PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Vol. 153.
October 10, 1917.
CHARIVARIA.
"Of course I cannot be in France and America at the same time," said Colonel ROOSEVELT to a New York interviewer. The EX-PRESIDENT is a very capable man and we can only conclude that he has not been really trying.
"The Church of to-morrow is not to be built up of prodigal sons," said a speaker at the Congregational Conference. Fatted calves will, however, continue to be a feature in Episcopal circles.
A Berlin coal merchant has been suspended from business for being rude to customers. It is obvious that the Prussian aristocracy will not abandon its prerogatives without a struggle.
The lack of food control in Ireland daily grows more scandalous. A Belfast constable has arrested a woman who was chewing four five-pound notes, and had already swallowed one.
An alien who was fined at Feltham police court embraced his solicitor and kissed him on the cheek. Some curiosity exists as to whether the act was intended as a reprisal.
The English Hymnal, says a morning paper, "contains forty English Traditional Melodies and three Welsh tunes." This attempt to sow dissension among the Allies can surely be traced to some enemy source.
Mr. GEORGE MOORE, the novelist, declares that ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON "was without merit for tale-telling." But how does Mr. GEORGE MOORE know?
"Is Pheasant Shooting Dangerous?" asks a weekly paper headline. We understand that many pheasants are of the opinion that it has its risks.
Only a little care is needed in the cooking of the marrow, says Mrs. MUDIE COOKE. But in eating it great caution should be taken not to swallow the marrow whole.
An applicant at the House of Commons' Appeal Tribunal stated that he had been wrongly described as a Member of Parliament. It is not known who first started the scandal.
HERR BATOCKI, Germany's first Food Dictator, is now on active service on the Western Front, where his remarks about the comparative dulness of the proceedings are a source of constant irritation to the Higher Command.
It is rumoured that the Carnegie Medal for Gallantry is to be awarded to the New York gentleman who has purchased Mr. EPSTEIN'S "Venus."
We understand that an enterprising firm of publishers is now negotiating for the production of a book written by "The German Prisoner Who Did Not Escape."
Four conscientious objectors at Newhaven have complained that their food often contains sandy substances. It seems a pity that the authorities cannot find some better way of getting a little grit into these poor fellows.
General SUKHOMLINOFF has appealed from his sentence of imprisonment for life. Some people don't know what gratitude is.
It is good to find that people exercise care in time of crisis. Told that enemy aircraft were on their way to London a dear old lady immediately rushed into her house and bolted the door.
Owing to a shortage of red paint, several London 'buses are being painted brown. Pedestrians who have only been knocked down by red-painted 'buses will of course now be able to start all over again.
We think it was in bad taste for Mr. BOTTOMLEY, just after saying that he had seen Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL at the Front, to add, "I have Taken Risks."
Six little boa-constrictors have been born in the Zoological Gardens. A message has been despatched to Sir ARTHUR YAPP, urging the advisability of his addressing them at an early date.
To record the effect of meals on the physical condition of children, Leyton Council is erecting weighing machines in the feeding centres. Several altruistic youngsters, we are informed, have gallantly volunteered to demonstrate the effects of over-eating without regard to the consequences.
An allotment holder in Cambridgeshire has found a sovereign on a potato root. To its credit, however, it must be said that the potato was proceeding in the direction of the Local War Savings Association at the rate of several inches a day.
We are pleased to say that the Wimbledon gentleman who last week was inadvertently given a pound of sugar in mistake for tea is going on as well as can be expected, though he is still only allowed to see near relations.
COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.
"ANTIQUES.—All Lovers of the Genuine Antiques should not fail to see one of the best-selected Stocks of Genuine Antique Furniture, &c., including Stuart, Charles II., Tudor, Jacobean, Queen Anne, Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite, Adams, and Georgian periods.
FRESH GOODS EVERY DAY."
Provincial Paper.
A new German Opera that we look forward to seeing: Die Gothädummerung.
"A man just under military age, with seven children, is ordered to join up."—Weekly Dispatch.
Such precocious parentage must be discouraged.
