT, KID? 'WHY DON'T I KEEP ON
+THE ROAD?' WELL, THE SWEEP MUST BE DEAF--THE BALLY HOOTAH DON'T SHIFT
+HIM, AND--WELL, MY DEAR GIRL, THE CAR WAS CLEANED THIS MORNING!"]
+
+       * * *
+
+A man has been sentenced at Barmen, Prussia, on three separate counts to
+terms of imprisonment totalling 175 years. It is proposed that all the
+proprietors of specifics for prolonging life shall be given a free hand
+to enable the prisoner to cope with his sentence.
+
+       * * *
+
+All German actresses, whether married or single, are, in accordance with
+the ruling of the German Theatrical Union of Berlin, to be styled
+henceforth "Frau Schauspielerin," _i.e._ "Mrs. Actress." We are
+confident that this does not mean that those who are not married ought
+to be.
+
+       * * *
+
+An advertisement from _The Times_:--"BIG GAME EXPEDITION. Private and
+public shooting. Polar bears, musk oxen, walrus and seals arranged."
+This is not so easy as it sounds, for, ten to one, as soon as you have
+got the beasts arranged one of those plaguey musk oxen will spoil the
+whole thing by moving out of its place.
+
+       * * *
+
+A remarkable story is being told of the sagacity of a horse belonging to
+Captain WATSON, of Ardow, Mull. It lost a shoe, and, managing to get out
+of the field where it was grazing, travelled a considerable distance to
+a blacksmith, who was astonished to find the horse standing in front of
+the door holding up a fore-leg. The horse was shod, and then--we are
+afraid the rest of the story makes ugly reading--coolly galloped off
+without paying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "After the annexation of Alsace by Germany the baron stayed some
+     years in Paris, and became an intimate friend of Chopin."
+
+                                                 _Andover Advertiser._
+
+Never realising that CHOPIN had died more than twenty years before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a beauty specialist's advertisement:--
+
+     "How a poet of such a 'profound subtlety of instinct for the
+     absolute expression of absolute natural beauty' as Keats could have
+     penned the lines:--
+
+     '_Beauty is Fat, Fat Beauty. That is all Ye know on earth, and all
+     ye need to know._'
+
+     must remain one of those unfathomable curiosities of the working of
+     the human mind."
+
+We hope the writer hasn't been bothering about it for long. The good
+news we have for him--that KEATS didn't--will remove a great weight from
+his mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The bride's going away costume was of Parma violet cloth, with
+     waistcoat effect, in brocaded silk. She wore, also, a large blue
+     wolf, the gift of the bridegroom."
+
+     _Newcastle Evening Chronicle._
+
+_Bride_. "Of course, dear, one is bound not to look a gift wolf in the
+mouth, but are you _sure_ the large blue ones don't bite?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW TO GET ON OFF-HAND.
+
+(_A New Way With Employers._)
+
+The applicant for work is usually thrown into a state of nervous
+prostration by the difficulties that beset his task. By a perusal of the
+following hints he may learn to acquire an invulnerable calm, and if he
+follows the directions given he can reckon on surprising results.
+
+Suppose the application is for clerical work.
+
+When you are shown into the office of the employer he will probably be
+engaged with his correspondence. Do not stand meekly in front of him
+till he looks up and addresses you. This is playing into his hands.
+Instead, be perfectly at your ease. Make yourself at home. You might
+ring up one of your acquaintances on the telephone and have a little
+chat until the employer is disposed to interview you.
+
+Possibly, however, he himself may be using the instrument. If so draw a
+seat to the desk and write any little note you may wish to. You will
+find writing materials handy. The stamps are usually kept in one of the
+small drawers to the right of the desk.
+
+Either of these proceedings will show that you are used to an office and
+will create an impression on the employer. If you look at him you will
+see that it has done so.
+
+If he stares at you and continues to stare, say pleasantly, "What a
+glorious sky this morning! I believe we are in for a long spell of fine
+weather."
+
+At this he will probably grunt out gruffly, "Ugh!"
+
+Sympathise with his tonsils. Recommend any simple remedy of which you
+have heard, or point out the advantages of several spots on the Sussex
+coast. Ask him where his favourite holiday resort is; whether he goes
+there alone or if he is married, and if so how many children he has. Ask
+if they are all well at home.
+
+Remember politeness costs nothing.
+
+This method of leading up to business is much better than the old one,
+in which you stand and are bullied by a man who has no sort of right
+over you except that he has employment to offer and you want it badly.
+
+Therefore converse with him as if he were an equal, though possibly he
+may be your inferior.
+
+He may not answer your kind enquiries, but look you up and down from the
+welt of your boot to your scarf-pin. All employers have learnt this
+method of scrutiny. They have learnt it from their wives.
+
+Should he examine you in this manner, smile agreeably and walk a few
+yards to display your profile. Then change the angle and afford him a
+back view. Say easily, "This collar fits neatly, does it not?" or
+something like that.
+
+Turning, you can show yourself pleased with his own style of dress.
+
+"Excuse my mentioning it," you remark, "but your taste in neck-gear is
+exquisite. I have similar ties myself."
+
+This will flatter him, and those men are very susceptible to flattery.
+Also he will be led to speculate favourably upon the stylishness and
+extent of your wardrobe.
+
+After this interval of mutual admiration you draw a chair to the centre
+of the room and say, "I believe you have a vacancy in the office? What
+is it you want me to be? I presume you think of still managing the
+business yourself? I will gladly listen to your terms and we will
+discuss my prospects."
+
+It is now his move. Lean back in your chair and light a cigarette,
+regarding him with a reassuring smile.
+
+You will find that he will have listened to you attentively, looking
+hard at your face. As you finish he will push his chair back, rise and
+strut across the room.
+
+Now is your chance to decide your fate one way or the other.
+
+When he has gone a few steps produce your watch and exclaim in a mildly
+vexed tone, "How annoying! I had almost forgotten. I have another
+appointment at eleven. In the short time remaining at our disposal it is
+impossible to deal adequately with any offer you may make. May I propose
+an adjournment?"
+
+The suggestion of independence thus delicately conveyed will usually
+have the desired effect and result in an immediate engagement.
+
+Should the employer fail to be impressed he simply pushes the bell and
+you are shown off the premises with great promptitude.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "WANTED, strong Willing Girl, age 18, to wait on trained nurses and
+     assist third housemaid upstairs."
+
+     _Advt. in "Morning Post."_
+
+We should give the third housemaid one more chance and then, if she
+still can't get upstairs without assistance, dismiss her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+IN A GOOD CAUSE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_To Every Reader of "Punch"._
+
+DEAR READER,--H.R.H. PRINCE ARTHUR OF CONNAUGHT has consented to take
+the chair at the Centenary dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent
+Institution on May 6th. This Institution devotes itself to the help of
+artists who are in need through poverty, sickness or other ill-chance.
+As a lover of Art--and, of men--I am in close sympathy with this good
+work, and am to be represented at the dinner in the person of my Art
+Editor, Mr. F.H. TOWNSEND, who will act as one of the Stewards. I am
+appealing to my readers of their kindness to send something to swell his
+list, and so to help in making this Centenary a memorable year in the
+history of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution. Contributions
+addressed to Mr. F.H. TOWNSEND, "Punch" Office, 10, Bouverie Street,
+E.C., will be very gratefully acknowledged.
+
+                                Your faithful Servant,
+                                                    Punch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Unrest in India.
+
+     "The handwriting appeared to be that of a young school student and
+     the word 'Prosecutor' had been spelt 'Prosecutor.' The matter is
+     under enquiry."
+
+     "_Statesman_" (_Calcutta_).
+
+It is our earnest hope that this grave business will be sifted to the
+bottom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AN EASTER EGG.
+
+THE GREY FOWL. "A LITTLE SUGGESTION THAT I HAVE LAID ON THE TABLE--SO TO
+SPEAK."]
+
+[Illustration: _Servant (rebuked for bringing in a dirty cup_). "FUNNY
+THING, MUM, I ALWAYS SEEM TO HIT UPON THIS ONE WHEN YOU HAVE COMPANY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MANLY PART.
+
+(_Reflections at the moment of "Moving in."_)
+
+    The house has burst a-bloom like CERES' daughter;
+      The painters bicker and the plumbers flee;
+    The H. tap in the bathroom gives cold water
+        Endlessly, like the C.
