Chapter 2

Mr. Bamborough, the famous violinist, who recently changed his name by deed poll from Bamberger, has compiled a further volume of reminiscences based on his experiences as a travelling _virtuoso_ in all four hemispheres. Some of these have already been made public in the Press, but in a condensed form. He now tells us for the first time in full detail his astounding adventures in New Guinea, where he was captured and partially eaten by cannibals, and his awful ordeal in the Never-Never Land, when he was attacked simultaneously by an emu and a wallaby, and conquered them both by the strains of his violin. The volume, which will be published by the House of Pougher and Kleimer, is profusely illustrated with portraits of Mr. Bamborough at various stages of his career, before and after the execution of the deed poll; of Mrs. Bamborough and their three gifted children, Wotan, Salome and Isolde Bamborough; and of her father, Sir Pompey Boldero, F.R.G.S., formerly Attorney-General of Pitcairn Island. It is further enriched with a number of letters in _fac-simile_ from the Begum of BHOPAL, General HUERTA, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, Madame HUMBERT, Mr. JEROME K. JEROME, Mr. CLEMENT SHORTER, Mrs. ALEC TWEEDIE and the late KING THEEBAW of Burmah.

Messrs. Vigo announce the speedy publication of a volume of reminiscences from the pen of Count Lio Rotsac, the famous Bohemian revolutionary. In it special interest attaches to the long and desperate struggle between the Count and his rival, Baron Aracsac, which ended in the supersession of the latter and his confinement in the gloomy fortress prison of Niola Stelbat.

Miss Poppy McLurkin, the composer of that delightful song _Peter Popinjay_, of which over a quarter of a million copies have been sold or given away, has expanded the four verses of her lyric into a full-length novel, which Messrs. Gulliver will publish under the same title. Miss McLurkin, who is still on the sunny side of thirty, is one of the few female performers on the bagpipes in the literary profession.

New novelists are always welcome if only for the titles of their books, for, after all, perusal of their contents is not compulsory. In this category may be included _Telepathic Theodora_, by Beryl Smuts; _The Rottenest Story in the World_, by Dermot Stuggy; and _In the Doldrums_, by Wally Gogg.

* * * * *

* * * * *

The Latest Cinema Poster.

"Amazing Realistic Drama, featuring Big Game Hunting.

1500 feet--BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST."

This is not realistic enough for us.

* * * * *

Seen on an Islington baker's shop:--

"CURRENT BREAD."

A marked improvement on the stale back-numbers supplied by some bakers.

* * * * *

"We understand that Prince William of Wied intends to proclaim himself King of Albania as soon as certain technical difficulties have been overcome."--_Times._

Unfortunately there are several thousand "technical difficulties"--all well-armed.

* * * * *

THE OBVIOUS.

Celia had been calling on a newly-married friend of hers. They had been school-girls together; they had looked over the same Algebra book (or whatever it was that Celia learnt at school--I have never been quite certain); they had done their calisthenics side by side; they had compared picture-postcards of LEWIS WALLER. Ah me! the fairy princes they had imagined together in those days ... and here am I, and somewhere in the City (I believe he is a stockbroker) is Ermyntrude's husband, and we play our golf on Saturday afternoons, and complain of our dinners, and---- Well, anyhow, they were both married, and Celia had been calling on Ermyntrude.

"I hope you did all the right things," I said. "Asked to see the wedding-ring, and admired the charming little house, and gave a few hints on the proper way to manage a husband."

"Rather," said Celia. "But it did seem funny, because she used to be older than me at school."

"Isn't she still?"

"Oh, _no_! I'm ever so much older now.... Talking about wedding-rings," she went on, as she twisted her own round and round, "she's got all sorts of things written inside hers--the date and their initials and I don't know what else."

"There can't be much else--unless perhaps she has a very large finger."

"Well, I haven't got _anything_ in mine," said Celia mournfully. She took off the offending ring and gave it to me.