"HELSINGFORS, Sept. 28.—The Governor-General of Finland has ordered seals to be affixed to the doors of the Diet."—Times.
This seems superfluous. Seals have always been attached to a Fin Diet.
"A party of the Russians in their natural costumes have come to Portland to ply their trade as metal workers. They make a picturesque group, which a Press writer will try to describe to-morrow morning."—Portland Daily Press (U.S.A.).
We trust that he did not dwell unduly upon the scantiness of their attire.
MODEL DIALOGUES FOR AIR-RAIDS.
[A few specimen conversations are here suggested as suitable for the conditions which we have lately experienced. The idea is to discourage the Hun by ignoring those conditions or explaining them away. For similar conversations in actual life blank verse would not of course be obligatory.]
I.
A. Beautiful weather for the time of year!
B. A perfect spell, indeed, of halcyon calm,
Most grateful here in Town, and, what is more,
A priceless gift to our brave lads in France,
Whose need is sorer, being sick of mud.
A. They have our first thoughts ever, and, if Heaven
Had not enough good weather to go round,
Gladly I'd sacrifice this present boon
And welcome howling blizzards, hail and flood,
So they, out there, might still be warm and dry.
II.
C. Have you observed the alien in our midst,
How strangely numerous he seems to-day,
Swarming like migrant swallows from the East?
D. I take it they would fain elude the net
Spread
All day they lurk in cover Houndsditch way,
Dodging the copper, and emerge at night
To snatch a breath of Occidental air
And drink the ozone of our Underground.
III.
E. How glorious is the Milky Way just now!
F. True. In addition to the regular stars
I saw a number flash and disappear.
E. I too. A heavenly portent, let us hope,
Presaging triumph to our British arms.
IV.
G. Methought I heard yestreen a loudish noise
Closely resembling the report of guns.
H. Ay, you conjectured right. Those sounds arose
From anti-aircraft guns engaged in practice
Against the unlikely advent of the Hun.
One must be ready in a war like this
To face the most remote contingencies.
G. Something descended on the next back-yard,
Spoiling a dozen of my neighbour's tubers.
H. No doubt a live shell mixed among the blank;
Such oversights from time to time occur
Even in Potsdam, where the casual sausage
Perishes freely in a feu de joie.
V.
J. We missed you badly at our board last night.
K. The loss was mine. I could not get a cab.
Whistling, as you're aware, is banned by law,
And when I went in person on the quest
The streets were void of taxis.
J. And to what
Do you attribute this unusual dearth?
K. The general rush to Halls of Mirth and Song,
Never so popular. The War goes well,
And London's millions needs must find a way
To vent their exaltation—else they burst.
J. But could you not have travelled by the Tube?
K. I did essay the Tube, but found it stuffed.
The atmosphere was solid as a cheese,
And I was loath to penetrate the crowd
Lest it should shove me from behind upon
The electric rail.
J. Can you account for that?
K. I should ascribe it to the harvest moon,
That wakes romance in Metropolitan breasts,
Drawing our young war-workers out of town
To seek the glamour of the country lanes
Under the silvery beams to lovers dear. O.S.
FORCE OF HABIT.
The fact that George had been eighteen months in Gallipoli, Egypt and France, without leave home till now, should have warned me. As it was I merely found myself gasping "Shell-shock!"
We were walking in a crowded thoroughfare, and George was giving all the officers he met the cheeriest of "Good mornings." It took people in two ways. Those on leave, blushing to think they had so far forgotten their B.E.F. habits as to pass a brother-officer without some recognition, replied hastily by murmuring the conventional "How are you?" into some innocent civilian's face some yards behind us. Mere stay-at-homes, on the other hand, surprised into believing that they ought to know him, stopped and became quite effusive. As far as I can remember George accepted three invitations to dinner from total strangers rather than explain, and I was included in one of them.
We were for the play that night and I foresaw difficulties at the public telephone, and George's first remark of "Hullo, hullo, is that Signals? Put me through to His Majesty's," confirmed my apprehensions.