+
+    All arts are being used to gild the tarnished,
+      And exorcise old ghosts and spirits fled,
+    And treacherous quags abound where boards are varnished
+        And no man's boot may tread.
+
+    And none can tell me where my spats were taken,
+      And decorators' coats adorn the pegs,
+    And savour of new paint surrounds the bacon,
+        New paint is in the eggs.
+
+    And huge men meet me and remark, "This dresser,
+      Where shall we put it?" And of course I say,
+    "Up in the bedroom;" and they answer, "Yessir,"
+        But Marion bids them stay.
+
+    All right--I'll sit (the sole place where one _can_ sit)
+      And gaze upon these walls with wild surmise,
+    And muse on all the things we've lost in transit,
+        The socks, the gloves, the ties.
+
+    Here, where in time to come the firebeams ruddy,
+      Falling on cosy chairs and bookshelves straight,
+    Shall show to me my own familiar study,
+        And Maud shall do the grate,
+
+    Here in this narrow carpet's sacred border,
+      Girt by the wet distemper's weltering foam,
+    I'll do my bit to set the house in order
+        And make it seem like home.
+
+    Mere hackwork, doubtless, is the stuff for women,
+      But mine to dissipate the dark has-been,
+    Mine to remove what shades are clustered dim in
+        Corners and coigns unseen;
+
+    To start the holiest rite of installation,
+      And from the still-remembering walls to wipe
+    All traces of a previous occupation--
+        Briefly, to light my pipe.
+
+    Paint is no hall-mark of a decent dwelling,
+      And moving furniture makes such a din;
+    The master's part shall be the ghost-dispelling--
+        That is where he comes in.
+
+    Forget not, while ye tramp with tread sonorous
+      The unclothed stairs and catch my weed's perfume,
+    That three mild spinsters had the house before us;
+        This was their morning-room.
+
+                                               EVOE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A quotation in _The Edinburgh Evening Dispatch_ of a verse of Mr. ROBERT
+BRIDGES' new poem ends like this:--
+
+
+    "From numbing stress and gloom profound
+    Madest escape in life desirous
+          To embroider her thin-spun robe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+           [PARAGRAPH ADVERTISEMENT.]
+
+               'WHO'S THE LADY?'"
+
+Perhaps the POET LAUREATE will answer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BOOK-BUYER.
+
+There was plenty to eat, the landlord said, if the commercial gentlemen
+made no objection to my joining their table; and such objection was very
+unlikely, since nicer gentlemen you couldn't hope to meet.
+
+He then went off to put the point to them, and they seem to have been
+very charming about it, judging by the cordiality and courtesy of the
+welcome which I received. Being, however, at the end of the table, I had
+but one neighbour, and he not a very communicative one, for, although he
+did at once lay down his knife and fork to tell me that the beef came
+from Scotland and was therefore more to be desired than the mutton,
+which was local, he said no more, and I was therefore left to eat in
+silence, my two _vis-a-vis_ being engaged in a private conversation.
+Such little as from time to time I heard among the others was not much
+in my line, dealing as it did either with horses, Ulster, or Mexico; but
+suddenly a big man with a purple face and a signet ring as large as a
+carriage lamp plunged me into curiosity by remarking that he "never
+bought less than three two-shilling books a week, and sometimes four."
+
+These being the last words I should have expected from him, for he
+looked absolutely the type that reads only a half-penny daily and a
+sporting sheet and puts in the rest of its leisure at gossip or cards,
+and as I am interested in people's taste in literature, I determined to
+improve his acquaintance and discover something as to his favourite
+authors; and again, as I made this resolve, I realised how foolish it is
+ever to expect the outside of a man to be any index of his mind. One
+never can tell, and one is always having further proof that one never
+can tell, and yet one goes on trying to tell.
+
+Studying him in a series of glances, I set him down for a NAT GOULD man.
+
+The arrival of coffee and the departure of certain guests (wisely, as it
+happened,) who did not want that curious beverage, relaxed the table,
+and I moved up to the brave buyer of books. He received me affably, and
+we exchanged a few remarks on those ice-breaking matters of no
+importance upon which real convictions are not expected. Then, with a
+deft touch, I turned the talk to literature. "I suppose," I said, "with
+your long journeys you get plenty of time for reading?"
+
+"Time enough," he said.
+
+I continued by a reference to the advantages which we enjoyed over our
+fathers and grandfathers in the multiplicity of cheap books. "Those
+wonderful sevenpennies!" I said.
+
+He agreed. He had often spent ten minutes at a junction in looking at
+them.
+
+"And the shilling books," I said. "The more serious ones--'Everyman's
+Library,' and all that sort of thing. Most remarkable!"
+
+He had noticed those too, but still he offered no views of his own.
+
+I saw that he was one of the uncommunicative kind. Information must be
+drawn forcibly from him.
+
+"And the two-shilling novels," I said--"they're wonderful too."
+
+I But his eyes did not light; his I purple mask kept its secrets.
+
+"The two-shilling ones," I repeated, with emphasis on the price. Hang
+it, how slow he was.
+
+Still he said nothing.
+
+"So much better than the old yellowbacks at that figure," I said.
+
+He was, if anything, more silent.
+
+Clearly I must plunge. "Who is your favourite writer?" I demanded,
+point-blank.
+
+"I haven't got such a thing," he said.
+
+Here's a strange thing, I thought. I suppose he's one of those
+mechanical readers who go through a book as a kind of dutiful pastime
+and never even notice the author's name.
+
+"But you read a lot?" I suggested.
+
+"Me? Good gracious, no," he said. "I don't read a book from one year's
+end to the other. Papers--oh, yes; but not books."
+
+I was staggered.
+
+"But I thought," I said, "that I heard you say a little while ago that
+you never bought fewer than three two-shilling books a week, and
+sometimes more?"
+
+His purple took on a darker richer shade, which I subsequently
+discovered indicated the approach of mirth. He began to make strange
+noises, which in time I found meant laughter.
+
+For a while he gave himself up to chromatic rumblings. At last, able to
+speak, he replied to me. "So I did say," he said; "so I did say I bought
+three two-shilling books a week. But not books to read"--here he became
+momentarily inarticulate again--"not books to read, but those little
+two-shilling books of stamps in red covers that you get at the
+post-office. I don't know where I should be without them."
+
+Shade of CARNEGIE!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Injured Party (who has just been turned out of a
+public-house, explaining his little grievance_). "NOW, WHAT D'YOU SHAY,
+CONSHABLE? D'YOU THINK I'M INTOXICATED?"
+
+_Constable._ "YES, I SHOULD CERTAINLY SAY YOU WERE."
+
+_Injured Party._ "WELL, I'M QUITE WILLING TO BE _ANALYSED_."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Musical Criticism.
+
+     "Sir John French had stultified himself singing the order."--_Irish
+     Independent._
+
+Personally we sing it over to ourselves in the bath every morning--all
+except the last two paragraphs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Messrs. BELL quote the following appreciative notice of one of their
+spelling books:--
+
+     "The spelling exercises, largely alliterative--e.g., 'A Beach-tree,
+     a sandy beach'--are quite attractive, and once in the mind remain
+     there."--_School Guardian._
+
+This attractive way of spelling "beech-tree" will not, we hope, remain
+indefinitely in the minds of our readers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _First Clubman._ "WELL, HOW ARE YOU?"
+
+_Second Clubman._ "ER--SO-SO, PERHAPS. LAST WEEK I THOUGHT I WAS IN FOR
+RHEUMATIC FEVER, BUT JUST MANAGED TO STAVE IT OFF, AND TO-DAY A TWINGE
+IN MY LEFT SHOULDER SUGGESTS--WELL, IT MAY BE NEURITIS OR----"
+
+_First Clubman._ "MY DEAR CHAP, I DIDN'T MEAN IT _LITERALLY_."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LIBERALS DAY BY DAY.
+
+_March 23._--During the course of a heated debate Mr. Joshua Dredgwood,
+M.P., said that, in spite of the Parliament Act, the House of Lords
+still dominated the situation. If there was a General Election next week
+it would be fought on a cry of the Proletariat against the Peers. The
+entire Liberal Party rose to its feet and cheered the speaker for seven
+minutes, waving hats, order papers and pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+_March 24._--Answering a question put by Mr. Connor Shaw, the PREMIER
+stated that he had decided to retire from the House of Commons and lead
+the Party from the House of Lords. The entire Liberal Party was
+convulsed with irrepressible enthusiasm and cheered the PREMIER'S
+announcement for nine minutes, many Members removing their collars and
+ties and waving them in delirious excitement.
