Chapter 3

"Mr. Archer is pleased to be amusing," said Ginger with more than his usual asperity. "Mr. Archer says seven-pence. Well, I'll say five guineas. Any advance on five guineas, ladies and gentlemen? Going, going--"

Now I shouldn't have thought there were sixteen shillings left in the bazaar grounds outside the stall boxes. But before the hammer showed any signs of descent a still small voice from the background said, "Six pounds."

It was Mrs. Newman. She is worth anything between five and six figures, and hunts the antique indiscriminately.

Ginger bowed comprehendingly and began talking again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, six pounds offered for a _signed_ Van Ruiter. Look, you can see the signature. Is this to go at six pounds? There's no reserve. Van Ruiter's 'Two Windmills' going at six pounds. Any advance? Sir Robert, a man of your taste--"

Sir Robert Firley had been looking on waveringly. He is a man of no taste at all except it be in the matter of old brandy; but he hates Mrs. Newman and he wavered no longer.

"Six guineas," he said.

"Seven pounds," said Mrs. Newman.

"Guineas," growled Sir Robert.

"Eight pounds," said Mrs. Newman.

"Guineas," from Sir Robert.

"Ten pounds," said Mrs. Newman more shrilly.

"Guineas." Sir Robert was now well set and looked good for a century.

Mrs. Newman hesitated. Ginger gave her the right sort of look. To speak was to break the spell. She set her teeth.

"Fifteen pounds," she said through them.

"Guineas," said Sir Robert with his unfailing originality.

Amid furious but suppressed excitement the struggle went on. It was only at seventy-five pounds that Sir Robert began to feel silly and the prize fell to Mrs. Newman.

"I congratulate you, madam," said Ginger warmly. "Even as it is you have got it at a remarkable price."

She went away happy.

Afterwards I approached Ginger.

"_Was_ that a genuine Van Ruiter, really?" I asked.

"Sure," said Ginger carelessly.

"But--er--" I asked, "who is Van Ruiter? What's his school? I don't know much about these Dutchmen."

"Van Ruiter," said Ginger severely, "is a painter in oils. His work has been known to fetch as much as seventy-five pounds. As for his school, there _was_ a man of that name at Marlborough with me. And as the canvas of 'The Two Windmills' is dated 1912 it might be him."

* * * * *

* * * * *

A CHILD AMONG THE PROPHETS.

_The Evening News_ called attention to the following as one of the "special features" of a recent issue:--

"FORECASTS OF SPRING MILLINERY

By Miss Bessie Ascough (Age 7)."

* * * * *

MIRANDA'S WILL.

I am not legal adviser to Miranda's family; nevertheless she came to see me on business the other day. I saw at once by her serious air that it was something of first-rate importance.

"I want a will," she said; "one of those things that people leave when they die."

"Some people leave them and some don't," I said.

"I mean the things that show who is to have your belongings."

"Undoubtedly you mean wills."

"Do you sell them?"

"Sometimes."

"I should like to see some."

"What size?" I asked facetiously.

"Sixes--long ones," said Miranda, looking at her hands.

"I remember," I murmured.

Miranda looked up with a start and assumed her severest expression.

"I'm afraid you're not treating the matter seriously. Perhaps I had better go to father's solicitor; he's older and quite serious. But then he's rather bald and uninteresting. I think he takes snuff."

I retorted in my most professional manner. "I beg your pardon; I think you must have misunderstood me. I meant that all wills are not quite the same; some are longer than others."

"Not too long, then," she said. "You might show me some medium size ones. I should like to do the thing fairly well."

"We don't exactly stock them; they're generally made to order."

"I'm sorry; I wanted one at once. You know I was twenty-one the other day." (I knew it to my cost.) "Father says that everyone over twenty-one ought to make a will."

"Your father's views on the subject are very sound. If you'll give me your instructions, I'll make you one." I spread a sheet of paper in front of me.

"But surely you can make a will without my help?"