Half-an-hour of this kind of thing produced in me a strong desire for peace and seclusion. A taxi would have solved my difficulty (had I been able to solve the taxi difficulty first), but George himself anticipated me by suddenly holding up a private car and asking for a lift. I could have smiled at this further lapse had not the owner, a detestable club acquaintance whom I had been trying to keep at a distance for years, been the driver. He was delighted, and I was borne away conscious of twenty years' work undone by a single stroke.
Peace and seclusion at the club afforded no relief however. George was really very trying at tea. He accused the bread because the crust had not a hairy exterior (generally accumulated by its conveyance in a blanket or sandbag). He ridiculed the sugar ration—I don't believe he has ever been short in his life; and the resources of the place were unequal to the task of providing tea of sufficient strength to admit of the spoon being stood upright in it—a consistency to which, he said, he had grown accustomed. When I left him he was bullying the hall-porter of the club for a soft-nosed pencil; ink, he explained, being an abomination.
I also saw him pay 2½d. for a Daily Mail.
I got a letter from George just before he went back. He patronized me delightfully—seemed more than half a Colonial already. He said he was glad to have seen us all again, but was equally glad to be getting back, as he was beginning to feel a little homesick. He hinted we were dull dogs and treated people we didn't know like strangers. Didn't we ever cheer up? He became very unjust, I thought, when he said that France was at war, but that we had only an Army and Navy.
Incidentally I had to pay twopence on the letter, the postman insisting that George's neat signature in the bottom left-hand corner of the envelope was an insufficient substitute for a penny stamp.
"The raiders came in three suctions."—Evening News.
So that was what blocked the Tubes.
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT.
PRIME MINISTER. "YOU YOUNG RASCAL! I NEVER SAID THAT."
NEWSBOY. "WELL, I'LL LAY YER MEANT IT."
Keeper. "ANY BIRDS, SIR?"
Officer (fresh from France). "YES. THREE CRASHED; TWO DOWN OUT OF CONTROL."
THE WATCH DOGS.
LXVI.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—Here is a war, producing great men, and here am I writing to you from time to time about it and never mentioning one of them. I have touched upon Commanding Officers, Brigadiers, Divisional, Corps, even Army Commanders; I have gone so far as to mention the COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF once and I have mentioned myself very many times. But the really great men I have omitted. I mean the really, really great men, without whom the War could not possibly go on, and with whom, I am often led to suppose, the decision remains as to what day Peace shall be declared. Take the A.M.L.O. at —— for example.
Now, Charles, be it understood that I am not saying anything for or against the trade of Assisting Military Landing Officers; I have no feeling with regard to it one way or the other. For all I know it may require a technical knowledge so profound that any man who can master it is already half-way on the road to greatness. On the other hand, it may
Though it is months since I cast eyes on him, I can see him now, standing self-confidently on his own private quay, with the most chic of Virginian cigarettes smouldering between his aristocratic lips and the very latest and most elegant of Bond Street Khaki Neckwear distinguishing him from the mixed crowd about him. Every one else is distraught; even matured Generals, used to the simple and irresponsible task of commanding troops in action, are a little unnerved by the difficulties and intricacies of embarking oneself militarily. He on whom all the responsibility rests remains aloof. A smile, half cynical, plays across his proud face. He knows he has but to flick the ash from his cigarette and the Army will spring to attention and the Navy will get feverishly to work. He has but to express consent by the inclination of his head and sirens will blow, turbine engines will operate as they would never operate for anybody else, thousands of tons of shipping will rearrange itself, and even the sea will become less obstreperous and more circumspect in its demeanour, adjusting, if need be, its tides to suit his wishes.