+
+_March 25._--A reference to the Welsh Church Bill by a member of the
+Opposition elicited an epoch-making remark from Mr. Haydn Tooth, M.P. He
+said that the English Church blocked every measure of social reform so
+effectually that unless it was immediately disestablished and every
+archbishop and bishop deported to the Antarctic regions civil war would
+break out in a week. All records were broken by the Liberal Party, who
+rose as one man and cheered Mr. Tooth's declaration for ten minutes,
+many Members standing on their heads and waving their legs with
+epileptic fervour.
+
+_March 26._--Immediately after Question time the PRIME MINISTER asked to
+be allowed to make a brief statement. Amid profound silence he stated
+that he had decided, with the cordial approval of his colleagues, to
+create a new Ministry of Public Worship, to be held by the Archbishop of
+CANTERBURY, and that he would himself assume the archbishopric on the
+following day. The frenzied delight of the entire Liberal Party on
+hearing this momentous announcement beggars description. The cheering
+lasted fifteen minutes, and when the vocal chords of the Members were
+exhausted by the strain they rolled about on the floor of the House for
+nearly half-an-hour.
+
+_March 27._--A tremendous impression was created by Mr. James Board, the
+Labour Member, during the discussion of the Plumage Bill. After
+observing that fine feathers might make fine birds he went on to say
+that lawn sleeves were no palliation of the assumption of dictatorial
+and autocratic powers. The entire Liberal Party cheered the statement
+for twenty minutes, and then continued the demonstration with
+mouth-organs and megaphones for close upon an hour and a-half.
+
+_March 30._--The PREMIER, bidding farewell to the House of Commons,
+announced that he had with infinite regret accepted his own resignation
+of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and would in future be known as
+Super-Archimandrite of the Isle of Man. The entire Liberal Party were
+still cheering the announcement when we went to press.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Wanted, for country house, a good ODD MAN, more outside than
+     inside."
+
+                                            _Advt. in "Guardian"._
+
+The oddness of one's outside is, of course, more apparent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ORANGES AND LEMONS.
+
+V.--THE GAMESTERS.
+
+"It's about time," said Simpson one evening, "that we went to the tables
+and--er----" (he adjusted his spectacles)--"had a little flutter."
+
+We all looked at him in silent admiration.
+
+"Oh, Samuel," sighed Myra, "and I promised your aunt that you shouldn't
+gamble while you were away."
+
+"But, my dear Myra, it's the first thing the fellows at the club ask you
+when you've been to the Riviera--if you've had any luck."
+
+"Well, you've had a lot of luck," said Archie. "Several times when
+you've been standing on the heights and calling attention to the
+beautiful view below I've said to myself, 'One push, and he's a deader,'
+but something, some mysterious agency within, has kept me back."
+
+"All the fellows at the club----"
+
+Simpson is popularly supposed to belong to a Fleet Street Toilet and
+Hairdressing Club, where for three guineas a year he gets shaved every
+day, and his hair cut whenever Myra insists. On the many occasions when
+he authorises a startling story of some well-known statesman with the
+words: "My dear old chap, I know it for a fact. I heard it at the club
+to-day from a friend of his," then we know that once again the barber's
+assistant has been gossiping over the lather.
+
+"Do think, Samuel," I interrupted, "how much more splendid if you could
+be the only man who had seen Monte Carlo without going inside the rooms.
+And then when the hairdress--when your friends at the club ask if you've
+had any luck at the tables you just say coldly, 'What tables?'"
+
+"Preferably in Latin," said Archie. "_Quae mensae?_"
+
+But it was obviously no good arguing with him. Besides, we were all keen
+enough to go.
+
+"We needn't lose," said Myra. "We might win."
+
+"Good idea," said Thomas. He lit his pipe and added, "Simpson was
+telling me about his system last night. At least, he was just beginning
+when I went to sleep." He applied another match to his pipe and went on,
+as if the idea had suddenly struck him, "Perhaps it was only his
+internal system he meant. I didn't wait."
+
+"Samuel, you _are_ quite well inside, aren't you?"
+
+"Quite, Myra. But I _have_ invented a sort of system for _roulette_,
+which we might----"
+
+"There's only one system which is any good," pronounced Archie. "It's
+the system by which, when you've lost all your own money, you turn to
+the man next to you and say, 'Lend me a louis, dear old chap, till
+Christmas; I've forgotten my purse.'"
+
+"No systems," said Dahlia. "Let's make a collection and put it all on
+one number and hope it will win."
+
+Dahlia had obviously been reading novels about people who break the
+bank.
+
+"It's as good a way of losing as any other," said Archie. "Let's do it
+for our first gamble, anyway. Simpson, as our host, shall put the money
+on. I, as his oldest friend, shall watch him to see that he does it.
+What's the number to be?"
+
+We all thought hard for several moments.
+
+"Samuel, what's your age?" asked Myra at last.
+
+"Right off the board," said Thomas.
+
+"You're not really more than thirty-six?" Myra whispered to him. "Tell
+me as a secret."
+
+"Peter's nearly two," said Dahlia.
+
+"Do you think you could nearly put our money on 'two'?" asked Archie.
+
+"I once made seventeen," I said. "On that never-to-be-forgotten day when
+I went in first with Archie----"
+
+"That settles it. Here's to the highest score of The Rabbits'
+wicket-keeper. To-morrow afternoon we put our money on seventeen.
+Simpson, you have between now and 3.30 to-morrow to perfect your French
+delivery of the magic word _dix-sept_."
+
+I went to bed a proud but anxious man that night. It was _my_ famous
+score which had decided the figure that was to bring us fortune ... and
+yet ... and yet ...
+
+Suppose eighteen turned up? The remorse, the bitterness! "If only," I
+should tell myself--"if only we had run three instead of two for that
+cut to square-leg!" Suppose it were sixteen! "Why, oh why," I should
+groan, "did I make the scorer put that bye down as a hit?" Suppose it
+wore thirty-four! But there my responsibility ended ... If it were going
+to be thirty-four, they should have used one of Archie's scores, and
+made a good job of it.
+
+At 3.30 next day we were in the fatal building. I should like to pause
+here and describe my costume to you, which was a quiet grey in the best
+of taste, but Myra says that if I do this I must describe hers too, a
+feat beyond me. Sufficient that she looked dazzling, that as a party we
+were remarkably well-dressed, and that Simpson--murmuring "_dix-sept_"
+to himself at intervals--led the way through the rooms till he found a
+table to his liking.
+
+"Aren't you excited?" whispered Myra to me.
+
+"Frightfully," I said, and left my mouth well open.
+
+I don't quite know what picture of the event Myra and I had conjured up
+in our minds, but I fancy it was one something like this. At the
+entrance into the rooms of such a large and obviously distinguished
+party there would be a slight sensation among the crowd, and way would
+be made for us at the most important table. It would then leak out that
+Chevalier Simpson--the tall poetical-looking gentleman in the middle, my
+dear--had brought with him no less a sum than thirty francs with which
+to break the bank, and that he proposed to do this in one daring _coup_.
+At this news the players at the other tables would hastily leave their
+winnings (or losings) and crowd round us. Chevalier Simpson, pale but
+controlled, would then place his money on seventeen--"_dix-sept_," he
+would say to the croupier to make it quite clear--and the ball would be
+spun. As it slowed down the tension in the crowd would increase. "_Mon
+Dieu_!" a woman would cry in a shrill voice; there, would be guttural
+exclamations from Germans; at the edge of the crowd strong men would
+swoon. At last a sudden shriek ... and the croupier's voice, trembling
+for the first time for thirty years, "_Dix-sept!_" Then gold and notes
+would be pushed at the Chevalier. He would stuff his pockets with them;
+he would fill his hat with them; we others, we would stuff our pockets
+too. The bank would send out for more money. There would be loud cheers
+from all the company (with the exception of one man, who had put five
+francs on sixteen and had shot himself) and we should be carried--that
+is to say, we four men--shoulder high to the door, while by the deserted
+table Myra and Dahlia clung to each other weeping tears of happiness ...
+
+Something like that.
+
+What happened was different. As far as I could follow, it was this. Over
+the heads of an enormous, badly-dressed and utterly indifferent crowd
+Simpson handed his thirty francs to the croupier.
