Chapter 2

The gossips by the club-room fire Applaud my game with constant din: "Approach-work never was so dire, No mashies on this earth expire So near the tin; You ought to watch his tee-shots whizz At number nine. Hot stuff he is. The captain's lunar vase is his, If he goes in."

And so I do. My argent sphere Goes speeding through the night's opaque; No hazards of the sand I fear, The heavenly huntress keeps me clear Of thorn and brake; Not Dionysus' spotted ounce More featly on the sward may bounce; I hover like a hawk at pounce, Putt out----and wake.

EVOE.

* * * * *

Spring Fashions.

"A waistcoat of tan and a limp lawn collar flowing over the shoulders make a good suit."

_Times._

* * * * *

ORANGES AND LEMONS.

VI.--THE RECORD OF IT.

"I shall be glad to see Peter again," said Dahlia, as she folded up her letter from home.

Peter's previous letter, dictated to his nurse-secretary, had, according to Archie, been full of good things. Cross-examination of the proud father, however, had failed to reveal anything more stirring than "'I love mummy,' and--er--so on."

We were sitting in the loggia after what I don't call breakfast--all of us except Simpson, who was busy with a mysterious package. We had not many days left; and I was beginning to feel that, personally, I should not be sorry to see things like porridge again. Each to his taste.

"The time has passed absurdly quickly," said Myra. "We don't seem to have done _anything_--except enjoy ourselves. I mean anything specially Rivierish.' But it's been heavenly."

"We've done lots of Rivierish things," I protested. "If you'll be quiet a moment I'll tell you some."

These were some of the things;

(1) We had been to the Riviera. (Nothing could take away from that. We had the labels on our luggage.)

(2) We had lost heavily (thirty francs) at the Tables. (This alone justified the journey.)

(3) Myra had sat next to a Prince at lunch. (Of course she might have done this in London, but so far there has been no great rush of Princes to our little flat. Dukes, Mayors, Companions of St. Michael and St. George, certainly; but, somehow, not Princes.)

(4) Simpson had done the short third hole at Mt. Agel in three. (His first had cleverly dislodged the ball from the piled-up tee; his second, a sudden nick, had set it rolling down the hill to the green; and the third, an accidental putt, had sunk it.)

(5) Myra and I had seen Corsica. (Question.)

(6) And finally, and best of all, we had sat in the sun, under a blue sky, above a blue sea, and watched the oranges and lemons grow.

So, though we had been to but few of the famous beauty spots around, we had had a delightfully lazy time; and as proof that we had not really been at Brighton there were, as I have said, the luggage labels. But we were to be able to show further proof. At this moment Simpson came out of the house, his face beaming with excitement, his hands carefully concealing something behind his back.

"Guess what I've got," he said eagerly.

"The sack," said Thomas.

"Your new vests," said Archie.

"Something that will interest us all," helped Simpson.

"I withdraw my suggestion," said Archie.

"Something we ought to have brought with us all along."

"More money," said Myra.

The tension was extreme. It was obvious that our consuming anxiety would have to be relieved very speedily. To avoid a riot, Thomas went behind Simpson's back and took his surprise away from him.

"A camera," he said. "Good idea."

Simpson was all over himself with bon-hommy.

"I suddenly thought of it the other night," he said, smiling round at all of us in his happiness, "and I was just going to wake Thomas up to tell him, when I thought, I'd keep it a secret. So I wrote to a friend of mine and asked him to send me out one, and some films and things, just as a surprise for you."

"Samuel, you _are_ a dear," said Myra, looking at him lovingly.

"You see, I thought, Myra, you'd like to have some records of the place, because they're so jolly to look back on, and--er, I'm not quite sure how you work it, but I expect some of you know, and--er----"

"Come on," said Myra, "I'll show you." She retired with Simpson to a secluded part of the loggia and helped him put the films in.