I take it my condition is typical when I am "proceeding" (one will never come and go again in our time; one will always proceed)—when I am proceeding to the U.K. The whole thing is too good to believe, and I don't believe it till I have some written and omnipotent instructions, in my pocket and am actually moving towards the sea. The youngest and keenest schoolboy returning home for his holidays is a calm, collected, impassionate and even dismal man of the world compared to me. I see little and am impressed by nothing; all things and men are assumed to be good, and none of them is given the opportunity of proving itself to be the contrary. As for the A.M.L.O. at any other port but this one, I remark nothing about him except his princely generosity in letting me have an embarcation card. He is just one more good fellow in the long series of good fellows who have authorised my move. I am borne out to sea in a dream—a dream of England and all that England means to us, be that a wife or a reasonable breakfast at a reasonable hour. Not until I am on my way back does it occur to me that landing and transport officers have identities, and by that time I have lost all interest in transport and landing and officers and identities and everything else.
At the port of ——, however, it is very different. I may arrive on the quay in a dream, but I'm at once out of it when I have caught sight of Greatness sitting in its little hut with the ticket window firmly closed until the arrival of the hour before which he has disposed that it shall not open. Thoughts of home are gone; I can think of nothing but Him. When at last I have obtained his gracious, if reluctant, consent to my obeying the instructions I have, and have got on to the boat, I deposit my goods hurriedly, anywhere, and fight for a position by the bulwark nearest the quay, from which I may gaze at his august Excellency for the few remaining hours during which it is given us to linger in or near our well-beloved France.
How came it about, I ask myself, that the Right Man got to be in the Right Place? It cannot have been merely fortuitous that he was not thrust away into some such obscure job as the command of an Expeditionary Force or the control of the counsels of the Imperial General Staff. It must have been the deliberate choice of a wise chooser; Major-General Military Landing himself, the SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR on his own, even His MAJESTY in person? Or was a plebiscite taken through the length and breadth of the British Isles when I was elsewhere, and did Britain, thrilled to the core, clamour for him unanimously?
I watch him keep a perturbed and restless Major from the line waiting while he finishes his light-hearted badinage with a subordinate. It is altogether magnificent in its sheer sangfroid. Why is it that such a one is labelled merely A.M.L.O., when he should obviously be the M.L.O.? He has his subordinate, happily insignificant and obsequiously proud to serve. Let the subordinate be the a.m.l.o., and let It, Itself, be openly acknowledged to be It, Itself.
By the way, where is his M.L.O.? Has anybody ever seen him? I haven't. Does he exist?... Has he been got rid of?
There is a convenient crevice between the quay and the boat with a convenient number of feet of water at the bottom of it. Is the M.L.O. down there, and is the "A.M.L.O." brassard but the modesty of true greatness?
If the M.L.O. has been thrown down there, who threw him?
Was it my idol, the A.M.L.O., in a moment of exasperation with his M.L.O.?
Or was it the M.L.O., in a moment of exasperation with my idol, the A.M.L.O.?
Yours ever,
HENRY.
Old Lady. "IS THIS THE RESULT OF A BOMB, CONSTABLE?"
Constable (fed up). "BLESS YOU, NO, MA'AM. THE GENT THAT LIVES HERE'S GOT HAY FEVER."
"Naval Officer's (Minesweeping) Wife would be grateful for the opportunity of purchasing a Baby's Layette of good quality at a very reasonable price."—Morning Post.
Our congratulations to the mine sweeping wife upon having captured a Baby Mine.
BEASTS ROYAL.
III.
Duke William's Falcon. A.D. 1065.
Upon a marsh beside the sea,
With hawk and hound and vassals three,
Rode WILLIAM, Duke of NORMANDY,
The heir of Rover ROLLO;
And ever as his falcon flew
Quoth he: "Mark well, by St. MACLOU,
For where she hovers hasten you,
And where she falls I follow."
She rose into the misty sky,
A brooding menace hid on high,
Ere she dipped earthward suddenly
As dips the silver swallow;
Then, spurring through the rushes grey,
Cried WILLIAM, "Sirs, away, away!
For where she hovers is the prey,
And where she falls I follow."
Her marbled plume with crimson dight,
Seaward she soared, and bent her flight
Above the ridge of foaming white
Along the harbour hollow;
Then, looking grimly toward the strait,
Said WILLIAM, "Truly, soon or late,
There where she hovers is my fate,
And where she falls I follow."
THE CAVE-DWELLERS.