On the day when I first put the ring on her finger, Celia swore an oath that nothing but death, extreme poverty or brigands should ever remove it. I swore too. Unfortunately it fell off in the course of the afternoon, which seemed to break the spell somehow. So now it goes off and on just like any other ring. I took it from her and looked inside.

"There are all sorts of things here too," I said. "Really, you don't seem to have read your wedding-ring at all. Or, anyhow, you've been skipping."

"There's nothing," said Celia in the same mournful voice. "I do think you might have put something,"'

I went and sat on the arm of her chair and held the ring up.

"You're an ungrateful wife," I said, "after all the trouble I took. Now look there," and I pointed with a pencil, "what's the first thing you see?"

"Twenty-two. That's only the----"

"That was your age when you married me. I had it put in at enormous expense. If you had been eighteen, the man said, or--or nine, it would have come much cheaper. But no, I would have your exact age. You were twenty-two, and that's what I had engraved on it. Very well. Now what do you see next to it?"

"A crown."

"Yes. And what does that mean? In the language of--er--crowns it means 'You are my queen.' I insisted on a crown. It would have been cheaper to have had a lion, which means--er--lions, but I was determined not to spare myself. For I thought," I went on pathetically, "I quite thought you would like a crown."

"Oh, I do," cried Celia quickly, "if it really means that." She took the ring in her hands and looked at it lovingly. "And what's that there? Sort of a man's head."

I gazed at her sadly.

"You don't recognize it? Has a year of marriage so greatly changed me? Celia, it is your Ronald! I sat for that, hour after hour, day after; day, for your sake, Celia. It is not a perfect likeness; in the small space allotted to him the sculptor has hardly done me justice. But it is your Ronald.... And there," I added, "is his initial 'r.' Oh, woman, the amount of thought I spent on that ring!"

She came a little closer and slipped the ring on my finger.

"Spend a little more," she pleaded. "There's plenty of room. Just have something nice written in it--something about you and me."

"Like 'Pisgah'?"

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it's 'Mizpah,' or 'Ichabod,' or 'Habakkuk.' I'm sure there's a word you put on rings--I expect they'd know at the shop."

"But I don't want what they know at shops. It must be something quite private and special."

"But the shop has got to know about it when I tell them. And I don't like telling strange men in shops private and special things about ourselves. I love you, Celia, but----"

"That would be a lovely thing," she said, clasping her hands eagerly.

"What?"

"'I love you, Celia.'"

I looked at her aghast.

"Do you want me to order that in cold blood from the shopman?"

"He wouldn't mind. Besides, if he saw us together he'd probably know. You aren't afraid of a goldsmith, are you?"

"I'm not afraid of any goldsmith living--or goldfish either, if it comes to that. But I should prefer to be sentimental in some other language than plain English. I could order '_Cara sposa_', or--or '_Spaghetti_,' or anything like that, without a tremor."

"But of course you shall put just whatever you like. Only--only let it be original. Not Mizpahs."

"Right," I said.

For three days I wandered past gold-and-silversmiths with the ring in my pocket ... and for three days Celia went about without a wedding-ring, and, for all I know, without even her marriage-lines in her muff. And on the fourth day I walked boldly in.

"I want," I said, "a wedding-ring engraved," and I felt in my pockets. "Not initials," I said, and I felt in some more pockets, "but--but----" I tried the trousers pockets again. "Well, look here, I'll be quite frank with you. I--er--want----" I fumbled in my ticket-pocket, "I want 'I love you' on it," and I went through the waistcoat pockets a third time. "I--er--love you."

"Me?" said the shopman, surprised.

"I love you," I repeated mechanically. "I love you, I love you, I---- Well, look here, perhaps I'd better go back and get the ring."

On the next day I was there again; but there was a different man behind the counter.

"I want this ring engraved," I said.

"Certainly. What shall we put?"

I had felt the question coming. I had a sort of instinct that he would ask me that. But I couldn't get the words out again.

"Well," I hesitated, "I--er--well."

"Ladies often like the date put in. When is it to be?"

"When is what to be?"

"The wedding," he smiled.