"Not very easily. It's something like being measured for a gown. I must know what you have to leave and to whom you wish to leave it."

"But I don't want anybody to know."

"I'm not anybody."

"I know. I don't think, though, that I quite care to tell you."

"Then I'm afraid there'll be some little difficulty about executing your wishes in the matter."

"How much do wills cost?" she asked irrelevantly.

"It depends on the length."

"How much a yard?"

"We mostly sell them by the folio, not by the yard."

"How many feet are there in a folio?"

"You'll have to ask a law-stationer that."

"How much would a medium-sized will cost? Half-a-crown?"

"More than that," I said.

"Much more?" She turned over some coins in her purse.

"A good deal more."

"But I saw some in a chemist's for ninepence. Perhaps I'd better buy one of those."

"You might," I said doubtfully.

"You said that as though you didn't think that chemists sell very good wills."

"There's nothing really the matter with them. They consist of some printed words and spaces--mostly spaces. If you happen to execute them the right way the Judge afterwards decides what they mean."

"But how does he know?"

"He doesn't. That's what makes it so interesting. After a number of barristers have explained what they might mean, the Judge says what they ought to mean, and they mean that."

"So there would have to be a law-suit?"

"Almost inevitably."

"And you make good wills?"

"My wills are all of the very best quality."

"Then I suppose I must let you make me one. What sort of things do people leave?"

"All sorts of things. Anything they've got and quite often things they haven't got."

"Animals? Dogs? Can I will away Bobs, for instance?"

"Yes."

"Can I leave anything to anyone I like?"

"Yes, to anyone you like or don't like." I was thinking of Bobs. He is not a very amiable dog and no friend of mine.

"I think I'll leave Bobs to you." I had felt it coming.

"But I might die before Bobs. Bobs being a specific legacy would then lapse and fall into residue," I hurriedly explained.

"That doesn't sound nice."

"It isn't nice. Bobs would never be happy there. You had better leave him to some one younger."

After we had settled Bobs on a young cousin we got on quite quickly. We left her old dance programmes and several unimportant things of doubtful ownership to her greatest rival; her piano (with three notes missing), on which she had learnt to play as a child, to her Aunt in Australia, said Aunt to pay carriage and legacy duty; her violin to the people in the next flat; her French novels to the church library; her golf clubs and tennis racket to her old nurse; her Indian clubs to the Olympic Games Committee; her early water-colour sketches to the Nation. We divided up all her goods. Everybody got something appropriate. It was a good will. And when I suggested that there should be no immediate charge, but that the cost should be paid out of the estate in due season, Miranda very cheerfully agreed; and even went so far as to express a generous hope that I should outlive her.

* * * * *

THE MAN OF THE MOMENT.

_January_ 23, 1914.

Who is the happy tradesman? Who is he?

I mean in this peculiarly horrible weather?

The chemist.

There is no happier tradesman than he. He stands all day long, and a large part of the night, among his bottles and boxes and jars and jarlets and pots and potlets and tabloids and capsules, selling remedies for colds and coughs and sore throats and rheumatism and neuralgia.

The colder it is the more he is on velvet, the chemist.

In America he is called a "druggist," but "chemist" is better, even though it confuses a mere peddler of ammoniated quinine with Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY and Sir WILLIAM CROOKES.

The old-fashioned spelling was "chymist," and there are still one or two shops in London where this spelling holds, but I think it's affectation.

Meanwhile the chemist (or chymist) is coining money.

Not even his lavish expenditure of clean white paper and red, red sealing wax, and the gas that burns always to melt that red, red sealing-wax, can make his profits look ridiculous.

Not even the constant loss of small articles from the counter, such as manicure sticks, and digestive tablets, and jujubes, and face cream and smokers' cachous, which never ought to be spread about there at all, because they are so easily conveyed by the dishonest customer into pocket or muff, can seriously upset the smiling side of the chemist's ledger.

Every night, when at last, laden with gold, he climbs to his bed, he hopes piously that the morrow may be colder.