"If you please, ma'am, that funny-looking gentleman with the
"Certainly not," said my wife. "The man's a nuisance. He is not even respectable—looks like a gipsy or a disreputable artist. I'll speak to him myself." And she flounced out of the room.
I felt almost sorry for the man; but really the thing was overdone when, not content with overcrowding our village, these London people took to living in dug-outs on the common.
Matilda rushed back into the room with a metal jug in her hand.
"Oscar! It's old Sheffield plate, and there's a coat-of-arms on it. Turn up the heraldry book; look in the index for 'bears.' Perhaps they're somebody after all."
Matilda is a second cousin once removed of the Drewitts—one of the best baronetcies in England—and naturally we take an interest in Heraldry.
"Yes, here it is. A cave-bear rampant! Oscar, it's the crest of the Cave-Canems, one of the oldest families in Britain, if not the very oldest! Poor things, I feel so sorry for them. Perhaps I might offer him some vegetables."
"And to think of their having to live in a cave again after all these centuries," said my wife when she returned. "Isn't it pathetic? Oscar, don't you think we ought to call on them?"
We agreed that it was our duty to call on the distinguished cave-dwellers. But what ought we to wear? They dressed very simply; I had seen him in an old tweed suit and a soft felt hat.
"And his wife," Matilda said, "is positively dowdy. But that proves they are somebody. Only the very best people can afford to wear shabby clothes in these times."
We decided that in our case it was necessary to recognise the polite usages of society. So my wife wore her foliage green silk, and I my ordinary Sabbath attire.
A fragrant odour of vegetables cooking led us eventually to the little mound amidst the gorse where our aristocratic visitors were temporarily residing. There was some difficulty at first in attracting their attention, but this I overcame by tying our visiting-cards to a piece of string and dangling it down the tunnel that served as an entrance. After coughing several times I had a bite, and the cave-man showed himself.
"Hallo!" I heard him say, laughing, "it's the kind Philistines who gave us the vegetables." Then aloud, "Come in. Mind the steps."
I damaged my hat slightly against the roof, and I am afraid Matilda's dress suffered a little, but we managed to enter their dug-out. The place was faintly lighted by a sort of window overlooking the third hole of the deserted golf course. Our host introduced his wife.
"We were not really nervous," said the lady, "but a fragment of shell came through the studio window and destroyed a number of my husband's pictures. He is a painter of the Neo-Impressionistic School."
"What a shame!" said Matilda, taking up a canvas. "May I look? Oh! how pretty."
"My worst enemy has never called my work that," said the artist. "Perhaps you would appreciate it better if you held it the other way up."
It is at a moment like this that my wife shines.
"I should like to see it in a better light," she said. "But how interesting! Everyone paints now-a-days—even Royalty. My cousin, Sir Ethelwyn Drewitt, has done some charming water-colours of the family estates. Perhaps you know him?"
Our host shook his head.
"A very old family, like your own," said Matilda. "Our ancestors probably knew each other in the days of Stonehenge. I, of course, recognised the coat-of-arms on your plate."
"I am afraid you are in error," said the artist. "My name is Pitts. And I don't go back beyond my grandfather, who, honest man, kept a grocer's shop in Dulwich. The jug you've been admiring I bought in the Caledonian Cattle Market for fifteen shillings."
Matilda swooned. The air was certainly very close down there.
THE WAR-DREAM.
I Wish I did not dream of France
And spend my nights in mortal dread
On miry flats where whizz-bangs dance
And star-shells hover o'er my head,
And sometimes wake my anxious spouse
By making shrill excited rows
Because it seems a hundred "hows"
Are barraging the bed.
I never fight with tigers now
Or know the old nocturnal mares;
The house on fire, the frantic cow,
The cut-throat coming up the stairs
Would be a treat; I almost miss
That feeling of paralysis
With which one climbed a precipice
Or ran away from bears.
Nor do I dream the pleasant days
That sometimes soothe the worst of wars,
Of omelettes and estaminets
And smiling maids at cottage-doors;
But in a vague unbounded waste
For ever hide with futile haste
From 5.9's precisely placed,
And all the time it pours.