"It has been," I said. "It's all over. You're too late for it."

I gave myself up to thought. At all costs I must be original. There must be something on Celia's wedding-ring that had never been on any other's....

There was only one thing I could think of.

* * * * *

The engraved ring arrived as we were at tea a few days later, and I had a sudden overwhelming fear that Celia would not be pleased. I saw that I must explain it to her. After all, there was a distinguished precedent.

"Come into the bath-room a moment," I said, and I led the way.

She followed, wondering.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing to a blue thing on the floor.

"The bath-mat," she said, surprised.

"And what is written on it?"

"Why--'bath-mat,' of course."

"Of course," I said ... and I handed her the wedding-ring.

A. A. M.

* * * * *

* * * * *

GWENDOLEN'S HOBBIES.

Gwendolen, when we were wed, In her artless manner said, "Dear, I think I'd better Choose a hobby, lest I find Household duties cramp the mind." Foolishly, I let her.

Books at first were her delight; Gwendolen grew erudite; Vain were my petitions, Till in scientific terms I dilated on the germs Haunting first editions.

Then, for one expensive week, China (guaranteed antique)-- Derby, Sèvres and Lustre-- Charmed her, till our Abigail Washed them in a kitchen pail, Dried them with a duster!

Foreign stamps her time engrossed For a busy month at most; I endured--and waited. Who so proud as Gwendolen Of each gummy specimen Till the craze abated?

Later (if I seem severe, Gwendolen, forgive me, dear!) Art proved all-compelling; Post-Impressionist indeed Were the colour-schemes decreed For our modest dwelling.

* * * * *

With her last experiment Gwendolen appears content; Heaven grant she may be! For, of all the hobbies run By my wife, there isn't one Suits her like a baby.

* * * * *

THE SITTER SAT UPON.

Wilkinson is a sculptor. I don't mean that he lives by sculping. No. As he puts it himself: "My lower self, the self that wants bread and meat and warmth and shelter, lives on unearned increment. My higher self, the only self that counts, lives on Art."

Wilkinson and I had been sworn pals from our boyhood till the day he said: "By the way, old thing, I've never had a turn at _your_ headpiece. You might give me a few sittings."

For the first time I found myself seated on a sitter's throne, while Wilkinson stood at his modelling stand working away at a mass of clay that faintly suggested a human head and shoulders.

"Need you yawn so often?" There was a hint of savagery in Wilkinson's tone that was new to me.

"Why, you're not doing my mouth yet," I urged.

"No, but when a mouth like yours opens wide it alters the shape of the whole skull."

I was astonished and hurt, and took refuge in dignified silence.

"Shall you send it--I mean me--to the Academy?" I asked by-and-by.

"Depends on how it pans out," grunted Wilkinson, leaving the clay, twirling the movable throne round, and taking a frowning survey of me in various aspects. "I might send it in with Popplewell's bust, as a sort of make-weight."

"As a sort of make-weight!" I echoed indignantly; and then, more calmly, "Popplewell's finished, isn't he?"

"Yes--gone to be cast; and then comes the marble."

"Oh, Popplewell's to be done in marble, is he? What shall _I_ be done in?"

Wilkinson was taking an upward view of my features now, with a look of extreme distaste on his countenance.

"You? Oh, if I decide to finish you, it'll be just the clay-burnt terra-cotta, you know. Tut, tut, tut!"

"Why tut, tut, tut?" I asked.

"No offence, old chap, but you _have_ such queer facial bones;" and as he turned back to his modelling I heard him mutter: "You never really know what people are like till they sit to you."

Again I felt a bit hurt, and this time I indulged a retort. "Wonder if you'll get Popplewell into the Academy. You've never had anything in yet, have you?"

"We sculptors are so vilely handicapped by the wretched amount of space the Academy people give us!" said Wilkinson angrily. "Still, I've great hopes this time. Not only is my work improved, but it's a popular subject--Popplewell, the novelist. There--that'll do for to-day. I've got the construction all right," looking resentfully from the clay head to mine, "though no one would believe it who hadn't your head here to compare it with."