+
+"_Dix-sept_," he said.
+
+The croupier with his rake pushed the money on to seventeen.
+
+Another croupier with his rake pulled it off again ... and stuck to it.
+
+The day's fun was over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What _did_ win?" asked Myra some minutes later, when the fact that we
+should never see our money again had been brought home to her.
+
+"Zero," said Archie.
+
+I sighed heavily.
+
+"My usual score," I said, "not my highest."
+
+  A. A. M.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SUPER-STORES.
+
+(_At a well-known Universal Emporium several Champions have been engaged
+to demonstrate the art of golf in the Games Department._)
+
+[Illustration: SIR GREGORY PILLKINGTON M.D., F.R.C.P., ETC., ETC., WILL
+BE IN ATTENDANCE IN THE DRUG DEPARTMENT, WHERE ALL CUSTOMERS MAY EXHIBIT
+THEIR TONGUES FREE OF CHARGE.]
+
+[Illustration: IN THE ART DEPARTMENT, SIR WILLIAM DAUBER, R.A., WILL
+GIVE A DEMONSTRATION ON THE LAYING ON OF COLOUR TO EVERY PURCHASER OF A
+SIXPENNY BOX OF PAINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: A SPECIAL LINE OP DANCING PUMPS IN THE BOOT DEPARTMENT.
+_Shopman._ "I THINK YOU'LL FIND THEM FIT, SIR, WHEN THE FOOT HAS WORKED
+DOWN INTO THEM. WILL YOU TRY A TURN, SIR? MADAME PAVLOVINA, FORWARD,
+PLEASE!"]
+
+[Illustration: A SPECIAL FEATURE OF THE GENT'S READY-TO-WEAR CLOTHING
+DEPARTMENT WILL BE THE ATTENDANCE, DAILY, OF A SUPER-"NUT" (FROM THE
+GAIETY OR DALY'S), WHO WILL GIVE FREE ADVICE TO EACH PURCHASER OF EASTER
+OUTFITS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Golfer (who has just been run over_). "GEE! WHAT LUCK!
+THAT WAS A NEAR THING. THEY MIGHT HAVE BROKEN MY PET CLEEK."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BALLAD OF THE WATCHFUL EYE.
+
+     ["In this crisis the best we can do is to keep our eye on Mr.
+     Asquith."--"_The Daily Chronicle's" report of Lord SAYE AND SELE at
+     Worthing._]
+
+    O keep your eye on DAVID,
+      The demigod of Wales,
+    Before whose furious onset
+      Dukes turn their timid tails;
+    Whom Merioneth mystics
+    Praise in delirious distichs,
+    And matched with whose statistics
+      MUNCHAUSEN'S glory pales.
+
+    O keep your eye on WINSTON,
+      And mind you keep it tight,
+    For nearly every Saturday
+      You'll find he takes to flight;
+    Now eloquent and thrilling,
+    Now simply cheap and filling,
+    And now bent on distilling
+      The purest Party spite.
+
+    O keep your eye on HALDANE,
+      Ex-Minister of War,
+    The sleek and supple-minded
+      And suave Lord Chancellor,
+    Whose brain, so keen and subtle,
+    Moves swifter than a shuttle,
+    Obscuring, like the cuttle,
+      Things that were plain before.
+
+    O keep your eye on MORLEY
+      (Well-known as "Honest John"),
+    The peccant paragrapher
+      Who still is holding on;
+    But, though his strange position
+    Excited some suspicion,
+    We've CURZON'S frank admission
+      Of joy he hasn't gone.
+
+    O keep your eye on LULU
+      Who Greater Britain sways
+    From distant Woolloomooloo
+      To Nova Scotia's bays;
+    Whose sumptuous urbanity,
+    Combined with well-groomed sanity
+    And freedom from profanity,
+    Stirs DAVID'S deep amaze.
+
+    O keep your eye on BIRRELL,
+      So wholly free from guile,
+    Conspicuous by his absence
+      From Erin's peaceful isle;
+    Who wakes from floor to rafter
+    The House to heedless laughter,
+    Careless of what comes after
+      Can he but raise a smile.
+
+    O keep your eye on MASTERMAN,
+      Dear DAVID'S henchman leal,
+    Whose piety and "uplift"
+      Make ribald Tories squeal;
+    In every public function
+    Displaying the conjunction
+    Of perfect moral unction
+      With perfect Party zeal.
+
+    Last, keep your eye on ASQUITH,
+      And he will bring you through,
+    No matter what his colleagues
+      May say or think or do;
+    For in the dirtiest weather
+    He moulted not a feather,
+    And safely kept together
+      His variegated crow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Siamese Twin.
+
+     "DERBYSHIRE.--To sell, handsome well-built and superbly finished
+     semi-detached Mouse, containing two entertaining, six bed rooms,
+     dressing-room, and excellent bathroom."--_Advt. in "Manchester
+     Guardian"._
+
+We had no idea a mouse had so much accommodation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "It was our intention before now to say a kindly word for 'The New
+     Weekly.' We trust we are not too late yet."
+
+                                                _Westminster Gazette._
+
+No. The paper after three weeks or so is still alive. But our green
+contemporary should have had more confidence in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AN ASQUITH TO THE RESCUE!
+
+WAR MINISTER (_to PREMIER_). "HOLD TIGHT! I'LL SEE YOU THROUGH."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
+
+(EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW "DEMOCRATISED" ARMY.
+
+Certain officers having been guilty of the heinous offence of choosing
+one of two alternatives offered them by their superiors, it is now
+proposed to remodel our military system on democratic lines so as to
+leave no room for suspicion of political bias.
+
+[Major RAMSAY MACDONALD, Field-Marshal the Baron BYLES OF BRADFORD,
+Lieut.-Col. Sir J. BRUNNER, Capt. JOHN WARD and Col. KEIR HARDIE.]]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_House of Commons, Monday, March 30._--Stirring quarter of an hour. For
+dramatic surprise Drury Lane or Sadlers Wells in palmiest days not in it
+with T. R. Westminster. Doors open as usual at 2.45. In a few minutes
+there was standing room only. Appointed business of sitting Third
+Reading of Consolidated Fund Bill. Peculiarity of this measure is that
+through successive stages, each occupying a full sitting, no one even
+distantly alludes to its existence or provisions. Any other subject
+under the sun may, and is, talked around at length. To-day expected
+that opportunity would be seized by Opposition to make fresh attack on
+Government in respect of the Curragh affair and all it led to. Hence the
+crowded benches and prevalent expectation of a scrimmage.
+
+A cloud of questions addressed to PRIME MINISTER answered with that
+directness and brevity that mark his share in the conversation.
+Questions on Paper disposed of, LEADER OF OPPOSITION asked whether Sir
+JOHN FRENCH and Sir SPENCER EWART had withdrawn their resignation?
+Answering in the negative, the PREMIER paid high tribute to the ability,
+loyalty and devotion to duty with which the gallant officers have served
+the Army and the State. He added, what was regarded as foregone
+conclusion, that SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR had thought it right to
+press his proffered resignation.
+
+Here it seemed was end of statement. Members expected to see PREMIER
+resume his seat. He continued in the same level businesslike tone:--
+
+"In the circumstances, after much consideration, with not a little
+reluctance, I have felt it my duty, for the time at any rate, to assume
+the office of Secretary of State for War."
+
+There followed a moment of silence. Effect of announcement, unexpected,
+momentous, was stupefying. Then a cheer, strident, almost savage in its
+passion, burst from serried ranks of Ministerialists. One leaped up and
+waved a copy of Orders of the Day. In an instant all were on their feet
+wildly cheering.
+
+Meanwhile the PREMIER, apparently impassive, stood silent at the Table.
+When storm exhausted itself he quietly added that in accordance with law
+he would forthwith retire from the House "until, if it pleases them, my
+constituents sanction my return."
+
+Demonstration of personal esteem and political approval repeated when, a
+few moments later, he walked out behind SPEAKER'S Chair. Again the
+Liberals, now joined by Irish Nationalists, uprose, madly cheering.
+
+Following upon this unprecedented scene, SEELY'S personal statement
+inevitably partook of character of anticlimax. Entering while Questions
+were going forward, he passed the Treasury bench, where he had no longer
+right to sit, and turned up the Gangway, to find every seat occupied. He
+stood for a moment irresolute. CUTHBERT WASON, who has permanently
+appropriated third corner seat above Gangway (and portion of one
+adjoining), courteously made room for the ex-Minister.