Yet, if I showed colossal phlegm
Or kept enormous crowds at bay,
And sometimes won the D.C.M.,
It might inspire me for the fray;
But, looking back, I do not seem
To recollect a single dream
In which I did not simply scream
And try to run away.
And when I wake with flesh that creeps
The only solace I can see
Is thinking, if the Prussian sleeps,
What hideous visions his must be!
Can all my dreams of gas and guns
Be half as rotten as the Hun's?
I like to think his blackest ones
Are when he dreams of me.
A.P.H.
"Street lamp-posts in Chiswick are all being painted white by female labour."—Times.
The authorities were afraid, we understand, that if males were employed they would paint the town red.
"Four groups of raiders tried to attack London on Saturday night. If there were eight in each group, this meant thirty-two Gothas."—Evening Standard.
In view of the many loose and inaccurate assertions regarding the air-raids, it is agreeable to meet with a statement that may be unreservedly accepted.
THE DOOR.
Once upon a time there was a sitting-room, in which, when everyone had gone to bed, the furniture, after its habit, used to talk. All furniture talks, although the only pieces with voices that we human beings can hear are clocks and wicker-chairs. Everyone has heard a little of the conversation of wicker-chairs, which usually turn upon the last person to be seated in them; but other furniture is more self-centered.
On the night with which we are now concerned the first remark was made by the clock, who stated with a clarity only equalled by his brevity that it was one. An hour later he would probably be twice as voluble.
It was normally the signal for an outburst of comment and confidence; but let me first say that the house in which this sitting-room was situated belonged to an elderly gentleman and his wife, each conspicuous for peaceable kindliness. Neither would hurt a fly, but since they had grandsons fighting for England, honour and the world, it chanced that they were the incongruous possessors of quite a number of war relics, which included an inkstand made of a steel shell-top, copper
You may be sure that, with the arrival of these souvenirs from such exciting parts, the conversation of the room became more interesting, although it may be that some of the stay-at-homes began after a while to feel a little out in the cold. What was an ordinary table to say when in competition with a .75 shell-case from the Battle of the Marne, or a mere Jubilee wedding-present against an inkstand composed of articles of destruction from Vimy Ridge, which had an irritating way of making the most of both its existences—reaping in two fields—by remarking, after a thrilling story of bloodshed, "But that's all behind me now. My new destiny is to prove the pen mightier than the sword"? Even though the Jubilee wedding-present came from Bond Street, and had once been picked up and set down again by QUEEN ALEXANDRA, what availed that? The souvenir held the floor.
Gradually the other occupants of the room had come to let the souvenirs uninterruptedly exchange war impressions and speculate as to how long it would last—a problem as to which they were not more exactly informed than many a human wiseacre. Under cover of this kind of talk, which is apt to become noisy, the humdrum of the others, the chairs and the table and the mantelpiece, and the pacific ornaments, and the mirror, could chat in their own mild way; the wicker-chair, for example, could wonder for the thousandth time how long it would be before the young Captain sat in it once more; and the mirror could remark that that would be a happy moment indeed when once again it held the reflections of the Lieutenant and his fiancée, who was one of the prettiest girls in the world.
"Do you think so?" the knob of the brass fender would inquire. "To me she seemed too fat and her mouth was very wide."
"But that's a fault," the tongs would reply, "that you find with every one."
To return to the night of which I want particularly to speak, no sooner had the clock made his monosyllabic utterance than "I am probably unique," the Vimy Ridge inkstand said.
"How?" the cigarette-lighter sharply inquired, uniqueness being one of his own chief claims to distinction.
"Strange," said the inkstand, "the blacksmith who made me was not blown to pieces. The usual thing is for the shell to be a live one, and no sooner does the blacksmith handle it than he and the soldiers who brought it and several onlookers go to glory. The papers are full of such incidents. But in my case—no. I remember," the inkstand was continuing—
"Oh, give us a rest," said the shell door-stop. "If you knew how tired I was of hearing about the War, when there's nothing to do for ever but stop in this stuffy room. And to me it's particularly galling, because I never exploded at all. I failed. For all the good we are any more, we—we warriors—we might as well be mouldy old fossils like the home-grown things in this room, who know of war or excitement absolutely nothing."