And it usually is.

He will soon be a millionaire.

It is only a warm wind that can blow the chemist no good.

I wish I was a chemist, but it is now too late.

Still, I wish I was a chemist.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE BEER-FIGHT.

(Suggested by Mr. CHESTERTON's "The Flying Inn.")

Of G. K. C. a tale I tell, of GILBERT CHESTERTON, And how he met GAMBRINUS once and how they carried on. Each roared a lusty challenge out, as only topers can, And sat him down and called for beer, and then the bout began.

One had a _Seidel_ to his hand, and one a pewter pot; They drank potations pottle deep, in fact they drank a lot. And as they drank the barrels dry they rolled them on the floor, And sang a stave and drained a quart and called aloud for more.

Their glowing souls o'ertopped the stars; they had their hearts' desire, The while the world spun round and round its busy track of fire. "I've lived for this," said G. K. C. and tossed his flaming head; "_Der Kerl ist stark, das Bier ist gut_," was what GAMBRINUS said.

The sun looked on, the moon looked on, the comets all stood still To see this stout and jolly pair who never had their fill. And still they drained their beer as if they'd only just begun; And no one dared to interfere to settle which had won.

* * * * *

PRESSIMISM.

The Bard to the schemer of newspaper placards.

Why, crystalliser of the world's diurnal Experience, why plunge my soul in gloom With tidings that are ghastly and infernal? Why dim my morning eye with tales of doom, Of flood and fire, of pestilence and drouth-- Leaving me down, distinctly, in the mouth?

Why stun me with: "Explosion in a Larder: Cook and Policeman Blown to Bits"; "The Girl That Poisoned Half a Parish"; "Weather Harder And Death Rate Rising"; "Poacher Brains an Earl"; Why blazon blackly forth such blighting news, Nor give a glimpse of life's less dismal hues?

Why not proclaim such gladness as the following: "Twins Born in Tooting: Trio Doing Well"; "Chelsea Churchwarden much Improved, and Swallowing Beef-Tea With Ease"; "A Famous Barking Belle Gets Off at Last"; "A Navvy's Love of Greek"; "Young Poet Earns a Guinea in a Week"?

* * * * *

"Velour Hat, pretty blue, trimmed large elephant."--_Advt._

A small seagull looks prettier and is less in the way at _matinees_.

* * * * *

THE CONVERTED STATISTICIAN.

A sudden jolt as we thundered over some points caused me to shoot a piece of bread-and-butter on to the floor. I stooped to pick it up.

"Stop a moment, please!" cried my companion. He jumped to his feet and examined it. "Ah," said he, "buttered side downward!"

"It's always the same," I said, as I jerked the thing viciously out of the window. "It's _always_ buttered side downward."

"No, there you fall into a common error," protested the other. "You may take it that fifty-seven per cent. fall buttered side upward, and only forty-three per cent. buttered side downward."

"H'm," I said dubiously.

"You must pardon me for my officiousness," he went on, "especially as I have now no reason to be interested in such things. But habits are strong."

I looked at him curiously. "Habits?" I said.

"Yes, habits. For years I kept an accurate record of every slice of bread-and-butter I saw fall to the ground. I had better explain myself. Nearly all my life, you must understand, I have maintained the view that the generally accepted theory of the 'cussedness of things' is all wrong. You know that to most people 'cussedness' is the governing factor of life."

"Rather!" I agreed.

"Well, I disbelieved it, and I set to work to collect materials for a book which was to prove my case. For years I incessantly gathered statistics on the subject. Do I bore you?"

"Not at all," I assured him.

"The results were extraordinary. Take, for example, catching trains. It is highly important that you should catch a train at short notice. In nine cases out of ten, you will say, your taxicab breaks down, or your tram is held up by a block in the traffic, or the current fails on the Underground."

"Certainly it does."