"Why, what's the matter with my head?" I asked irritably as I got gingerly off the movable throne. "And, anyhow, I didn't ask to be modelled. You made me sit here--I didn't want to do it."

"Oh, people make practice for one, whatever they're like."

"Good-bye," I said stiffly.

At the second sitting I tried to make allowances for the artistic temperament when Wilkinson prowled round me with a look of something like horror on his face, assaulted my features with compasses, and turned away gibbering. I even kept calm when informed that one of my eyes was considerably larger and wider open than the other and that I had "no drawing" in my face. "No offence, old chap," added my former friend with a grin. "You must remember it's the artist-eye that's responsible for these cursory reflections."

"I wonder," I remarked musingly, "whether the artist-eye is a feature that occasionally gets blacked by an indignant sitter."

At the third and fourth sittings more bitter so-called truths were handed out to me, and he was down on my "construction" like a hundred of bricks.

"_That_'s a normal one," here he indicated a skull on a shelf; "_his_ bones are all right. But if yours were stripped of the flesh----"

"I shan't be sorry when these sittings are over," I said; then, as I caught a side view of the clay head, "I _say_! Am I as frightful as that?"

"As frightful as that!" snorted Wilkinson; "why, I've _flattered_ you, if anything. People never know what they're like. There's such a lot of rotten vanity knocking about."

When the last sitting was over my wrongs found voice.

"When I first sat to you," I said in a tense tone, "I was comparatively happy; my self-esteem was in a healthy state; I felt that I was well-looking at my best, even good-looking. I go from you to-day a broken man, my confidence shaken, my manners spoiled by the consciousness that my construction is wrong, that there is 'no drawing' in my face, and that neither my eyes nor my nostrils are a pair; and, not content with this, you have darkened my remote future by implying that when it is time for me to be merely a skull I shall be an absurd one. May Heaven forgive you, Wilkinson--_I_ never can!"

For some weeks we stood apart, "like cliffs that had been rent asunder," and then one day Wilkinson came up and thumped me on the back. "It's always the unexpected that happens, old thing," he said. "Popplewell's bust was rejected at once, but yours----"

"Am I _in_?" In my excitement I forgot my wrongs.

"No, not _in_; but you were a _doubtful_. Only think--first doubtful I've ever had! To have a doubtful sculpture is as good as having two or three paintings on the line. You can't be such a bad subject after all. I'll have another touch at you, and next year see if you're not in! Come and have some lunch."

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Notable things are done around a table. Corporations are formed...."

_Westminster Teacher._

The beginnings of them, anyway.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

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

_House of Commons, Tuesday, April 14._--Back to grindstone after so-called Easter recess. Divisions reveal presence of aggregate of something less than 200 Members. Watchful Whip, ever suspicious of ambush, succeeded in mustering four-fifths of the whole. Ministerial majority maintained at average of six-score.

Increased by a unit consequent on return of PREMIER after re-election by faithful Fife. Towards close of Questions was discovered standing at Bar awaiting SPEAKER'S call.

"Members desiring to take their seats will please come to the Table."

As he advanced, escorted by CHIEF WHIP and Scottish colleague, Liberals and Irish Nationalists leaped to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs in loyal greeting. Only the haughty Labour Member remained seated. Not for him to pay court to chiefs of other parties, howsoever friendly. He is there as representative of the Working Man; is neither to be bought nor sold, cowed nor cajoled.

A fine spectacle. Pity Strangers' Galleries almost empty.

In process of swearing-in new Member nothing taken for granted. HALSBURY discovered this when, far back in the last century, he, known at the time as HARDINGE GIFFARD, came up to take his seat for Launceston. Challenged by the Clerk for production of writ of return, made painful discovery that it was not at hand. Sure he put it in his pocket when he left home; but which pocket?

In full gaze of four hundred quizzical Members he proceeded to search. Was there ever mortal man with so many pockets stuffed with such miscellaneous contents as DISRAELI'S Solicitor-General littered the Table withal? In the end--and its coming seemed interminable--the desired document was found coyly hidden in his hat left on the seat he had occupied under the Gallery awaiting summons to the Table.