"That's where you're wrong," said a quiet voice.
"Who's speaking?" the shell asked.
"I am," said the door. "You're quite right about yourselves—you War souvenirs. You've done. You can still brag a bit, but that's all. You're out of it. Whereas I—I'm in it still. I can make people run for their lives."
"How?" asked the inkstand.
"Because whenever I bang," said the door, "they think I'm an air-raid."
CUSS-CONTROL.
I found myself, some time ago,
Growing too fond of cuss-words, so
I made a vow to curb my passions
And put my angry tongue on rations.
As no Controller yet exists
To frame these necessary lists,
I had myself to pick and choose
The words that I could safely use.
Four verbs found favour in my sight,
Viz., "drat" and "dash" and "blow" and "blight";
While "blithering" and "blinkin'" were
My only adjectival pair.
I freely own that "dash" and "drat"
At times sound lamentably flat;
And "blight" and "blow" don't somehow seem
Quite adequate to every theme.
When you are wishful to be withering
'Tis hard to be confined to "blithering,"
And to express explosive thinkin'
One longs for some relief from "blinkin'."
Still Mr. BALFOUR, so I hear,
Seldom goes further than "O dear!"
While moments of annoyance draw
"Bother" at worst from BONAR LAW.
Hence, if our leaders in their style
Are able to suppress their bile,
And practise noble moderation
In comment and in objurgation,
Why should not I, a doggerel bard,
All futile expletives discard,
And discipline my restive soul
With salutary cuss-control?
ERRARE EST DIABOLICUM.
From the Indian author of an Anglo-vernacular text-book:—
"As the book had to go through the press in haste I am sorry to write to you that there are some printers' devils, especially in English spelling."
"Nelson himself being a Suckling on his mother's side."—Observer.
We cannot know too much about the early history of our heroes.
"Captain William Redmond, son of Mr. John Redmond, has been awarded the D.S.O. He was commanding in a fierce fight and was blown out of a shell hole, sustaining a sprained knee and ankle. He rallied his men, and by promptly forming a defensive flank saved his part of the line."—Daily Express.
This must have been in Sir WALTER SCOTT'S proleptic mind when he wrote (in Rokeby):—
"Young Redmond, soil'd with smoke and blood,
Cheering his mates with heart and hand
Still to make good their desperate stand."
A BIRTHDAY GREETING FOR HINDENBURG.
F.M. SIR DOUGLAS HAIG (sings). "O I'LL TAK' THE HIGH ROAD
AN' YE'LL TAK' THE LOW ROAD...."
[The enemy has been fighting desperately to prevent us from occupying the ridges above the Ypres-Menin road, and so forcing him to face the winter on the low ground.]
INFORMATION TO THE ENEMY.
Wife. "I CALL IT SIMPLY SCANDALOUS THAT THE PAPERS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO PUBLISH THE DATES WHEN THE MOON IS FULL."OSWALD AND CO.
We live in a fortress on the crest of a hill overlooking a little Irish town, a centre of the pig and potheen industries. The fortress was, according to tradition, built by BRIAN BORU, renovated by Sir WALTER RALEIGH (the tobacconist, not the professor) and brought up to date by OLIVER CROMWELL. It has dungeons (for keeping the butter cool), loop-holes (through which to pour hot porridge on invaders), an oubliette (for bores) and a portcullis.
In spite of these conveniences our fortress is past its prime and a modern burglar would treat it as a joke. It is so weak in its joints that when the wind blows it shakes like a jelly, and we have to shave with safety-razors.
In a small villa opposite lives Freddy, our married subaltern, and Mrs. Freddy.
On a patch of turf up a neighbouring lane Oswald and Co. took up their residence this summer.
The troopers called him Oswald for some unknown reason, but I doubt if that was his baptismal name, and I doubt if he was ever baptized.
Oswald was a tall bony grizzled child of the Open.