"Nothing can save us," said Archie. "We are going to be taken together in a group. Simpson will send it to one of the picture papers, and we shall appear as 'Another Merry Little Party of well-known Sun-seekers. Names from left to right: Blank, blank, Mr. Archibald Mannering, blank, blank.' I'd better go and brush my hair."

Simpson returned to us, nervous and fully charged with advice.

"Right, Myra, I see. That'll be all right. Oh, look here, do you--oh yes, I see. Right. Now then--wait a bit--oh yes, I've got it. Now then, what shall we have first? A group?"

"Take the house and the garden and the village," said Thomas. "You'll see plenty of _us_ afterwards."

"The first one is bound to be a failure," I pointed out. "Rather let him fail at us, who are known to be beautiful, than, at the garden, which has its reputation yet to make. Afterwards, when he has got the knack, he will be able to do justice to the scenery."

Archie joined us again, followed by the bull-dog. We grouped ourselves picturesquely.

"That looks ripping," said Simpson. "Oh, look here, Myra, do you---- No, don't come; you'll spoil the picture. I suppose you have to--oh, it's all right, I think I've got it."

"I shan't try to look handsome this time," said Archie; "it's not worth it. I shall just put an ordinary blurred expression on."

"Now, are you ready? Don't move. Quite still, please; quite----"

"It's instantaneous, you know," said Myra gently.

This so unnerved Simpson that he let the thing off without any further warning, before we had time to get our expressions natural.

"That was all right, Myra, wasn't it?" he said proudly.

"I'm--I'm afraid you had your hand over the lens, Samuel dear."

"Our new photographic series: 'Palms of the Great.' No. 1, Mr. S. Simpson's," murmured Archie.

"It wouldn't have been a very good one anyhow," I said encouragingly. "It wasn't typical. Dahlia should have had an orange in her hand, and Myra might have been resting her cheek against a cactus. Try it again, Simpson, and get a little more colour into it."

He tried again and got a lot more colour into it.

"Strictly speaking," said Myra sadly, "you ought to have got it on to a new film."

Simpson looked in horror at the back of his camera, found that he had forgotten to turn the handle, apologised profusely, and wound up very gingerly till the number "2" approached. "Now then," he said, looking up ... and found himself alone.

* * *

As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should you ever do us the honour of dining with us (as I hope you will), and (which seems impossible) should there ever come a moment when the conversation runs low, and you are revolving in your mind whether it is worth while asking us if we have been to any theatres lately, then I shall produce the album, and you will be left in no doubt that we are just back from the Riviera. You will see oranges and lemons and olives and cactuses and palms; blue sky (if you have enough imagination) and still bluer sea; picturesque villas, curious effects of rocks, distant backgrounds of mountain ... and on the last page the clever kindly face of Simpson.

The whole affair will probably bore you to tears.

But with Myra and me the case of course is different. We find these things, as Simpson said, very jolly to look back on.

A. A. M.

* * * * *

_Officer of the Watch (on transport)._ "WHAT DO YOU DO IN CASE OF FIRE?"

_Nervous Sentry._ "THROW MESELF OVERBOARD AN' REPORT AT ONCE TO THE BLOKE ON THE BALCONY."]

* * * * *

IN SEARCH OF PETER.

Martell is one of those men that you might live next door to for half-a-century and never know any better. It is entirely owing to his wife and her love for Peter that Martell and I have discovered each other to be quite companionable fellows with many tastes in common, and I am smoking one of his cigars at the present moment.

Peter is the most precious and the most coveted of my possessions. He is coveted, or was, chiefly by Mrs. Martell, who fell in love with his name and his deep romantic eyes. Apart from these I can see nothing remarkable in him. He is certainly the most irresponsible hound that ever sat down in front of a motor-car to attend to his personal cleanliness, but still I should not like to part with him. "We must have a Peter," was the text of Mrs. Martell's domestic monologues, and of late, before the great disillusionment--that is, after hinting delicately to me that she would like best of all to have _the_ Peter--she took to sallying forth, armed with the name, into the purlieus of dog-fanciers to find a criminal that would fit the punishment.