"On the contrary--I am speaking from memory, but I think my figures are accurate--the taxicab only breaks down in 1.5 per cent. of cases; with the tram the percentage rises to 1.8; with the Underground it falls to .2."

I gasped.

"Or take the case of studs," he went on. "You drop a stud, and it promptly and inevitably rolls away into some quite impossible hiding-place. So most of us believe. As a matter of fact it only does so approximately three times out of a hundred. Or bootlaces. If you are exceptionally late in the morning; your bootlace always snaps, you say. Not at all. It breaks in such circumstances only four times out of a possible hundred. And with bicycles, to take another example. If ever you get a puncture, you fancy that it always occurs on some occasion when you are sorely pressed for time. Again, not at all. Out of a hundred punctures only seventeen are sustained at such unfortunate moments."

"You seem to have studied the subject pretty deeply," I remarked.

"Oh, my dear Sir, I cannot myself recall a tithe of the material I collected. I carried out my inquiries in every conceivable direction. Suppose we take the obscure case of a--let me see--of a burglar. This was one of my most difficult researches. A burglar will assure you, if you happen to be in his confidence, that every time he enters a house, at a moment when absolute quiet is from his point of view essential, a door slams, or a pot of jam falls off a shelf, or a--a canary commences to sing loudly, or there occurs one of a hundred other unlucky noises he will name. As you may imagine, my investigations into this problem were extraordinarily difficult. But the result was a triumph. In only .375 per cent. of cases is our burglar disturbed by an unexpected noise for which he is not himself responsible. As for the specific examples given, the results here are even more striking. The pot of jam, for instance, only falls down in, I think, .0025 per cent. of cases, the canary bursts into song in only .00175 per cent., and so on."

"It is astonishing," I admitted. "I must certainly obtain a copy of your book. Perhaps----"

"I never published it," he interrupted. "As a matter of fact I became converted."

"Converted?" I exclaimed in amazement. "In the face of all your statistics?"

"Yes," he said meditatively. "I remember the occasion well. It happened a few months ago, in early Spring. I had just completed the last chapter of my book, and I laid down my pen with a sigh. There before me lay all the statistics I had so laboriously collected, neatly tabulated and arranged with the proper explanatory notes and diagrams. It was finished after all these years! I can assure you it was an emotional moment. I don't know if you have ever brought a great work to a successful conclusion; if so, you can understand my feelings."

"I can imagine them," I said.

"Well, I opened the French windows and stepped out into the garden to calm myself. It was a lovely March day, I remember, sunny and fresh, and I paced up and down the garden till my emotions subsided and I gradually recovered my self-control. Then I went indoors again."

The train slowed down and he began to gather his things together. "While I was gone," he said sadly, "the wind blew my manuscript and the best part of my notes into the fire."

"How excessively unfortunate!" I murmured sympathetically. "And this converted you to the 'cussedness' theory?"

"Yes," said he, as he stepped down to the platform. "It was the only book I ever wrote, and it was burned practically to a cinder. It works out you see, at exactly 100 per cent...."

* * * * *

THE EPIDEMIC.

(A French contemporary, commenting upon the fact that the sudden appearance of cold weather in London is accompanied by an equally sudden disappearance of cats, demonstrates the cause of this coincidence.)

What boots it, Sir, to boggle at The truth? So be it said Quite candidly, our Thomas-cat, McCorquodale, is dead.

When winds from East and North conspire To freeze the very breath, To you it means the mere desire To skate or sit too near the fire, To him 'twas sudden death.

The cat that leaves the hearth and strays Abroad is over-bold; McCorquodale would go his ways, Despite the frost. To use a phrase Belittled in these careless days, He caught his death of cold.

'Twas not from native lack of fur That his demise was such. We did not see the end occur, But, though it be to cast a slur Upon humanity, infer (And you will catch our meaning, Sir) He had a coat too much.

* * * * *

And now, when Northern winds are bluff And veering to the East, And Beauty shuns their rude rebuff By hiding hands (and powder-puff) Inside her Russian sable muff, We tell ourselves, "Why, sure enough There goes, disguised as better stuff, McCorquodale deceased!"