+
+SEELY'S brief statement, dignified in its simplicity, unexceptional in
+its good taste, listened to by both sides with evident sympathy. During
+two years' administration of War Office affairs, he has by
+straightforwardness, urbanity, and display of perfect command of his
+subject, increased the personal popularity enjoyed whilst he was yet a
+private Member.
+
+_Business done._--Resignation by Colonel SEELY of War Office portfolio
+announced. PRIME MINISTER takes it in personal charge.
+
+_House of Lords, Tuesday._--During last two days noble Lords been
+delighted with little by-play provided by Lord CURZON. Yesterday, he by
+severe cross-examination extracted from Lord MORLEY admission of
+personal knowledge of what are known as the peccant paragraphs in
+document handed on behalf of War Office to General GOUGH.
+
+What troubled CURZON was apprehension that such admission must
+necessarily be followed by resignation. Regretted this for dual reason.
+First, House would be deprived of presence of esteemed Viscount on
+Ministerial bench. Secondly, and to the generous mind this consideration
+even more poignant, the secession of a Minister so highly prized would
+in present circumstances strike heavy blow at Government. Might even
+lead to break up of Ministry, dissolution of Parliament, destruction of
+Home Rule and Welsh Church Bills.
+
+Under cross-examination MORLEY, whilst making clean breast of his share
+in incident that led to resignation of WAR MINISTER, said never a word
+about possibility, or otherwise, of his own retirement. CURZON'S
+generous alarm deepened. Better know the worst if it were lurking in the
+background.
+
+"How comes it," he asked, "if the Government felt compelled to withdraw
+these paragraphs, and if the SECRETARY FOR WAR resigned, that we still
+have the good fortune to see the noble Viscount in charge of the
+Government bench?"
+
+"The latter point," said MORLEY, "will be answered more or less
+satisfactorily to-morrow."
+
+CURZON went home in state of profound depression. MORLEY, regardless of
+the comfort, even the safety, of his colleagues in the Cabinet,
+evidently meant resignation. Came down to-day, his ingenuous countenance
+exhibiting signs of passage through an unrestful night.
+
+"But," as he quaintly remarked to commiserating friend, "better have the
+tooth out at once."
+
+Up again at first opportunity. Still harping on the Viscount.
+
+"It is rather difficult to see," he remarked, "why, the SECRETARY FOR
+WAR having handed in his first resignation, we should still have been
+favoured with the continuance in office of the noble Viscount.... The
+upshot of the incident is that Colonel SEELY has gone, while I hope the
+noble Viscount is going to remain."
+
+Appeal irresistible. In response MORLEY explained that had SEELY
+persisted in his first resignation his would have followed. When it came
+to SEELY'S second resignation he felt bound to remain.
+
+Distinction subtle. Possibly it was effect of wrestling with it that
+made CURZON look less joyous than might have been expected, seeing he
+had realised his disinterested hope, and a second, even more damaging,
+secession from a stricken Cabinet had been averted.
+
+[Illustration: Lord CURZON (_to Lord MORLEY_). "Must you go? Can't you
+stay?"]
+
+_Business done._--In the Commons debate on Second Reading of Home Rule
+Bill resumed. Atmosphere significantly less stormy than heretofore.
+
+_House of Commons, Thursday._--The MEMBER FOR SARK, in pursuance of his
+favourite axiom that there is nothing new under the sun, calls attention
+to two conversations in which he discovers singularly close parallel in
+tone and temper. The first will be found in official report of
+Parliamentary debate. It took place between LEADER OF OPPOSITION and
+FIRST LORD OF ADMIRALTY, the former insistent upon House being made
+acquainted with Sir ARTHUR PAGET'S report of what happened when he
+addressed officers under his command at Curragh on possibility of their
+being ordered to Ulster.
+
+Here follows excerpt from official report:--
+
+"_Mr. CHURCHILL._ The statement just made I make after having had an
+opportunity of communicating with Sir Arthur Paget. It is admitted that
+a misunderstanding on the point arose.
+
+_Mr. BONAR LAW._ Rubbish.
+
+_Mr. CHURCHILL._ Do I understand the right hon. gentleman to say
+'rubbish'?
+
+_Mr. BONAR LAW._ Yes."
+
+The parallel that pleases SARK will be found in report of a conversation
+between _Mrs. Gamp_ and _Mrs. Betsey Prig_ at what should have been a
+friendly tea-table in the home of the former. This was the historic
+occasion when _Mrs. Prig_ declared her rooted belief in the
+non-existence of _Mrs. Gamp's_ friend _Mrs. Harris_. For purpose of
+comparison it may be convenient to put what followed in the same form as
+official Parliamentary report:--
+
+_Mrs. Gamp._ What! you bago creetur, have I know'd Mrs. Harris
+five-and-thirty year, to be told at last that there ain't no sech a
+person livin'! Go along with you!
+
+_Mrs. Prig._ I'm agoin', Ma'am, aint I?
+
+_Mrs. Gamp._ You had better, Ma'am!
+
+_Mrs. Prig._ Do you know who you're talking to, Ma'am?
+
+_Mrs. Gamp._ Aperiently to Betsey Prig.
+
+_Business done._--Third night's debate on Second Reading of Home Rule
+Bill. Intended to divide. On urgent demand of Opposition division
+deferred till Monday.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Then came the resignation of Mr. Asquith, which left the Ministry
+     (temporarily) without its head. Hence another vacant seal in the
+     Government Front Bench."--_Globe._
+
+To prevent self-consciousness among the Cabinet, the name of the
+Minister who looks like a vacant seal should be given.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Mr. Bodkin, opening the case, described Hemmerde for the defence."
+
+                                         _North Eastern Daily Gazette._
+
+It is generally towards the end of a case that one wants to describe the
+opposing counsel in detail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PROOF
+
+ADDRESSED TO A LADY WHO HAS ASKED FOR IT.
+
+    Of old, when in the dance's-whirl
+      Or crouched behind a friendly screen
+    I fell in love with any girl
+      (You know the kind of love I mean),
+    I gave the credit to champagne--
+        And breathed again.
+
+    When first we met, a more intense
+      Emotion stirred me, I admit,
+    But having dined at great expense
+      I didn't like to mention it,
+    For tribute seemed to Bacchus due
+        As much as you.
+
+    But love that made a parish hop
+      A sacred feast for both of us
+    Burst into flame without a drop
+      Of alcoholic stimulus;
+    And love that thrives on lemonade
+        Can never fade.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+REVERSIBLE RHETORIC.
+
+(_Being the unsigned MS., evidently of a leading article, picked up in
+Fleet Street last week. What the finder wants to know is--which side is
+it arguing for?_)
+
+THE PLOT THAT FAILED.
+
+Out of the welter of mendacity, evasions and intrigue, for a parallel to
+which the records of this or indeed of any civilised country might be
+searched in vain, one fact has at last emerged clear and indisputable.
+The nation will learn this morning, with what feelings it is only too
+easy to conjecture, that a great party, a party which, despite its many
+political blunders, has at least a record for honourable if mistaken
+statesmanship in the past, has now stooped to the final and abysmal
+folly. Disguise the fact with what specious rhetoric they may, the truth
+remains that our opponents have deliberately endeavoured to tamper with
+a great national possession, and to make the British Army a tool in the
+game of party.
+
+Incredible, nay unthinkable, as such a situation would have been till
+lately, who is now to deny it? If any doubt still remained, surely the
+venomous outpourings of those journals which support and encourage the
+machinations of "honourable gentlemen"--alas that the phrase should
+henceforth have to be in quotation marks!--on the opposite side of the
+House must by now have dispelled it. Beaten to their last ditch, and
+discredited even in that, it is now evident that the conspirators had
+determined to stake all upon one final throw. Fortunately the very
+desperateness of the plot has proved its undoing, and from the tremulous
+lips of the perpetrators themselves comes to-day a froth of vituperation
+and rancorous abuse that is the surest confession of abject failure.