I was not altogether surprised, therefore, one afternoon when a note was brought in asking me to step round and have a cup of tea. Martell was monosyllabic as usual, and we sat and gazed into the fire.

"I don't suppose you would like to part with Peter," he said suddenly.

"I certainly should not," I answered.

Then, after a pause, "Could you tell a good lie?" he asked.

I looked up in astonishment, but just then Mrs. Martell entered and plunged _in medias res_. She had just returned from the last of those fruitless expeditions, and the slow realization that there can be only one Peter in the world had brought her nearly to tears.

"And I've bought such a sweet little collar for him," she said, "with 'Peter' printed in big letters."

I remembered then that the original dog was in daily danger of being arrested, his very aged collar having been chewed to pulp after his last castigation therewith.

"And a dear little pair of soft slippers, one for him to play with, and the other to smack him with if he's ever naughty, although I don't think he could be--your Peter, I mean. Have you slippers for him?"

"Well, not a pair," I said, "and not exactly slippers. One's a golf-ball, the other's more in the nature of a boot."

"Oh, but he 's such a sweet-tempered little creature, isn't he?"

I felt Martell's eye upon, me.

"Very," I said; "his early upbringing gave him a healthy body and a mellow heart. He was born in a brewery, you know, and never tasted water until I flung him into the canal the first day I had him. Since then, as often as he has time, he goes to bathe in the scummiest parts, and then comes and tells me all about it with any amount of circumstantial evidence. Most enthusiastic little swimmer he is."

"What a funny dog! But I should never allow him to go out alone--if he were mine, I mean. And what sort of food do you give him?"

"Well, he tried to swallow one of my white ties last night."

"Oh, but I should give him proper food," she said. "He doesn't hate cats, does he? I couldn't bear a dog that did."

My eyes met Martell's for one moment, then I cleared my throat. Slowly and sadly I opened the history of Peter militant, with unacknowledged borrowings from the lives of other Peters with other names. Beginning with cats I had seen in my garden looking as if they felt rather blurred and indistinct, I passed on through cats speechless and perforated, to cats that were. I told sad stories of the deaths of cats. I talked of nights of agonising shrieks, and mornings of guilty eyes and blood-stained lips. My store of reminiscences lasted five minutes, and before Mrs. Martell had recovered from their recitation I pleaded a pressing engagement and took my departure.

You will now understand why I count Martell among my friends and am at this moment, as I said before, smoking one of his cigars. It came in a box of a hundred, with the laconic note, "One for each."

As I write, my dog and my black kitten are barging in perfect accord all round my legs in pursuit of a brand-new collar with "Peter" printed in big letters.

* * * * *

* * * * *

Notice outside a station of the Wirral Railway Co.:--

"Loiterers on the Company's premises or annoying passengers will be prosecuted."

The passenger who annoys us most and seems worthiest of prosecution is the fifth on our side of the carriage.

* * * * *

ANNABEL LEE.

Up and down on the fresh-ploughed levels, All for the sake of their lady fair, Two cock-partridges fought like devils, Hammer-and-tongs and a hop in the air; And I and "Basket" Annabel Lee-- Elderly tinking gyp is she-- We leaned on the paling and watched it go; And "Eh," said she, "now a fight 'tis cruel, But of all the compliments 'tis the jewel! May I die to-day, but I know, I know There's naught as a young maid's 'eart takes better Than a couple o' big chaps out to get her Through a dozen o' dustin' rounds or so.

"Bet my bonnet it strikes you funny, Seein' I'm risin' seventy-three, To think o' me once as sweet as honey; Lor' how their fists went 'long o' me! Jake Poltevo and Pembroke Bill, I saw 'em then, and I sees 'em still, Eh, how their fists went--_thud! crack! thud!_ None o' your booze-house scraps, Lor' love 'em; Turf to their feet and the sky above 'em-- Stripped, bare-knuckle and mucked wi' blood; Queer thing, ain't it, I still thinks pleasure In the strength o' a man, bein' old, by measure, And plain, you'd say, as a pint o' mud?