The PRIME MINISTER, cool and businesslike as usual, had necessary document ready. Handing it to the Clerk, he once more signed the roll of Parliament.

Then came critical moment, awaited with keen interest by House. The roll signed, it is duty of Clerk to conduct new Member to SPEAKER and introduce him by name.

"Mr. ASQUITH!" the Clerk announced.

With half start of surprise SPEAKER regarded newcomer; thought he recognised him as he stood at the Table. All doubt now removed. Yes, it was ASQUITH. With genial smile and friendly grip of the hand he welcomed the new Member. Delighted Ministerialists cheered again at this happy conclusion of the episode.

_Business done._--Committee stage of Bill pledging national credit for loan to East African Protectorates entered upon. Not without opposition from Ministerial benches. ALPHEUS CLEOPHAS MORTON, of whom we hear little in these degenerate days, insisted that this kind of charity should begin at home--that is in the Highlands of Scotland. WEDGWOOD and THORNE thought Government had gone far enough in the way of lavish expenditure of tax-payers' money by providing them and others with salaries of £400 a year. From other side of House BANBURY made several speeches in succession. Division called and opposition swamped.

_Wednesday._--"Such larks!" as _Joe Gargery_ used to say to _Pip_ when they met for confidential confabulation. Of all men it was COUSIN HUGH began them. At first sight difficult to associate tendency to larkiness with austerity of Member for Oxford University. But human nature is complex, and, after all, COUSIN HUGH is only human.

In a former Parliament he was convicted of what was officially known as loitering in the Lobby. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and in those days debate automatically stood adjourned at half-past five. Business to the fore related to Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister. Every prospect of Resolution being approved if there were opportunity for division. The thing to do was to prevent one taking place. Accordingly, when House divided on Closure motion, COUSIN HUGH and his confederates were such an unconscionably long time returning to their places that half-past five struck before main question could be put from Chair. Debate accordingly stood adjourned for indefinite period.

A fortnight ago another of those domestic questions which stir COUSIN HUGH'S soul to the depths came up. At the ballot-box a Member secured favourable position for motion relating to Divorce. COUSIN HUGH straightway blocked it by a bogus Bill. Last Wednesday Opposition proposed on motion for adjournment for Easter to attack Government from divers points of compass. Ministerialists, taking leaf out of COUSIN HUGH'S book, put down notices that blocked the whole lot. To-day PREMIER'S attention called to the matter. Admits "situation is scandalous"; undertakes forthwith to submit Resolution dealing with it.

Characteristically odd feature in case is that it was BROTHER BOB who brought matters to a head by tabling a Resolution making impossible in future the vagaries of COUSIN HUGH.

Which shows afresh how remarkable are the resources of a family rooted in the spacious times of QUEEN ELIZABETH.

_Business done._--Criminal Justice Administration Bill read a second time.

_Thursday._--As at approach of Spring the time of the singing of birds comes, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land, so thus early in the session the voice of the objector is heard in the House of Commons. On days when Private Bills come up for consideration, there is a scene which interests while it perplexes occupants of Ladies' Gallery, in whose full view it is set. As soon as SPEAKER takes the Chair, before galleries are open to male strangers, there enters from hidden staircase leading to gallery over clock a procession of businesslike gentlemen. Silently, swiftly, they flood what is known as Distinguished Strangers' Gallery.

Clerk at Table reads list of Private Bills awaiting second reading: (1) Middlesbrough Corporation Bill, (2) Lurgan Gas and Electricity Bill, (3) Northwich Urban District Council Bill. From one side or other of benches below Gangway sounds a single word: "Object!" Title of next Bill on list recited. Again the cabalistic word, and so on to end of catalogue. This reached, anonymous Strangers in gallery rise and depart as swiftly, as silently, as they came, and what is still known as Question-hour (though it is limited to forty-five minutes) opens.