+
+Happily, however, there is a brighter side to the picture; signs are not
+wanting--and each hour, we are sure, will strengthen them--that moderate
+men in the ranks of our opponents are beginning to share our own
+indignation and dismay. Let but this spirit find its outlet and victory
+is ours. We say it in no petty strain of party triumph, but the day of
+reckoning can obviously no longer be delayed. A gang of wholly reckless
+and unscrupulous political adventurers have sown the dragon's teeth in
+the wind; let the whole nation see to it that they are now forced to
+reap armed men in the whirlwind!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AN ECHO OF SHOW SUNDAY.
+
+(_Proving that a humorist is never allowed to be serious._)
+
+_Visitor (after studying well-known humorous artist's classical Academy
+picture)._ "DELIGHTFULLY COMIC. TELL ME, WHAT IS THE JOKE TO THIS ONE?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Many a man whose courage would not respond to the spur of some
+     huge burglar would die rather than be beaten by a wretched little
+     collar stud."--_Times._
+
+The only burglar we have ever met was (luckily) in the Infantry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT THE PLAY.
+
+"THINGS WE'D LIKE TO KNOW."
+
+Almost the last thing that you expect in a starting-price bookie is a
+strong penchant for poetry. It is true that I have before me, as I
+write, a Turf Commissioner's telegraphic code which contains some rather
+picturesque symbols. Thus "amber" is the codeword for L1; "heliotrope"
+for L20; "rainbow" for "win and 1, 2." Still I do not think it probable
+that if the author of this code should go bankrupt as a bookie--and this
+he is never likely to do as far as I am concerned--he would be able to
+retrieve his fortunes by taking up the profession of a publisher of
+poetical works. Yet this is just what happened, in Mr. MONCKTON HOFFE'S
+play, with the firm of _Wilberforce Brothers_, Turf Commissioners. In
+the first Act we find them in such straits that they can barely scrape
+together enough petty cash to satisfy the demands of a Water-Rate
+Collector, insistent on the door-step. In the next Act, a year later,
+they are all flourishing like green bay-trees as a firm of Poetry
+Commissioners trading under the name of _The Lotus Publishing Company_.
+This amazing result they have achieved by foisting on the office
+typewriter--_tres gamine_--the poetical output of one of their own
+number, and exploiting her as a prodigy under the auspices of a patron
+of the arts--one _Lord Glandeville_. How this Maecenas, this connoisseur
+in taste, was ever imposed upon by the masquerading of such incredible
+types, and how they could have amassed all that wealth by the
+publication of serious poetry, the most notorious of drugs on the
+market--these are among the "things" that we should all "like to know"
+in case our own professions should fail us.
+
+What worried me most was that Mr. HOFFE should have so poor an idea of
+my intelligence as to suppose it possible to impart an atmosphere of
+probability to a scheme that was pure farce. Yet that was what he tried
+to do; he wanted me to believe that I was assisting at a comedy. There
+was no knockabout business; nobody entered the room with a somersault,
+tripped over a pin or hung his hat on the scenery. They all behaved as
+if they were presenting us with what is known as a human document, to be
+regarded _au grand_ (or, at worst, _au petit_) _serieux_. The fun--and
+there were some very pleasant touches--was not so much the fun of a huge
+and preposterous joke, but rather the humour of character or incidental
+detail. The part of _Lord Glandeville_, who might have been made the
+most ridiculous butt of imposture, was treated quite solemnly. Indeed,
+our sympathies were provoked for a man whose finest instincts had been
+trifled with; who had been suffered to fall in love with the poet-soul
+of a girl only to find that she was the tool of a gang of rogues. One of
+them, _Dick Gilder_, might tell him that he (_Glandeville_) was an
+egoist and that he ought to have fallen in love with the girl's body, as
+he (_Gilder_) had done, instead of her supposed soul; but that did not
+help matters much, or prevent our feeling that this treatment of
+_Glandeville_ was no matter for laughter. And when I go and see a
+production of Mr. HAWTREY'S I want matter for laughter and nothing else.
+
+The best individual performances were those of Mr. LYSTON LYLE--really
+excellent as a soldier of fortune--and Miss HELEN HAYE as _Lord
+Glandeville's_ aunt who lays herself out to defeat the matrimonial
+designs of the prodigy. Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY was not perhaps at his very
+best as _Dick Gilder._ He wore an air of detachment and indulged his old
+habit of looking over the heads of his stage-audience. He had too many
+set speeches and was not always quite sure what word came next. Still
+his mere presence is always irresistible.
+
+As _Lord Glandeville_, Mr. VANE TEMPEST, most admirable of buffoons,
+must have longed to be allowed to make us laugh, but solemnity was his
+order of the day and he carried it out like a hero. As for Mr. WENMAN,
+who played the partner that introduced _Lord Glandeville_ to the rest of
+the "Lotus Publishing Company" (though how that refined nobleman ever
+made the acquaintance of such a rough diamond is another of the "things
+we'd like to know"), his face is a gift and he used its mobility to good
+purpose.
+
+Finally, Miss DOROTHY MINTO, as _Dorothy Gedge_, typewriter (with the
+_nom de guerre_ of _Gedage_), was a little angular, and the motive of
+her spasmodic excursions across the stage was not always apparent. But
+she was extremely funny in her inimitable way when she had a chance of
+exhibiting the unreasonableness of her selection as a mouthpiece of the
+Muses. At the end, when she wonders if she could have been happy with
+_Glandeville_ and knows that she would be happy with _Gilder_, she
+showed an extremely pretty vein of sentiment. And here, too, I must
+heartily compliment the author on a scene which threatened to be
+commonplace and tedious, but was handled with a most engaging freshness
+and a very unusual sense of what was just right and enough.
+
+                                                              O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: POETRY COMMISSION-AGENTS FINDING A BACKER.
+
+  _Lord Giandeville_        Mr. VANE-TEMPEST.
+  _Brabazon Todd_           Mr. HENRY WENMAN.
+  _Richard Gilder_          Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_ARGUMENTUM AD FEMINAM._
+
+    Once, unless the tale's a myth,
+      Chloe danced mid rustic song
+    Indefatigably with
+      Amorous Damon all day long.
+    This was all the joy she knew
+      (Quite enough, no doubt), and yet,
+    Phyllis, when _you_ gambol, _you_
+      Rather gamble at roulette.
+
+    Simple 'twas in suchlike days
+      Wooing Chloe. Now, alas,
+    _You_'ve no taste for simple ways,
+      Much prefer green baize to grass.
+    Fled your interest in swains;
+      Nothing for my sighs you care;
+    All your joy is little trains,
+      Oddly dubbed "chemin de fer."
+
+    Phyllis, if your fixed intent
+      Is that you forsake the dance,
+    Quit Arcadian merriment
+      For exciting games of chance,
+    I've the best of 'em by heaps:
+      Come with me, my dear, and call
+    At the Registrar's; he keeps
+      One big gamble worth them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CON.
+
+    Con was the conjurer of the king
+      Ere the coming of Padraig Mor,
+    And a wand he had, and a golden ring,
+      And a five-prong crown he wore;
+    And his robe was trimmed with minever--
+      His robe of the royal blue,
+    For Con was the wonderful conjuror
+      In the days when the tricks were new.
+
+    He could pick a rabbit from out of a poke
+      Where never had rabbit lain;
+    He could pulp your watch like an egg's red yoke
+      And could give it you whole again;
+    And the king he laughed, "Ha-ha," he laughed,
+      Till they thumped on his back anon;
+    And the other magicians went dancing daft
+      To see the magic of Con.
+
+    Now Con he climbed on a moonbeam grey
+      To the dusk of the god's great shop,
+    And he stole the Elixir of Life away,
+      And he drank it, every drop;
+    He poured the draught in a golden cup
+      On a wonderful day that's gone,
+    And he swilled it round and he tossed it up,
+      And that was the curse of Con.
+
+    And the old king died at ninety-six
+      And his son he reigned instead;
+    But Con he conjured the same old tricks,
+      And his hair crow-black on his head;
+    And the new king died, and another king,
+      And another king after he,
+    But Con went on with his conjuring
+      The same as it used to be.
+
+    When the fifth king came (he was long of limb
+      And a hasty man) he swore,
+    When Con he conjured his tricks for him,
+      And he kicked Con through the door;
+    For that's in the songs the minstrels sung,
+      And thus is the story told,
+    For "Con," said the king, "you're none so young,
+      And your tricks are plaguey old!"