"Scared me fine at the time, though; weepin' I 'id my face in the 'azels low; Tip-toe soon I was back a-peepin', Couldn't 'a' helped were it never so; Each as good as the other chap-- Bad old woman I be, may'ap; But eh, I loved 'em, the fine young men. Marry a one of 'em? Why no, never; They wasn't a-marryin' me whatever; But I likes to think of 'em now and then; For, of all the compliments, _that_ was candy, And--ain't them dicky-birds at it dandy? I knows the pride o' their pretty 'en! Eh, but I loved 'em, me fine young men!"

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

(EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.)

_House of Commons, Monday, April 6._--At third time of asking Home Rule Bill read a second time. Odd feature, in curious sitting that hotly contested measure passed crucial stage without a division. House divided on WALTER LONG'S amendment for its rejection. When thereupon SPEAKER put the question that "the Bill be now read a second time" there was none to say him nay. Some folk of hopeful habit see in this incident a forecast of the end.

Debate unexpectedly decorous, not to say decidedly dull. TIM HEALY did something to lift it out of rut. But he was more concerned to belabour JOHN REDMOND and to dig DEVLIN in the ribs than to argue merits of measure. Taunted his much-loved fellow-patriot and countryman with facing both ways on question of exclusion of Ulster. ATTORNEY-GENERAL declared that PREMIER'S offer of exclusion for period of six years was still open. REDMOND, believing it was dead, had, TIM said, prepared its coffin, "and now the ATTORNEY-GENERAL comes along and forces fresh oxygen into the corpse."

As for DEVLIN, he was introduced accidentally at end of harangue. Had interposed comment inaudible to main body of House, but safely assumed not to be complimentary. WILLIAM O'BRIEN turned round with angry retort.

"There is," mused TIM, "one gentleman from whom on historical grounds I had expected firmness in regard to Ulster. It is the gentleman who has just interrupted me, and the grounds of expectation are that in ancient time downward from the flight of the earls the DEVLINS were the hereditary horse-boys of the O'NEILLS."

Remark perhaps scarcely relevant to Home Rule Bill or motion for its Second Reading. But it soothed TIM and didn't hurt DEVLIN.

BIRRELL having made cheery speech on situation generally, PETO rose with amiable intention of continuing debate. House had had enough of it. Persistently cried aloud for division. Amid hubbub PETO shouted dissatisfaction at top of his voice. Unequal contest maintained for only a few minutes, when MCKENNA in charge of business of House during absence of his elders nipped in with motion for Closure.

This carried, LONG'S amendment negatived by 356 votes against 276. Majority for Government, 80. Motion for Second Reading unchallenged; amid prolonged cheering from Ministerialists and Irish Nationalists Bill read a second time.

_Business done._--For third time in course of three successive sessions Home Rule Bill passes Second Reading stage.

_Tuesday._--BROWNING, longing to be in England "now that April's there," would have been disappointed had it been possible for him to turn up to-day. So dark and dank that at three o'clock, when Questions opened, electric light was turned on. Revealed dreary array of half-empty benches. Had Closure been promptly moved a count out inevitable.

As in time of war the cutting off of superior officers brings comparatively young ones to chief command, MCKENNA (in the absence of PREMIER, CHANCELLOR OF EXCHEQUER, and FOREIGN SECRETARY) sits in the seat of the mighty in charge of Government business. Fills the part excellently. Ten days ago SPEAKER cheered House by announcement that there should be no more Supplementary Questions. Welcome resolution either forgotten or deliberately ignored. Supplementary Questions, almost exclusively argumentative, assertive, or personally offensive, buzzed about Treasury bench like bees at mouth of hive. HOME SECRETARY, alert, self-possessed, deftly parried attack.