* * * * *

ADVICE TO MOTHERS.

"January 20, at Kenyon-road, Wavertree, to Mr. and Mrs. Oswald Unsworth, a son (bath well)."--_Liverpool Echo._

* * * * *

"Artists in Gentlemen's Headwear."--_Advt._

This always creates surprise. Somehow still expects to see them in sombreros.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Looking about among the very best _cliches_ (my own and others)--"supersubtle analysis," "intimate psychology," "masterly handling," "incomparable artistry"--I found nothing that it didn't seem a sort of impertinence to apply to JOSEPH CONRAD's _Chance_, which METHUEN has just had the good luck to publish. For the whole thing is much nearer wizardry than workmanship. I put the book down with a gasp, so close had I been to realities as conjured up by one to whom realism is a servant and not a master. I had come to know, in that piecemeal way in which one actually gets to know one's fellows--waiting for later experience to confirm or modify earlier impressions--the hapless, tragic _Flora_; her father, _de Barral_, the pseudo-financier, fraudulent through unimaginative stupidity rather than criminal intent; the kindly-cruel pair of _Fynes_; that perfect, chivalrous knight of the sea, _Captain Anthony_, _Flora's_ fiery-patient lover; his splendidly staunch second officer, _Powell_, and the analytic _Marlow_, also a sailor-man, who acts in the capacity of ultra-modern chorus to this tragedy of chance. The central idea is the old wonder that such vast issues can hang upon such trivial happenings, not merely in the outer realm of fact but on the inner stage of character. And, this being his theme, perhaps Mr. CONRAD ought to have been more scrupulously careful to use no such strained coincidence as _Powell's_ detection of _de Barral's_ attempt at revenge on his fancied enemy, _Anthony_. But this is indeed a slight defect in a work of brilliantly sustained imagination and superb craftsmanship. I wonder if the author's magic has so seduced my judgment as to make me feel that the somewhat shadowy characters of _Captain Anthony_ and _de Barral_ are deliberately suggested in fainter outline just because _Marlow_ has in fact not known them personally, but only through the reports of others. I am prepared to believe the author of _Typhoon_ subtle enough for that, or for anything else, and I have this only grudge against him, that he intrigued me to the point of feverishly "skipping," out of sheer excitement to know if and how the deplorable misunderstanding between _Flora_ and her quixotic _Captain Anthony_ was to be cleared up, just like any ordinary decent library-subscriber, instead of the case-hardened critical fellow I naturally take myself to be.

* * * * *

There are two things for which I have a special affection. One is an old friend who has often persuaded me that this world is rather a place for smiles than for gloom; and the other is a new book of stories which have life in them, which make their effect with a seemingly artless certainty and leave the pleased reader with the impression that they are, if anything, a shade or so too short. Both these things I have obtained in _One Kind and Another_ (SECKER), by Mr. BARRY PAIN. "The Journal of Aura Lovel," with which Mr. PAIN leads off, is a delightful performance. It has freshness and charm and its sentiment seems to me to be exactly right--the sentiment of an eager and attractive young girl relating the feelings of her heart in the tenderest and prettiest style as far removed from preciosity as it is from a silly simplicity. All the stories have the essential merits of brightness and lightness, and most of them have that peculiar kind of ingenuity which is one of Mr. PAIN's strong points. Suddenly they land you at a point which is nowhere near to that to which you thought you were travelling. The characters, even when they are engaged in paradoxical and preposterous actions, are real men and women, such as you could meet almost anywhere in a day's walk, and they are set off with Mr. PAIN's fancy so as to become additionally lifelike. Many things have struck me in the reading of this book. One is that Mr. PAIN's new novel is overdue. Another is that he has an uncanny familiarity with the ways of solicitors. "There is," he says, "no historical instance of a solicitor after the age of forty having made any change whatever in the manner of his clothing."

* * * * *