+
+                *   *   *
+
+    Now Con he tramps from shire to shire,
+      And he must till the crack of doom;
+    He takes the road in the dust and mire,
+      And he sleeps in the windy broom;
+    He's no address and he's no abode,
+      And his jacket's the worse o' wear;
+    And I've met him once on the Portsmouth Road,
+      And once at a Wicklow fair.
+
+    When the roundabouts and the swings are slow
+      And a conjuring chap draws near,
+    And there's nothing about his mug to show
+      That it's seen five thousand year
+    (For that's the way that the songs were sung,
+      And thus is the story told),
+    You'll know it's Con and he's none so young
+      For his tricks are plaguey old.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Retired M.F.H._ "AND WHEN WE CAME TO THE SEVENTEENTH,
+JUST AS I WAS GOING TO DRIVE, WHAT SHOULD I SEE BUT AN OLD DOG FOX
+STARING AT ME OUT OF THE HEDGE!"
+
+_Sympathetic Friend._ "YE-E-E-S?"
+
+_Retired M.F.H._ "NOW, DON'T YOU THINK THAT WAS A MOST REMARKABLE
+THING?"
+
+_Sympathetic Friend._ "WELL, YES, I SUPPOSE IT WAS; BUT THEN, YOU SEE, I
+DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOLF."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a list of new books:--
+
+     "Woman and Crime (Adam)."
+
+Well, he ought to know.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From a pamphlet on "The 'King's Own' Mission":--
+
+  "MADAM ADA BACON,
+  Soloist for Easter Sunday Evening.
+
+     Please send some eggs."
+
+The writer has been carried away by the association of ideas. The
+singing will not really be so bad as that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two conflicting announcements from _The Observer_:--
+
+  "VILLA'S VICTORY.
+  FOUR DAYS OF FURIOUS FIGHTING."
+
+  "HOW THE VILLA WERE BEATEN.
+  LIVERPOOL'S SUPERIOR PACE."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EXILE.
+
+"And how long," said the lady of the house from behind her rampart of
+breakfast things, "shall you want to be away?"
+
+"Away?" I said. "Who said anything about being away?"
+
+"Well," she said, "if you want to go to all those annual dinners and
+things you'll have to go to London, and if you go to London you'll have
+to be away from here."
+
+"'Plato,'" I said, "'thou reasonest well.' Helen, pass me the butter."
+
+"Why deny it, then?" said Helen's mother. "If you're going to be away
+you're going to be away, and there's an end of it."
+
+"You're wrong there," I said. "There isn't an end of it. I can go away
+and come back on the same day. By the last train, you know. The last
+train is intended for that very purpose."
+
+"What very purpose?"
+
+"For coming back by the last train. That's what it's there for. Fathers
+of families who come back by it sleep in their own beds instead of
+sleeping in strange beds in clubs or hotels. Let us sing the praises of
+the last train. Rosie, push over the marmalade, and don't upset the
+spoon on the table-cloth."
+
+It is not easy to converse with marmalade in one's mouth. I did not make
+the attempt, so there was a short pause in the argument. It was resumed
+by the lady of the house.
+
+"You'll lose a lot of sleep, you know," she said. "The last train
+doesn't get you here till one o'clock in the morning."
+
+"No matter," I said, "I can bear it. The thought of meeting my family at
+breakfast will sustain me."
+
+"But you never do meet us. After a last train night you 're always
+half-an-hour late, and by that time the girls are gone."
+
+"But you remain," I said. "To see you pouring out coffee is a liberal
+education in patience."
+
+"But it's tepid coffee."
+
+"I like tepid coffee as a change."
+
+"And the eggs and bacon are cold."
+
+"Pooh!" I said. "There is always the toast."
+
+"And the toast is limp."
+
+"If," I said, "you are so sure of these discomforts why not order me a
+fresh breakfast?"
+
+"And that," she said, "will make work for the servants."
+
+"Work," I said, "is for the workers. Besides the cook will like me to
+show an independent spirit."
+
+"The nature of cooks," she said, "is not one of your strong points. No,
+I am sure you will do better to stay in London."
+
+"But I can give up my dinners," I said.
+
+"And do you think I could ask you to make such a sacrifice? Old friends
+whom you meet only once a year! Certainly you must go."
+
+"But----"
+
+"If you don't turn up they'll put it down to me, and that wouldn't be
+fair."
+
+"I don't know," I said, "why you are so keen on my staying in London.
+There's something behind this--something more than meets the eye."
+
+"Nonsense," she said, "it's only your comfort; but men never can be
+reasonable."
+
+"Dad," said Helen to Rosie, "is going to have a holiday given him."
+
+"Yes," said Rosie; "but he doesn't seem to want it very much."
+
+"And it's not going to be a very long one," said Peggy, who generally
+supports my side of the battle.
+
+"And we'll do his packing," said their mother; "won't we, girls?"
+
+"Hurrah!" said Peggy.
+
+"Peggy," I said, "I am sorry to cast a cold shower on your enthusiasm,
+but there are limits. You and your mother are great and undeniable
+packers, but your ways are not my ways."
+
+"Anyhow," said Helen, "we should do it better than Swabey."
+
+"No," I said, "you would do it worse. Swabey has his faults, but I know
+them. He always forgets white ties and handkerchiefs, but these I can
+buy, borrow or steal. You would forget white shirts and dress trousers,
+which mean nothing to you, but are all the world to me. Swabey packs my
+shaving-brush and my safety razor into my dress shoes, where I come upon
+them eventually. You would leave them out altogether. I am grateful to
+you all for your generous offer, but Swabey shall do my packing--that is
+if I go."
+
+It is unnecessary to say that I went. The dinners were, as usual, a
+great success. We all became young again in our own eyes, and on the
+whole I was not sorry to have a bedroom in London. But why had it been
+forced on me against my will? The reason will appear in a letter from
+Peggy which I received on the second morning of my compulsory freedom;--
+
+"DEAREST DAD,--We are geting on alright. The maids are now in the libary
+and everything has been put somwere else. A lot of your papers got blown
+about, but we ran after them and got most of them. Our meels are in your
+den. Their going into the dining room direckly. The dust is dredfull and
+the dogs don't like it. It is a spring cleening with love from your
+loving
+
+                            PEGGY."
+                                                        R. C. L.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LAID.
+
+    He was no commonplace suburban spook
+      Content to rap on table-tops; he cherished
+    The memory of days when at his look
+      Princes and peers incontinently perished;
+    Stuck in his heart a jewelled knife dripped red;
+    Flames had been known to issue from his head.
+
+    The Moated Grange, now ruinous and drear,
+      He roamed, constrained to bitter self-effacement,
+    Until one midnight his enraptured ear
+      Detected mortal accents in the basement.
+    Downstairs he crept; beside the cheerless grate
+    Sat four or five old men in keen debate.
+
+    Softly he chuckled, "Here's a bit of luck!"
+      And beat a warning rattle on his tabor
+    That once had made the stoutest run amok;
+      Then each old boy sat up and nudged his neighbour;
+    Calm and collected round the chimney-piece
+    They showed no sign of imminent decease.
+
+    In vain he practised all his horrid lore
+      And rolled his eyes and beckoned with distort hand;
+    In vain his dagger dripped with gouts of gore,
+      They only beamed and took a note in shorthand;
+    When in despair he loosed his flaming jet
+    One smiled and lit therefrom a cigarette.
+
+    That was the end! With agonising shriek
+      He turned and fled, the spectral perspiration
+    Dewing his brow and coursing down his cheek;
+      Fled, and was lost to man's investigation
+    (For full discussion of his little tricks
+    See Psychical Research Reports, vol. vi.).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Country Host._ "I HOPE THE OWLS DIDN'T DISTURB YOU LAST
+NIGHT, LADY JENKINS?"
+
+_Wife of Local Mayor._ "LAW BLESS YOU, NO! I DIDN'T 'EAR ANYTHING. WHICH
+DOG WAS IT?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)
+
+Has Mr. W. J. LOCKE'S hand--the hand that created vagabond _Paragot_ for
+tears and laughter, and the resourceful _Aristide_--has it lost its
+particular cunning that he should begin his romance of _The Fortunate
+Youth_ (LANE) in a mood of heavy and misplaced facetiousness, and drift
+by way of Family Heraldry into an atmosphere of sham politics and a
+bright general glow of ineffectual snobbery? _Paul Savelli_, the
+fortunate youth, with his incredible beauty, his dreams, his
+accomplishments beyond all discernible cause, his faintly Disraelian
+airs, never once carried me out of my chair. And to what other end is
+romance ordained? Nor did his Princess, with her mastery of the easier
+French idioms; nor _Barney Bill_, the kind-hearted stage-tramp. Indeed,
+I found Mr. LOCKE constantly making statements about his people that
+were not substantiated, as about _Ursula Winwood_, the egregiously
+competent, the _confidante_ of troubled ministers, bishops and generals.