While Questions on printed paper were being duly picked up, put and answered, midway in melancholy proceeding there entered Distinguished Strangers' Gallery a small group of gorgeously clad princes from the storied East. They surveyed the scene with keen interest. In their far-off home they had read and talked of the House of Commons, the central controlling force of wide-spread Empire, whereof their possessions were as a bit of fringe. They had travelled far to look upon it. And here in this comparatively small chamber, scantily peopled, they beheld it.

Is this the face that launched a thousand ships And stormed the topmost towers of Ilium?

Fortunately for reputation of the House ROWLAND HUNT chanced to be to the fore. The other day, burning with patriotism, he issued a circular letter addressed to non-commissioned officers of the Army, advising them how to act in certain contingencies relating to Ulster. It happens that one CROWSLEY had previously circulated amongst soldiers at Aldershot a handbill urging the men to disobey orders when on duty. He was prosecuted for inciting to mutiny, convicted and sentenced. Members in Radical stronghold below Gangway want to know wherein the two cases differ, and why, if CROWSLEY is in gaol, the Member for South Shropshire should go free?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL, to whom questions were addressed, diplomatically discriminated. Came to conclusion not to employ services of PUBLIC PROSECUTOR. So ROWLAND HUNT remains with us.

_Business done._--A couple of small Government Bills advanced a stage. House talked out at eleven o'clock.

_Wednesday._--Adjournment for brief Easter Holiday. Back on Tuesday.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE COWL.

_Murdoch McWhannel, 3, Poynings Avenue, Glasgow, N.W._, to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing, house-factors there_.

_January 3, 191--._

I have been seriously annoyed for some weeks now by a noisy chimney-cowl on your property at 15, Poynings Road. It is on the stack of chimneys at the rear of your property, and within about fifty yards of the back windows of this house. During the recent high winds the cowl has kept up a continual shrieking, day and night, which has been extremely destructive to "Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." I trust that you will be so good as to have the cowl overhauled, and this cause of disturbance removed.

_Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.

_January 6, 191-._

_Re_ your letter of 3rd curt., the chimney cowl at 15, Poynings Road shall have our immediate attention.

_Murdoch McWhannel_ to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_.

_January 7, 191-._

I have to thank you for your prompt and courteous reply to my letter of 3rd January, and am glad to know that the noisy cowl will have your immediate attention.

_The Same_ to _the Same_.

_January 14, 191-._

May I remind you that in your letter of 6th January you were good enough to promise that the noisy cowl at 15, Poynings Road would have your immediate attention? Of course I know that it is difficult to get tradesmen to work so soon after the New Year holidays, but they should now be available, and the cowl is having a very serious effect on the health and nerves of the residents here.

_Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.

_January 17, 191-._

_Re_ chimney cowl at 15, Poynings Road and your letter of 14th curt., we are surprised to receive same. We sent out a tradesman on January 11, who reported same date that he had oiled and adjusted the cowl, and that it would give no further trouble. If you are still troubled, some other cowl must be causing it now. We understand, from enquiries made on the spot, that there is a noisy one, not on our property at all, but on Hathaway Mansions. We hope you will find this explanation satisfactory.

_Murdoch McWhannel_ to _Messrs. Fairley and Willing_.

_January 19, 191-._

I am surprised by the contents of your letter of 17th, for which I am much obliged. If your tradesman attended to a cowl on the back stack of your property at 15, Poynings Road, on January 11, he must have attended to the wrong cowl. One can readily understand that if he adjusted and oiled a cowl which had not been making any noise it would continue to be silent. The error might easily occur, especially so soon after the New Year holidays. This is the only explanation I can think of, for the noise has been as bad as ever. I trust you will have the matter further looked into, as the situation, especially in regard to my wife's nerves, is becoming more and more serious.

_Messrs. Fairley and Willing_ to _Murdoch McWhannel_.

_January 23, 191-._