Years ago he would have been dismissed briefly as a tramp, but we know better now; we have read our Georgian poets and we know that such folk do not perambulate the country stealing fowls and firing ricks from any dislike of settled labour, but because they have heard the call of far horizons, belles étoiles and great spaces.
The Co. consisted of a woolly donkey which carried Oswald's portmanteau when he trekked, and a hairy dog which provided him with company and conversation.
The donkey browsed, unfettered, about the roadside, taking the weather as it came; but Oswald and the dog, degenerates, sheltered under a wigwam of saplings and old sacks.
The wigwam being four feet long and Oswald six, he had to telescope like a tortoise to get fully under cover; sometimes he forgot his feet and left them outside all night in the dew, but, as he had no boots to spoil, this didn't matter much.
Not having any business to attend to he lay abed very late. Our troopers, riding at ease en route to the drill grounds, would toss their lighted cigarette-ends at the protruding bare feet. A grizzled head telescoping out of the other end of the wigwam and a husky voice calling down celestial fury upon them, would signalise a hit.
The Adjutant was for having Oswald moved on; we should be missing things presently, he warned—saddle-blankets, rifles, horses, perhaps the portcullis. However, the O.C. would have none of it; he maintained that this constant menace at our gates kept the sentries on the qui vive and accustomed them to practically Active Service conditions.
So all the summer the wigwam remained on the turf-patch and the sentries on the qui vive.
How Oswald existed is a mystery—probably on manna, for he toiled not neither span, and if he stole for a living it was not from us.
He spent his mornings in bed, his afternoons reclining on the bank behind his residence, puffing at his dudheen and watching our recruits going through the hoops with the amused contempt that a gentleman of leisure naturally feels for the working classes.
At the end of September, Freddy, the Benedick, finding himself in the orderly-room and forgetting what had brought him there, applied for leave as a matter of habit, and, walking out again, promptly forgot all about it. Freddy is given that way. Apparently the Orderly Room was finding time heavy on their hands that morning, for machinery was set in motion, and in due course the astonished Freddy discovered himself with permission to go to blazes for seven days and a warrant to London in his pocket.
He capered whooping home to his villa, told Mrs. Freddy to pack her toothbrush and come along, and the mail bore them hence. Next day the weather broke, the sky turned upside down and emptied itself upon us, the parade ground squelched if you trod on it, the gutters failed to cope with the rush of business, and the roads ran in spate.
The post-orderly, splashing back to barracks, reported the disappearance of Oswald and Co.
We determined that they must have been washed out to sea and pictured them astride the wigwam in a beam-roll off Kinsale, keeping a watchful eye for U-boats.
We had seven days of unrelieved downpour. On the morning of the eighth, Freddy and wife returned from leave, and, opening the front door of the villa—which they discovered they had forgotten to lock in the delirium of their departure—stepped within. At the same moment, Oswald, the hairy dog and the woolly donkey heard the call of the great spaces, and, opening the back door of the villa, stepped without and departed for haunts unknown.
Freddy in a high state of excitement came over to the Mess and told us all about it.
He himself had been all for slaying Oswald on the spot, he said, but Mrs. Freddy wouldn't hear of it.
"She says he hasn't stolen anything," Freddy explained. "She says he was only staying with us, in a manner of speaking, and was quite right to take his poor old dog and donkey under cover during that rotten weather, she says—so that's the end of it."
But it wasn't the end of it; Freddy had reckoned without his other O.C. Here was a heaven-sent opportunity of training the men under practically Active Service conditions, scouring the country after real game—Ho! toot the clarion, belt the drum! Boot and saddle! Hark away!
So now we are out scouring the country for Oswald and Co., one hundred men and horses, caparisoned like Christmas-trees, soaked to the skin, fed to the teeth. And Oswald and Co.—where are they? We cannot guess, and we are very very tired of practically Active Service conditions.
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! Anyone finding three children of the Open answering to the description of our friends the enemy, and returning them, dead or alive, to our little fortress, will he handsomely and gratefully rewarded.
Patlander.