+_Jane_ alone, an early simple friend of _Paul_, I found credible and
+charming, and thanked heaven for her sake that _Paul_ married his
+Princess. It is indeed a romance gone wrong. Perhaps it is a more
+difficult thing plausibly and readily to sustain one's fancy in a modern
+setting, with modern folk, than in the fair realm of Tushery with
+rapier-wielding demigods. Yet I think that the dead HARLAND and the
+living HOPE (himself no mean Tusher) might have brought off their
+_Paul_. As a matter of fact, so I believe could Mr. LOCKE; that is just
+the pity of it. I merely record the fact that he has not done so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are, of course, short stories and short stories. On a perusal of
+those that Mr. RICHARD DEHAN has collected in volume form under the
+title of _The Cost of Wings_ (HEINEMANN), I am bound to record my
+conviction that most of them are profoundly unworthy of the author of
+_The Dop Doctor_. Few of them even aspire to anything beyond "first
+serial" quality; and though there is often present a certain easy
+flippancy of phrase it impressed me only as the crackling of thorns in a
+pot-boiler. Perhaps the best is the first or title tale, which tells of
+a young wife goaded to hard words by her constant anxiety for an
+aviator-husband. There is some genuine feeling here; but the climax, in
+which the pair decide only to fly in company, was dangerously like the
+end of a stage duologue. Moreover, so swift now-a-days is the flight of
+time--or the time of flight--that aviation stories very soon come to
+sound antiquated. Still, after all, there is at least plenty of variety
+in this volume, and it will be hard if, in a collection of twenty-six
+brief tales, you do not come upon something to your individual taste.
+But one word of gentle protest. I fancy the stage has at last agreed
+upon a close time for supposed infants, against whose arrival from India
+nurses and rocking-horses are engaged, and who turn out on appearance to
+be young persons of mature years. Well, I am convinced that it is high
+time for a similar prohibition in fiction. Mr. DEHAN at least has proved
+himself far too clever for me to tolerate this threadbare theme, not
+very illuminatingly treated, from his valuable pen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Mr. Anthony Venning_ was a young man of remarkable tact. Taking
+advantage of his position as a consultant engineer, at the beginning of
+_The Sentence Absolute_ (NISBET), he pocketed an advance commission for
+recommending the tender of a certain firm of contractors to the Welsh
+mill-owner who was employing his professional services. Whether this
+practice is common amongst engineers, as the authoress would seem to
+suggest, I cannot say, but at any rate it was hardly to be expected in
+the circumstances that _Mr. Venning_ should not fall in love with _Mr.
+Powell's_ extremely beautiful daughter, or that the boilers in _Mr.
+Powell's_ mill should hesitate in the fulness of time to explode. But
+the lover had the native good sense to be present at the moment of the
+inevitable catastrophe and to be the only person seriously damaged; and
+since it was his first real lapse from the paths of rectitude, and he
+was otherwise amiable, athletic, presentable and brave, who shall
+complain if, after confessing in a manly way and being put into a state
+of thorough repair, he found happiness in the end? Miss MARGARET
+MACAULAY tells her story in a pleasant enough way, and describes with
+some skill its idyllic setting (for _Mr. Powell_ was first a country
+squire, and only secondly a manufacturer); but since she neither
+indulges in satire, social and economic speculation, nor any pretence of
+subtlety in psychological probings, there is a curiously old-fashioned
+air about her novel. And when I mention that _Mr. Venning_ and _Miss
+Powell_ were actually cut off by the tide on a treacherous reef of the
+Cambrian coast it will be realised that _The Sentence Absolute_ is a
+book for one of those softer moods in which we do not desire to be
+startled or stung to profound meditation on the meaning of life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OUR CURIO CRANKS.
+
+THE MAN WHO TAKES EVERY OPPORTUNITY OF ADDING TO HIS GALLERY OF HATS OF
+FAMOUS MEN.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I hope that Mr. VAUGHAN KESTER, author of _John o' Jamestown_ (HODDER
+AND STOUGHTON), is innocent of intent to do the dreadful thing that he
+has done. With the book itself I have no fault to find; it is quite a
+good historical novel, and tells with a fair amount of excitement the
+story of _Captain John Smith_ and the early settlers in Virginia, not
+omitting _Pocahontas_. Mr. KESTER'S crime consists not in his novel, but
+in the fact that he has probably plunged America into all the horrors of
+a new outbreak of historical fiction. A few years ago every adult in the
+United States was writing historical novels. Those were the black days
+at the beginning of this century, still spoken of with a shudder from
+Maine to Tennessee. Gradually the horror spent itself; the country
+became pacified. Except for an occasional sporadic outbreak, the plague
+was stamped out. It got about that the historical novel was "a dead
+one," and young America turned to something else. Now you begin to see
+what Mr. KESTER has done. While Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON are
+publishing _John o' Jamestown_ over in England, another firm is flooding
+the States with it. Mr. KESTER is a confirmed "best-seller" on the other
+side of the Atlantic. Probably his American publishers have issued a
+first edition of a hundred thousand of this story. The result may be
+imagined. Wild-eyed literary agents will carry the fiery cross
+throughout the country, crying that the historical novel is not dead
+after all, that there is still money in it; and thousands of estimable
+young men who might have been turning out quite decent stories of
+American life will thrust paper into their typewriters and begin, "Of
+the days when I followed my dear lord through many a hard-fought fray it
+ill becomes me, plain rude man that I am, to speak...." And it will be
+Mr. KESTER'S fault. It would not matter so much if the great army of
+American writers could do the thing even half as well as he has done it
+in _John o' Jamestown_; but they cannot. I know them, and that is why a
+great trembling runs through me so that I can scarce hold my pen to
+complete this review.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The name of Mr. GORDON GARDINER is unfamiliar to me; but I have little
+doubt that if _The Reconnaissance_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) is a first novel
+its author will improve upon work that struck me as at present somewhat
+ingenuously conventional. There are two parts to the tale; the first
+shows how _Leslie_ earned popular applause and the V.C. by remaining
+with a wounded comrade whom he was actually too frightened to leave.
+That was a good beginning, and I said to myself that Mr. GARDINER was of
+the right stuff; he had a vigorous, incisive style that suited well the
+matter of pain and anguish that he had in hand. But, alas! in its hours
+of case the story became much more uncertain. All the characters,
+including the involuntary hero and the man he rescued (now a lord), turn
+up at an hotel on the Lake of Como. There is some mild word-painting
+that may remind you pleasantly of pleasant places; and a
+disproportionate pother because in one of the sudden lake storms
+_Leslie_ dashes for shelter into what he supposes to be his own bedroom
+(actually the heroine's) and is imprisoned there by the sticking of a
+shutter. An awkward incident, of course, especially as it occurred in
+the dead of night, but scarcely enough to make half a novel out of.
+Naturally, in the end _Leslie_ owns up about the heroism, and goes away
+to justify his unearned credit upon the stricken field; but I am afraid
+I must confess that the prospect of his return left me indifferent. I
+understand that _The Reconnaissance_ originally appeared in _The Daily
+Telegraph_; this being so, the persistence with which its characters
+quote extracts from _The Times_ savours almost of filial ingratitude.
+Seriously, the first part of the novel was a promise which the second
+left unfulfilled. Mr. GARDINER is still in my debt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO THE CABINET.
+
+(_Suggested by a recent doctoring of "Hansard."_)
+
+    The judgment of the People's "Yea" or "Nay"
+      Wherefore should virtuous men like _you_ shun?
+    You are--or so you confidently say--
+          Prepared for dissolution.
+
+    Then snatch a hint from HALDANE'S little fake,
+      Who glanced with eye alert and beady at
+    His speech in proof, and, for appearance' sake,
+          Added the word "_immediate_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The very clever may bethink themselves of Milton's 'subject of all
+     verse.'"--_Reynolds' Newspaper._
+
+The mere well-informed will bethink themselves of BROWNE.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
+146, April 8, 1914, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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